ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area romex prices

Old timer used to tell me...."it's cheaper to cut a little off, then to have to re-pull it"

Old habits are hard to break; especially if you are NOT the one paying the bills.

HiHo, off to the scrap yard we go!

John

I was always told "it's better to be a mile too long than an inch too short (but not two miles)."

A lot comes down to the cost of labor vs the cost of wire and how fast you want to go.
I do notice less wire in the dumpsters these days. I used to "dive" for wire and came home with a bunch everytime I went looking. It always amazed me what I came up with.
One day I came up with about 400 feet of "flooded" phone cable that looked like it came off a broken spool. I admit it was a pain untangling and rolling that rat's nest but it really only took about an hour. That was pretty pricy stuff the last time I bought some, now I have a lifetime supply.
Same withalarm cable, CAT 5 and RG-6 quad shield.
I don't know how many pieces of Romex I have picked up that were 15 or 20' long but I will look through the pile before I cut a piece from a new roll. I try to roll them so one wrap is 3' to make them easier to sort through.
The FPL contractor is always throwing 20-30' pieces of 4/0 al triplex away. They seem to guess wrong a lot on the service laterals. I can't find a good use for it either.

One roll(500ft) of #12 THWN cost me 107 dollars on thursday . I called my customer right up to tell them not to be shocked when he sees the bill. .

Damn, that really is way too much for a roll of #12 THHN/ THWN. Last time I check the pricing of that was 2 weeks ago and it was up to $71 compared to $42 two weeks before that! I paid $158.00 for 250' of 12.2 MC this morning.

#12 THWN $106.11 dollars on friday, one of the supply houses was telling me they have 10 guys cut off, that is the bad news, the good news is, they are the low ballers, guess they never kept up, with the increases.

lk - which house is that?

we've been running a ton of 10 thhn lately. it's jumped from $136 to $240 per 1000

I just got back from the Depot (building some shelves tomorrow) and checked the price of #12 THHN there. It was still $71 and change. $109 for the same amount of #10 THHN. The rise in copper prices is more outrageous than the rise in oil prices, for sure.

Same price at Monarch, and Miller, HD was $11 cheaper, but not worth getting truck riped into, while in store.