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My friend from work family bought a property on the edge of a smalll town for him to build a new house and run a few cows in the pasture. The property has an old house that hasn't been lived in for a couple of years and is basically in disrepair. My friend's plan is to bulldoze the house, push it into a pit, and burn the pile, regrade the area, and then build anew basically on the same spot.

I told him we should scrap the copper out of the house before it got dozed (something he wasn't going to do). He told me it was pretty nasty inside but until a person sees it with his own eyes, its hard to get it into my head. We were over there last Friday eve after work finding sellable trinkets (rummge sale mostly) as the people basically left the house with much of the belongings inside and strewn around, including food in the cabinets (yet they came back a few times over a couple of months??). We were going to start scraping this evening but because of the winter storm in the area, we ended up getting started around 2pm as the brain trust at my center closed it because of power issues (they have a good backup power system to run critical systems but its not big enough to do that as well as power everybody's computers and keep all the lights on--sounds like the government, right, doing things half-a**ed).

I got there first and took a few pixs of the place (well, this outisde pix I took after he got there).







The dank dark basement where we did most of our work



Here's my tool kit. Luckily, my friend bought over his battery operated reciprocating saw that made get the pipe cutting sooooooo much easier than my hand hacksaw.



We think we got most of the copper water pipe (some still behind the tub surround and behind the kitchen sink which both would have been a lot of work for a little pipe). Still, I think we have about 30 pounds of #2 copper (probably about $75 around here).



We probably left a good amount of copper wire in the walls (I knocked in about half a dozen outlets to cut then out) but I was starting to get a bit tuckered. Still, probably another $8-10 in wire after I strip the insulation (something I probably get to do tomorrow as they have closed our center already for tomorrow and i'll be at home probably moving some snow).



We also have some brass and aluminum to take in from the house. Beats turning into a sleet icicle standing outside this afternoon !!

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"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground.
Genesis 1:26

After you remove the copper and any other value items just torch the house. Then you have only 5% of debris to clear. Just a thought. Seems like a lot of wide open space so no chance of the bush catching on fire.

Wouldnt be too hard to pick out the rest of the copper after than either.

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Yup, Welcome to Montana. Now go home.
There are two types of people in this world. Those who shape it, and those who are shaped by it.
2014 season
Beaver--2
Muskrat-0
Squirrel-6
Fox------2
Coon----1

Now that would be something I'd like to get to do. Good "hunting" Non.

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Actions Speak Louder Than Words

looks like it was a nice place at one time.

X2
Scrapping is a good way to make some pocket change! I used to go around during Paola's "spring cleanup" and gather junk that people were throwing out. I would knock down between $300 and $400 in a weekend. Steel is at $200/ton around here so it's well worth doing if you can find a honey hole.

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Roadkill is a redneck's paycheck- Jase Robertson

The second amendment is in place in case the others are ignored.

wolf & ww, probably both good ideas but I'm not in charge of the operation. He's scraping all the steel left in various piles around the place as well as pulling some old broken down fence that he'll throw on the steel pile. We will scrap the air conditioner that's on the side of the place. My friend's bigger issue is to make this place kid safe by sometime this summer. After walking around the place, that will be a task in itself...

Mohawk- yes, our neighboring biggger town has a "spring" clean up time for specific parts of the town each year where poeple can put out whatever to be taken away. I was down at one of light metal recycling businesses last Sat. with alum cans for the cub scout pack that I ended up running again this year. I was in line 24 minutes before being able to drive in the place there was so many people bringing cans in. The guy running the place told me they get even busier when the neighborhood clean up gets going (and these guys don't take ferrous metals).

When we lived in the bigger town, we lived in an established neighborhood that was built in the late 50s and early 60s and our area was part of the cleanup part of town the year we were building out here, so it came in handy. My FiL brought over a big old industrial floor jack that was shot and I watched its 100+ pounds of steel go in about half an hour. It was a amazing how many people were "prowling" the streets, especially in the evening. A very good thing as its a "win-win" for everyone involved; the people putting the stuff out, the folks making money on the recylcables, and overall society by using material over again after the hard part of mining and original metal creation. I did draw the line a bit when someone took a super nasty plastic big garbage can that I had put out on the curb. But to each their own I guess...

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"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground.
Genesis 1:26

Have mercy !!!!! I know people who live in worse places than that !!!!!

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Those who trade liberty for security shall have neither.

"Take ye heed,watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is".

Rev. 6:8 and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was death , and Hell followed with him.

Check for possible "hiding places" PC. Like in between walls, floor boards, etc. A guy I know bought an old house in town a few years ago, his plan was to renovate it then rent it out. During renovation he noticed an odd sound in a section of wall. He decided to tear out the wall and found an old revolver along with many pure silver and gold coins from the late 1800's and early 1900's! Of the gold coins he found were several half eagles and quarter eagles. Needless to say, he sold off most of the stash and was able to pay that old place off early.

