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Sept. 3, 2011 10:11 a.m. SyntheticBlinkerFluid HalfDork

How are people stealing LIVE electrical lines to scrap the copper?

I have been hearing for a long time about people stealing copper tubing from houses, even climbing on top of businesses and removing copper tubing from the AC units, but climbing utility poles and cutting live wires? That takes a special kind of crazy. Honestly I think someone has a bucket truck.

I just heard on the radio for the 2nd time this week that someone in NW Indiana is stealing the electrical lines from NIPSCO. This time they took 2300 feet roughly weighing 600 lbs. Killed power to an entire neighborhood.

This is crazy.
Sept. 3, 2011 10:20 a.m. Grtechguy SuperDork

25' Fiberglass pole with a hook... pull the fuses on the pole.. dead line.

Still takes balls...I wonder how the scrap yards don't call the cops on people like that.
Sept. 3, 2011 10:44 a.m. stuart in mn SuperDork

Some are trying to steal them, but failing in a pretty dramatic fashion.
Sept. 3, 2011 10:45 a.m. carguy123 SuperDork

Grtechguy wrote:

pull the fuses on the pole.. ??
Sept. 3, 2011 10:50 a.m. cwh SuperDork

In Florida, the wire thefts are big. Along the turnpike, 170,000' feet of wire for the overhead lights have been stolen. They do it during the day when the lines are not powered. When you read about grave markers and funeral urns being stolen, you realize that there is a problem. And yes, you would certainly tink the scrap dealers would figure out where this quantity was coming from. In Jamaica, the thefts got so bad that the government closed down all scrap dealers.
Sept. 3, 2011 11:47 a.m. Grtechguy SuperDork

carguy123 wrote:

Grtechguy wrote:

pull the fuses on the pole.. ??

as seen in the wild:
Sept. 3, 2011 11:48 a.m. DrBoost SuperDork

There was a point here where the scrap dealers were told they weren't supposed to take scrap, they were getting aluminum extension ladders WITH THE HOME DEPOT TAGS/STICKERS STILL ON THEM being turned in for scrap. That should have been obvious.
Sept. 3, 2011 11:52 a.m. T.J. SuperDork

It's not that scrap metal prices are so high, it is that the value of the dollar is being systematically destroyed. This will just get worse and worse as our dollars buy less and less. When people are hungry because their food stamps no longer can buy enough to eat it will get really ugly.

The scrap dealers that take this stuff have to know better, but not sure what they can really do. If they start to question the legality of every transaction they will lose business to their shadier competitors.
Sept. 3, 2011 12:21 p.m. Hocrest HalfDork

And about once a week I see climbing spikes for sale on CL. Guys that have been doing it enough can get to the top on spikes faster than if there was stairs.
Sept. 3, 2011 12:49 p.m. MrJoshua SuperDork

Someone stole all the power cables for various things at my work. The grand total was about 30' of low gauge wire cords. They got maybe $5-$10 worth of copper after they strip it.
Sept. 3, 2011 12:50 p.m. Toyman01 SuperDork

Charleston county just started requiring a license to sell copper and alum wire. To get the license you have to be a business or show why you would be selling scrap.
Sept. 3, 2011 12:58 p.m. Cole_Trickle Reader

Toyman01 wrote:

Charleston county just started requiring a license to sell copper and alum wire. To get the license you have to be a business or show why you would be selling scrap.

I managed a plumbing company for a while and every time I turned in copper scrap I had to show some sort of company identification. I was bringing in nearly $1000 a trip. A trip would consist of 2 barrels of copper scrap and 10-12 water heaters.
Sept. 3, 2011 1:11 p.m. 81cpcamaro New Reader

Locally the scrap metal places take your name and drivers license info. If you bring in cat convertors or copper, they pay by check, no cash and may even mail it to you instead.
Sept. 3, 2011 3:25 p.m. JoeyM SuperDork

Cole_Trickle wrote:

I managed a plumbing company for a while and every time I turned in copper scrap I had to show some sort of company identification. I was bringing in nearly $1000 a trip. A trip would consist of 2 barrels of copper scrap and 10-12 water heaters.

