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chipy

Golden Member
in a construction project (i'm guessing buildings, but others as well), which areas have the highest amount copper? where is copper used the most in construction?

thanx
chipy
 
Why?
Are you going to steal some?
We just had to hire full-time watchmen due to theft of copper wiring.
Ballsy bast**ds are even pulling it out of the conduit on some jobs!
 
Wiring or plumbing.
There is more copper in each foot of copper plumbing, but typically more wire is used when constructing a building/house.
 
Electric wiring has the most copper, up next would be plumbing assuming the use of copper water pipes last would be HVAC system.

This is true for most basic houses, commercial buildings might be different.

For instance the house we are working lately, 4800ish sq. ft., has about 1.5 miles of romex in it.
 
thats a toughie. It will probably depend on the regional differences. A lot of places these days are using plastic piping for water supply, so there may not be ANY copper piping in many houses past the main water supply.

Even at that, I think electrical would still edge plumbing in most homes.
 
On an electrical generating steam power plant, the condenser, that turns the steam back into water after it leaves the steam turbine, is usually made out or copper or brass, tons of it. Although titanium and stainless steel is becoming popular.
 
roofing? where in the roof is copper used?

fyi: the reason i asked the question is because i went to recycle some computer cases and some aluminum cans today. they told me that copper was the most valuable metal being recycled by them. i asked the guy where copper comes from and he said "construction". he showed me coils of copper in the distance several feet away from us.

thanx for all who contributed. frankly, i didn't know copper was used in roofs or plumbing. i guessed it was used in electrical wiring... but wouldn't it be a b**** to extract the wiring after a building or house was gonna come down or remodeled?

chipy
 
Typically, if you take copper even from a construction site dumpster, you get charged with stealing if caught. Copper is recycled by most construction companies since it is fairly valuable.

When I worked at a company that worked for Tropicana, some dumbass tried to steal copper wiring that actually had power going through it. Ya.. he dead now. I think it was 20,000V... More than plenty.

 
Originally posted by: brxndxn

When I worked at a company that worked for Tropicana, some dumbass tried to steal copper wiring that actually had power going through it. Ya.. he dead now. I think it was 20,000V... More than plenty.
Click to expand...
Yeah.....it is a very popular item to steal these days. I was looking for the guys that were stealing light polls but some of these others (like powerlines) are funny too:
http://news.google.com/news?hs=JBB&hl=e...wn&q=stealing++copper&btnG=Search+News
 
Originally posted by: chipy
roofing? where in the roof is copper used?

fyi: the reason i asked the question is because i went to recycle some computer cases and some aluminum cans today. they told me that copper was the most valuable metal being recycled by them. i asked the guy where copper comes from and he said "it is stolen in huge quanities from construction sites". he showed me coils of copper in the distance several feet away from us.

thanx for all who contributed. frankly, i didn't know copper was used in roofs or plumbing. i guessed it was used in electrical wiring... but wouldn't it be a b**** to extract the wiring after a building or house was gonna come down or remodeled?

chipy
Click to expand...

Fixed

 
Wiring. Most plumbing now days is PVC, PCV, etc.

I worked a vandalism claim where a truck was attached to the breaker box and they pulled all the wiring out of the house. It was a mess.

The wiring damaged the drywall and trim in every room in the house. If you want to remove some copper real quick thats the way to go.
 
I used to work for an electrical utility company, and the thieves would steal rolls of electrical ground cable from us to sell...Pretty valuable stuff. Most wiring is hard to recyle, because of the insulation, so it generally gets burned first to remove it. Kind of a give away at the recycler, but just like pawn shops, most really don't care where it comes from, as long as it can't be traced in anyway...Copper pipe is the next most common source of scrap copper, from buildings being torn down ()or just being built), followed by the sheet copper used for roofing.
 
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