I have a pile of AC units if I was to guess once they are taken apart close to $3000.00 but its a long hard time consuming job. I had a guy make me an offer for around $1000.00 . I am trying to clean up a lot of stuff and have other piles of stuff that need to be taken apart so I have plenty to do just don't know how long I should plan on dragging this clean up out. Should I sell to him he will do most of the loading ? Should I keep them and hope I have time someday to spend on them ? I was going to check and see last time what the scrap yard would give a pound for them that maybe the best.
Couple of questions - How long do you think it would take to break down the units in order to get $3k? Once you break them down what is the cost to get the components to the scrap yard? If the guy pays you $1000 is he loading them? It's a time value of money decision Doug.
Sell them and move on. Sounds like you have plenty of other things to do. I know a retired guy that does a little scrapping. He was splitting what he got with a HVAC company for their old units. He said when scrap was down it wasn't really worth his time. So the $1,000 offer probably isn't out of line if you don't have to touch them.
I think I can get them apart in a weeks time. It cost around $40,00 a trip and can be done in half a day but I usually make a day out of it. He would do most of the work but I would help with skid steer on the bigger ones. I probably will sell . Last night I was thinking about everything I needed to clean up. I will be glade when I get this farm cleaned up . I have hauled one and most weeks two loads out every week for over a year of Dads or my stuff. My biggest thing on my scrap was I want to but don't know when or if would like to quit my mechanic job. The scrap would be some income if I really needed it.
I think I would sell it, get the cash and move on Doug.
I have decided some how I am going to sell as is to my guy or someone . I have been trying not to take on a bunch of stuff I sure am not doing any clean ups for people I haven't before . I know this job was going to happen a buddy is moving and has a load of shred for me to haul.
...and buy some gold ingots with said cash....
I had a guy call that has sold his house . He has a junk car,a loaded pickup bed trailer and a little bit of other stuff that I had to go get this morning. There is a AC unit in the trailer. Then my cousin called his neighbor is moving he needs some help with some scrap iron . I hoped scrap would slow down but I also think I should think long and hard about the future. I wish I could find someone I could turn some of these jobs over to . I think the money isn't good enough for most so no one wants to do it.
Or *******..
I got along yesterday very good cleaning up the 2 places I needed to so the owners could close on selling them. The only think was I had to bring a trailer load of stuff home and 2 junk vehicles. I have been trying and it has been working out not to haul anything home. Hopefully I can get everything hauled off quickly.
I am getting rid of the AC units. My brother logs and its been raining so he and one of his guys that worked at a scrap yard came over and started on them today. If everything goes ok they will have them ready to haul tomorrow afternoon. I had some other stuff to load today but tomorrow I will help them. It will be great to have them all gone.
Good deal Doug. It's nice to have some help every now and then.
Way to go Doug. I need to do a big shop to scrapyard clean up at our yard also. I used to do it every year, but I know its been 6-7 years since its been done.
We did a shop to scrap yard clean out in January 2023 after about 16 years of accumulation. We shipped two, 10 yard dumpsters off. One to the scrap yard, one to the land fill. That purged the main work space, and I've been working through shelves, benches, and the back room since. Now we have 3 plastic drums for scrap. Once they are full, the pile gets hauled to the scrap yard. It's a 10 minute drive, so it's easy to do on a lunch break now.
I sorted a lot out of the shop but I need to go over it again and look through 2 van 45 foot van trailers . When the AC units are gone and it drys or freezes up there is stuff behind the shop that can go. I tell people I hope to have it done by the time I can retire buy that could be.
They ended up getting the big pile of them taken apart and scraped . I helped them some and we got everything loaded plus a tote of aluminum car wheels . There is half a dozen window units left in another spot for when I or we can work on the other stuff. They put a lot of the metal shred in some tote but there is a lot on the ground for me to practice my skid steer grapple bucket skills on. I have never had a pile of AC units like this before but Every time I get a pile like this of something I try and hope I will dream up a better way to deal with it or I think I will deal with it before it gets so big. I am very thankful this is about over. I thanked them several times for helping me and they will get a good share of the profit .
I got a lot of the leftover mess cleaned up but there is some left . Getting the AC units out of there opened up a road to get to some other stuff my Dad had piled up behind the shop . So with the rest of this mess and stuff behind the shop I will have another load.