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Autumn! My favorite time of the year.

t rick- Yeah, my friend has been looking for secret compartments in the wall for goodies but haven't found any yet (perhaps she stashed her treasures under the meter thick piles of horse crap out in the horse stalls!!!).

doc- that may be true but the house is coming down anyway...We're still finding stuff that I can sell in our spring rummage sale...

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"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground.
Genesis 1:26

just curious. How will you tear it down? Sometimes those old places have good lumber in them that can be sold for good money. True 2x framing or true 1x subflooring etc.

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Yup, Welcome to Montana. Now go home.
There are two types of people in this world. Those who shape it, and those who are shaped by it.
2014 season
Beaver--2
Muskrat-0
Squirrel-6
Fox------2
Coon----1

WW- I'm not doing anything. This isn't my property. My friend is going to have someone bulldoze it, push it into a pit, burn and bury it. As I stated before, his number one mission is to make this home site area safe for his family and build a new house before next fall.

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"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground.
Genesis 1:26

WW- I probably was a bit too harsh on my answer to you. There might be good lumber to salvage out of the house. I know where people have disassembled old barns and such out East and sold the timbers, especially if more hand hewn, for good money. I think the market starts petering out or gets more difficult as a person moves west and buildings get newer. A guy I know who grew up south of KC in Missouri investigated selling his families old dairy barn for beams and such and reallly never found a market for it. Sort of like our occassional black walnut timber up here. Should be worth money, right, seeing the price of commerical boards in a retail store but we have no lumber mills around here and so people would be faced with trucking logs hundreds of miles to be easily sold, so most people who have an old walnut in the yard that needs to get removed just pay the local tree guys to cut down and take away. I've seen our local Scout camp where they planted a bunch of walnuts to sell in the future (planted some when I was a kid) never has really found market for a few at a time. I've seen walnut chunks burned as campfire wood (have rescued a few as well that were of decent size to make some smaller items out of them).

I'm sure my friend could salvage some boards out of the house but he has a fairly large task getting the place cleaned up for its future use as soon as possible...

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"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground.
Genesis 1:26

I love the old house. If only..

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" She's got the heart of a poet and the emotional makeup of a junk yard dog " ~ Stephen King
"Cremation, my last hope for a smok'n hot body" ~ Facebook

FREEDOM~LIBERTY

Sounds almost like what me and the wife are doing. Only we are renovating the house we bought. It was built in the late 1920s or early 30s. Still solid as can be. Mostly cosmetic work on the outside. Inside needs new wiring and insulation. We peeled anywhere from 7 to 12 layers of wall paper off the interior. No hiding places found yet.

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"If you are goin down, make it a blaze of glory!"

Lifetime MFTI member

FTA Member

I am still a little confused here. What were those trees doing in the picture? Thought you were in S.D.. This buddy of yours owns the only 6 trees in the state? Prime real estate!!

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Be patient and persevere; even the darkest night eventually gives way to the light of day.

BAIT? URINE? LURE? DON'T NEED IT WHEN I'M USING MB'S!

Hahahahahahahahahaha...Happy!!!! Trees don't equate to forests. We can usually walk out of our "forests" in about 5 minutes in most cases. About 30 miles south of here there's actually a patch of real forest that's about 2 square miles. Within that 2 sq. miles there's a Boy Scout camp, a state park, and state wildlife habitat area. Otherwise, as you've seen, its either a ribbon of trees along a river or creek or a planted shelterbelts around here. These can be a 1/4 to a 1/2 mile long but rarely are much more than 50+ yards wide.

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"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground.
Genesis 1:26

À VIRTUAL SCROUNGERSDELIGHT.
I rarely but anything new.

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" She's got the heart of a poet and the emotional makeup of a junk yard dog " ~ Stephen King
"Cremation, my last hope for a smok'n hot body" ~ Facebook

FREEDOM~LIBERTY

I scrapped the old outside central air unit from the friend's busted down house. I got just under $20 for the alum and copper AC radiator and another $3-4 for the copper piping from it. If I could use wrenches better and had the right tools I could have probably done it faster (perhaps the next one...). WD-40 is great!!!

I'll take a pix when they finally doze the house into its burn pit.

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"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground.
Genesis 1:26

Probably the last scrapping pixs from this place unless we find something semi-buried helping my buddy do a final clean up of his new "yard" as his house gets finished.

Back earlier in the summer, we thought the demo of the old house and the two old buildings (old wooden machine shed and garage) were going to happen pretty quick. I was thinking what else can we make a little coin off of scrapping before it all became burnt carbon. Anyway, one Sat. am in a lite rain, I convinced my buddy we should scrap part of the old machine shed for "distressed farm building boards". So he and I knock off most of one wall over an hour or so (it wasn't pretty but the boards came off).



