ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Are you saving short pieces of wire?

I am always looking in my wife's construction dumpsters and I do come up with amazing stuff now and then. I am particularly drawn to wire. A year or so ago it was not uncommon to find most of a box of coax or cat 5 that "bird nested" on the installer and they didn't want to screw with it. Once I found about 300 feet of "flooded" phone cable in a wad. I also would find 20 or 30 feet of Romex or MC. These days I am not seeing anything. I wasn't sure if it was just scrap scavengers or if the electricians were saving it.
I like 12 and 14 copper for all sorts of things around the shop. Sometimes I even run electricity through it

Must be the price of copper.

I have spool upon spool of #12,14,16 THHN with small amounts of wire on them. I save them for a job where I have to extend a circuit a short distance. I generally get disgusted though and clean out the really short ones when the pile gets to big

Same here Walrus. I generally keep any piece 5 feet or longer and bring a box of small pieces on the job to use up. Shorter pieces are given to a relative who's a "copper hound", and I get a little kickback of cash for it now and then.

Our company 86's rolls of 6 and smaller when they have less than about 30-50' left on them.. Our customer has huge recycle bins for scrap wire it all goes into and gets hauled off by a metal scrapper. Bigger stuff gets saved if it's over 10'

I have always saved short peices of wire. I hate having to cut a 2' peice off of a full spool to connect something short. I also have a nice (huge) box of coax and cat5 scraps. I usually whip up some quick 5' or 6' patch cables and leave them with my customers when I do data installs. Cheap and easy but a real crowd pleaser.

I don't have as much as I did a while ago.
My wife and some of the neighborhood ladies plucked almost every piece of scrap red and green wire from the white bucket I kept it in.
Christmas decorating.

I'll have to get a picture tomorrow of me with my "short" pieces of wire.

Ian A.