All sounds like progress to me
I wish I was better at figuring out what I should do. I have been hoping that I wouldn't get ask to do a lot of scrapping I want to work on my own and not take on more . I had a guy ask if I wanted to buy some junk cars last night . Its a 50 mile round trip to get them . I plan on cutting back on my hours at my full time job before long . There is just a few but he priced them cheap so there is money to be made.
I know I would see him this morning . I finally thought I would tell him to let someone else have them. I just have too many projects going on . I felt better after talking to him.
I am always thinking WHAT SHOULD I DO ? I was talking to my brother a couple days ago . I was thinking about hauling a load of aluminum . He said why don't you haul shred right now then haul your aluminum later this summer. I promised a buddy I would clean up some stuff at his farm so yesterday I hauled 2 loads . It went good so I thought for once I was doing the right thing but then last night it rained. I went there today and there is standing water every were . If it doesn't rain it will take several days to dry out so I guess I am loading aluminum?
I have a BAD JOB to do . I have a motor home to scrap/get rid of. It was my dads . I tried to give it away and had 6 people look at it but that didnt work. The scrap yards will not take it the way it is . So I will have to take it some what apart so there won't be so much trash stuff that isnt metal. It has a fiberglass skin . The first thing will be to take all the windows out of it break the glass out of the frames then scrap the aluminium frames then cut most of the fiberglass skin off. This is not a money making thing its a get rid of deal. It was way back off the road were if it rains i couldnt work on it so yesterday i towed it up to were i could get to it. This is one of the deals on my farm clean up list that is at the top of the list as BAD JOBS . Maybe some how it wont be as bad as I think???
FIRE comes to mind ^^^^ on this job.....
I've torn down a camper before. I used a skid steer to smash it up, then scooped the material into a dump trailer. Load the trailer, smash/compact the load, add more, repeat. I got the entire 20ft camper condensed into one dump trailer load for the dump. I did strip the aluminum skin and roof off for scrap, but didn't get too picky when dismantling the rest. You have a skid steer. Just smash it down and load it out. I saved the trailer frame for a different project. I actually have another trailer to tear down as the mold damage is too much to want to salvage the trailer.
I have had a lot of stuff that could have been safely burnt but it dosent end after the fire is out . So I think its been a lot easyer to cut stuff up and haul it to a place were i pay to get rid of it. I wish i had a big building i could put it in and rip it apart the sweep up the mess but outside if i rip it apart cleanup will be a deal.
It's not that big of a deal to clean up after even if done outside.
I am going to start on it and see how things go then figure out the best deal . My brother has a bigger skid steer on tracks and a better grapple bucket if i had his help i probably would have tore it apart.
Between some health problems,a lot of other projects and it being cold out side I haven't worked on this deal any. I want to and have been working on and getting done a few small jobs . I think its better to get a few small projects done and out of the way than work on a bunch of stuff at one time and not get much done. I hope the future is better and i hope i remember what i have learned.
I got the motor home scraped. My brother came over with his Kubota skidsteer and grapple bucket . We hauled a big load on my f600 truck and his Dump trailer to the local dump. Then we cut the frame up and sold it for scrap iron. It cost about $250.00 to get rid of the trash and the frame brought around $300.00. There is a little stuff to clean up were we took it apart. I am VERY Glade to get rid of it. Its been a deal cleaning up stuff my Dad had . After we got that done i loaded another load of stuff to go to the trash place to haul next week.
Did you break it up on a clear concrete area, or just out on some dirt? Years ago used to be a sugar beet loading area I could use most of the year when there were no beet, it was solid concrete and had a 5 ft concrete wall on three sides. Handiest thing in the world for those kind of jobs.
I have a pad, that I put in my father’s back field 40 years ago. It’s 30x30 with it in 2 half’s, draining all to the middle seam. On one side, I installed 2 concrete rectangle Jersey barriers. In my teens, I scrapped cars, as my first welding/mechanic job was at a shredder/hammer mill. I would completely cut the cars up and scrap them and sell the steel and aluminum and copper at the placed I worked at. I also bought a open bay ramp truck to pick the cars up. I made a lot of money off that pad and it was great to work on. Unfortunately I had my uncle float in too much grade as now, I would love to build a garage out of it, as the pad is still in good shape. This was back when concrete was 40 bucks a yard for 5000 psi, it would cost a fortune to straighten it out now and being that I would have to put another meter in for power, I just use it for parking and still work on it when needed.
We did it out in the dirt lucky there wasnt a bunch of weeds and brush so there wasnt a bunch of small stuff to pickup afterwards .