Found out that the boards were cedar (nice bonus) and because the west side of this building had been under some shade trees, the white paint on the outside was in pretty good shape if someone wanted to go that route instead of the naturally colored weathered inside of the boards. We also salvaged a old side door off of the garage and a couple of vertical 4-pane windows.

Well, I got them home right before they knocked down that building but realized we had busted them up quite a bit knocking/pulling them off of the walls, so to make most of the tongue & groove work (if that's what people wanted), I spent a good amount of time gluing them up out in the garage as I watched tv (better than throwing chips in my mouth watching the tube!!).

About 10 days ago, I finally got them on Craigslist. Here's the pile of boards.




We ended up getting $85 for the pile (except the two piles of "splits" on the end--I'm holding those in reserve in case a few of the other don't work for them. Maybe sell them to some artsy-fartsy types later for craft projects) to a couple who was going to do one wall of their new bedroom with these boards (hoped they wash them first!!). Pretty close what I was asking for them by individual piece sizes.

Sold the windows for $5 a piece (probably could have gotten twice that for each).


We sold the door last to a gal who was going to use it in her old country theme wedding (nice looker!). Her mom and her stopped over and was telling of what they we're using. They mentioned some old glass power insulators and I said, "I have some those as well." I had gotten these from an old neighbor back 6 or so years ago and they had been sitting under one of my tables (no profit to be made trying to ship them on ebay). I was going to give them to the bride for free but the mom felt sorry for me and gave me a little extra (which ended up being what I paid for them so at least they're out of the garage).


All-in-all, I was satisfied with our little sale. If it was the spring or early summer, I'd be out maybe trying to make a deal on scrapping some other old building's boards, but its only two months until trapping season and I'm way behind...

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"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground.
Genesis 1:26

I think you done swell PC. A lot of work but it's fun kinda work.

Looks good couldn't you make stretching boards out of the leftovers.
We command good money around here for old barns and houses . A typical early 1900 late 1800 barn will bring 6 -15000 depending on size.

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Bring on the damage control work .
An unset trap is always an empty trap .

A few weeks back, I cleaned up my brother's "improvised" shooting range out on his country place. He (we) had put bullet holes of various sizes into an old broken big screen tv, a couple of CRT computer monitors, and a old VCR. I took the electronic boards, yokes, and the anti-static shock electrical tape wrapped copper harness that located around the front of the screen (may not be describing it right) off the beat up old machines and piled the rest of the junk into one pile set off in the weeds (sooner or later the UV light will break apart most of the plastic).

Anyway, instead of filling my mouth full of chips while I watched TV, I unwrapped and cleaned up all the copper wire as well as salvaging aluminum heat sinks off of the various boards. I ended up with just shy of 5 lbs. of copper wire and a couple pounds of aluminum. Might buy a box of heavy shot scattergun ammo !

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"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground.
Genesis 1:26

Nothing like making a profit off discarded materials.

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Actions Speak Louder Than Words

I was driving one of my kids buddies home about a week or so go. He lives with his grandma in a fairly large apartment complex (many of the units are rental subsidies paid by various governments). As we left the complex, we drove past one of the garbage dumpsters and there was a big old analog TV laying next to it. So, later the next evening I convinced one of my boys who would be the least embarrassed by his old man dumpster diving to go back with me and grab the monster so I could scrap out the parts that were worth that kind of value. We got it hoisted up without taking out our backs and got it home. Sort of ironic, someone who probably is lower income threw away a big old tv and it gets saved from the trash truck by someone who has a house with three garages. Either the former owner didn't know there was some cash inside in doing some scrapping, didn't have a ability to do it (although it really only takes a few hand tools), didn't care, or a combo of all of the above.

Anyway, here's the beast (it was a Sony) before I started. It measured approximately 3 x2 x 2 feet



After getting the big plastic housing off it, finally able to get at the good stuff. The yoke around the back of the picture tube and electrical tape wrapped harness around the outside of the tube (don't know the proper name of these things--my bro tells me that stop static electricity from discharging) is where most of the scrap[ping value is located.



Here's later that night. The basic parts that can be taken apart for the recyclable metals



The plastic housing went back onto the set and the only way anyone would know I had been inside was there was no longer a plug coming out of the back. The TV got put back into the back of the van and later dropped off at the bigger city's "environmental waste" facility (hey, they even have a 30 x 30 foot of native grasses and six aspen trees growing in it next to the drive around--I know it made me feel all "green" and stuff inside ).

Here's the cleaned up stuff ready to go get turned into $$. Now, I figured the total value here is about $8. Not going to be able to do much with that in the end but it does do two things, 1) it kept me from stuffing chips into my mouth while I watched tv during the time it took me to scrap it out and 2) it will fuel a day of my trap line run come mid- November. That's worth it to me



P.S. I don't know if the speakers are worth anything or not but I thought I'd try if I had enough of them.

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"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground.
Genesis 1:26