This makes sense. There's a lot of good metal in a water heater
Sept. 3, 2011 4:25 p.m. The_Jed Reader

The company I work for had a rash of brass and bronze casting thievery. The grand total (I'm not sure if it was the actual cost of the raw casting or the value of the parts made from them.) for the theft was $40,000+.

It was two guys in a van and they were on their third trip through our yard when they were finally busted. All of our castings are marked and stamped before they hit the lot.

I was mystified by the fact that they were successfully scrapping them and truly befuddled that they kept coming back.
Sept. 3, 2011 5:44 p.m. grafmiata Dork

We've been having a problem at work recently with used brass weld-caps from our robots disappearing. Somewhere around $14K scrap value before anyone realized what was going on.

Now, since it's a known issue at work, the used caps are suddenly showing up to send to recycle, but the NEW caps are disappearing from the tool-crib... My boss came to the conclusion a couple days ago that this may be an inside job. Ya think???

Finally, my company decided to take a handful of these components around to all the local scrap-yards to alert them about what to look for.
Sept. 3, 2011 7:16 p.m. stroker HalfDork

The company I work for was building a large office/assembly building a few years back. They came in one morning during construction and somebody had tried to cut the copper cables to the main transformer to steal the copper. What they didn't know was that it was live. The Fire Marshall said, "Well, there were at least two guys. The one who WASN'T cutting the cable took his buddy away, because the guy who was doing the cutting is dead." I guess there was some absolutely staggering voltage and amperage going through that line and he was using a bolt cutter. They never did find out who it was.
Sept. 3, 2011 7:31 p.m. DeadSkunk Dork

I used to manage a foam seating plant and the moulds are cast aluminum. One day we saw, but couldn't catch a 1-ton truck leaving the yard with a half dozen moulds on the flat bed ! In broad daylight, too. Each one probably weighed 600 lb.
Sept. 3, 2011 7:36 p.m. Curmudgeon SuperDork

Heard recently that an electric contractor had a big roll of copper cable worth ~$15K stolen, the thieves got maybe $2500 for it. Then a construction company came in after a weekend to find that someone had tied rope? to underground power cables and simply yanked them out of the ground with a truck. These were cables underground in an incomplete subdivision.

The guy I worked for at the Mercedes shop had 12 cat converters stolen in one night. He Googled and found the name of the company which advertised they bought them and went there, sure enough there were a bunch of cats with fresh cut marks in a bin. Mercedes cats are kinda unmistakeable what with the trademarks and all, he confronted the guy who said 'Show me a VIN stamped on them and you can have them. Otherwise, call the cops and good luck'. He's obviously done this before.
Sept. 3, 2011 8:24 p.m. mad_machine SuperDork

I know the feelings on stolen cats... lost one on my saab while it was being shipped
Sept. 3, 2011 10:57 p.m. mad_machine SuperDork

stroker wrote:

What they didn't know was that it was live. The Fire Marshall said, "Well, there were at least two guys. The one who WASN'T cutting the cable took his buddy away, because the guy who was doing the cutting is dead." I guess there was some absolutely staggering voltage and amperage going through that line and he was using a bolt cutter.

Might not have been enough left to take away. My Uncle worked live line, he saw a guy take a full on 60,000K and NOT hit the ground
Sept. 4, 2011 2:51 a.m. fasted58 Dork

Latest new thing around here is stealing plumbing and boiler copper from churches which usually aren't discovered till Sunday morning.
Sept. 4, 2011 9:28 a.m. cwh SuperDork

Brass back flow valves. Usually easy to get to,but makes areal mess, as water will be pouring out all over until shut off. 45 in one recent weekend.
Sept. 4, 2011 4:55 p.m. mad_machine SuperDork

fasted58 wrote:

Latest new thing around here is stealing plumbing and boiler copper from churches which usually aren't discovered till Sunday morning.

years ago, we had issues with people breaking into churches and steal chalices, candle trim, and from the poor box.. now you can't get in unless you ask somebody to unlock the church for you (which they will do)

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