Trade collections
Plumbers & heating engineers
Copper pipe, cylinders, brass and old boilers off the van. Weighed while you wait, or collected off a round.
Plumbing is one of the few trades where what you take out is worth a genuinely useful amount of money, and it is the trade most likely to leave it in the van for three weeks.
Copper is the reason. It is the highest-value common metal most trades handle, and a boiler swap or a bathroom strip-out produces a surprising amount of it.
What a typical job yields
- Copper pipe — the main event. 15mm and 22mm offcuts, old runs, microbore
- Hot water cylinders — the single best item that comes out of a house
- Brass — valves, taps, fittings, compression, old stopcocks
- Steel panel radiators — light iron, low value each but they add up fast
- Old boilers — mixed: steel case, copper heat exchanger, brass, sometimes an aluminium block
- Cast iron — old rads, baths, soil pipe. Heavy, and better than it looks
- Cylinders’ immersion heaters, pumps and motorised valves
Cylinders: the honest detail
A bare copper cylinder is a very good item. A modern foam-lagged one is the same copper with a thick jacket of sprayed foam bonded to it, and it is worth less — not because the copper is worth less, but because somebody has to get the foam off before it can be graded properly.
You do not need to do that. Just be aware that the two do not price the same, and that if a buyer quotes you a single “cylinder price” without asking which sort you have, one of you is about to be disappointed and it will not be them.
Stainless and Megaflo-type unvented cylinders are a different grade again. Bring them, but do not expect copper money for them.
How much sorting is worth it
Keep the copper and brass away from the steel. That is most of the benefit and it costs you one extra tub in the van.
Beyond that: separating clean bright pipe from tarnished, soldered or painted copper is worth doing once you are generating enough for it to be more than a few kilos a week. Below that, bring it as it is — the grading difference will not repay the time.
What is definitely not worth it is burning cable or pipe lagging off. It drops the grade to burnt and costs you more than the time it saved.
Drop in, or collected
Two ways to run it. Either you drop it in and it gets weighed while you wait — on scales you can read, paid by transfer — or, if you are generating steadily, we put you on a round and it comes off the yard or the unit on a schedule.
Sole traders mostly prefer the first. Anyone with two or more vans usually ends up on the second within a couple of months.
On the job
What this actually looks like
How it works
Three steps. No site visit.
Send a photo
WhatsApp a picture of whatever needs shifting. No need to tidy it first or guess the weight.
Get a price
A straight number back, usually the same day. The real price for your actual load.
It’s gone
We turn up, load it, sweep up, and you get the paperwork showing where it went.
The money bit
What actually decides what we pay
Nobody likes “it depends”. Here is what it actually depends on, so you can work out roughly where you stand before you ring anyone.
01
What it weighs
The base of it. Weighed on scales you can read, in front of you — not estimated in a back office and written on a docket afterwards.
02
What grade it is
The widest variable by a distance. Bright copper and burnt copper are the same metal and nowhere near the same price. Light iron, heavy scrap and non-ferrous are three different numbers, and keeping them apart is what moves yours.
03
How clean it is
Everything attached that is not the metal comes off the weight that counts — motors in a pile of steel, plastic housings, timber, the foam bonded to a modern cylinder. You do not have to strip it. It just prices as what it is.
04
Whether we collect it
Bringing it in yourself is worth more than having it collected, because collection is a vehicle and a driver. On a decent load the difference is real; on a boot full of oddments it is not worth the fuel.
Why there’s no price list on this page
Because scrap prices move with the metal markets, and they move weekly. Any figure printed here would be out of date before most people read it, and a website quoting last month’s rate is not being transparent — it is being wrong in a direction that never seems to disadvantage whoever published it.
Send a photo of what you have got and you will get today’s number for your actual load. Payment is by bank transfer, because paying cash for scrap has been illegal in this country since 2013 — anyone offering you notes is telling you something about how the rest of their business runs.
FAQ
Straight answers
Are foam-lagged cylinders worth less than bare copper ones?
Yes, and it is worth knowing. It is the same copper, but somebody has to get the sprayed foam off before it grades properly. If a buyer quotes one flat cylinder price without asking which sort you have, one of you is about to be disappointed.
Should I strip the pipe first?
Keep copper and brass away from the steel and you have most of the benefit for the cost of one extra tub in the van. Separating bright pipe from tarnished is worth it once you are generating more than a few kilos a week.
Can I just drop it in?
Yes — weighed while you wait, on scales you can read, paid by transfer. Sole traders mostly prefer that. Anyone with two or more vans usually ends up on a collection round within a couple of months.
What areas do you cover?
Wymondham and everywhere down the A11 and A47 — Norwich, Attleborough, Thetford, Diss, Long Stratton and across into Suffolk to Beccles and Bungay. If you are not sure, just ask.
Is it all done legally?
Yes. We are a registered waste carrier and licensed scrap dealer, every load comes with a waste transfer note, and our registration numbers are on every page of this site so you can check them before you ring.
How quickly can you come?
Often the same week, sometimes the same day if we are passing. Tell us where you are and you will get the honest answer rather than the one that gets us the booking.