Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
One of the 3 largest export commodities out of the largest port in the USA (LA-Long Beach) is scrap metal. When I go down to the port, there are mountains and mountains of scrap metal that are loaded onto the otherwise empty ships going back to Asia, along with empty containers. A steel mountain here, aluminum mountain there, iron mountain over there. Aluminum siding is good stuff, the metal scrap places love it because it's so easy to either melt or grind up into smaller pieces for export.
I took a truck load of old radiators to the scrap yard. I had to pay a $3 toll to get there. I got $3.70 for roughly 800 pounds of iron. I checked with other companies to make certain that the place did nto cheat me. It was the prevailing rate. Whoo Hoo. I got $0.70 for loading 800 pounds into my truck and hauling it to the scrap place.
Pity then, the siding on this house is rough, pitted, dinged, bent trim pieces, pain turned to powder ages ago. Thought maybe a financial gain might be some incentive for the guy to make the change to something a little nicer looking.
If you had anything like what the OP's pic showed, you did not have shakes.
Our 1950s ranch had cedar shakes that had a much larger reveal (12"). And I don't believe the type of shakes we had are even sold anymore as we went to multiple lumberyards for replacements and they didn't carry anything remotely close to the our size. We have since resided with the cedar shakes you posted.
My parents own a 1970s colonial and their original siding was thin shakes...again with a larger reveal, looking nothing like the photos you posted. It's pretty common on 1960s & 1970s homes in this area (Long Island).
Pity then, the siding on this house is rough, pitted, dinged, bent trim pieces, pain turned to powder ages ago. Thought maybe a financial gain might be some incentive for the guy to make the change to something a little nicer looking.
Cooljensen was talking about radiators. Aluminum siding has value.
I took a truck load of old radiators to the scrap yard. I had to pay a $3 toll to get there. I got $3.70 for roughly 800 pounds of iron. I checked with other companies to make certain that the place did nto cheat me. It was the prevailing rate. Whoo Hoo. I got $0.70 for loading 800 pounds into my truck and hauling it to the scrap place.
Car radiators or house radiators? If you are talking about house radiators, you just scrapped a small fortune. You make more money selling old house radiators than scrapping them. You can get hundreds of dollars for just one---depending on size. I've never seen one go for less than 100. When homeowners with hot water heat need to replace a radiator, they often buy old ones when they can get their hands on one. They're even worth money if they're in bad condition. The trick is finding the buyer, but they're out there.
I took a truck load of old radiators to the scrap yard. I had to pay a $3 toll to get there. I got $3.70 for roughly 800 pounds of iron. I checked with other companies to make certain that the place did nto cheat me. It was the prevailing rate. Whoo Hoo. I got $0.70 for loading 800 pounds into my truck and hauling it to the scrap place.
The big money in old cast radiators is not in scrap, those puppies are in demand for all sorts of uses. Reuse as radiators, solar energy heat storage systems, all sorts of home projects of any thing a dude can dream up. I would love to have tons of them. If they are ornate or special in anyway, sort of qualify as collector items, talking top dollar, as in Ka-Ching.
Plus lots of home foundries or small time operations. They will pay way above the commerical prices and even come get the beauties. I got a bunch of cast iron from take outs (sinks, bathtub, etc). Holding on to those for possible future melt downs. Who knows what it might fly again as.
We are still up in the air about this one particular lil shack and what is on there in terms of siding. If aluminum, I would think stripping that puppy might be in its future. Scrap prices are down a bit but the eagle will fly again. Seeing as how it is Long Guyland, makes me wonder, if real nice heavy guage AL I would have thought some ghetto boys would have been after it by now. I've got my beer cans on long term storage waiting for the eagle to soar, would be nice to mix in a bit of mild siding with the batch next time. BTW, you can also increase your cans value by melting them down or just reuse the billets in another home improvement project. Scrap value is all in how you package the stuff. Wonder how many tons could be on that shack??????
Our 1950s ranch had cedar shakes that had a much larger reveal (12"). And I don't believe the type of shakes we had are even sold anymore as we went to multiple lumberyards for replacements and they didn't carry anything remotely close to the our size. We have since resided with the cedar shakes you posted.
My parents own a 1970s colonial and their original siding was thin shakes...again with a larger reveal, looking nothing like the photos you posted. It's pretty common on 1960s & 1970s homes in this area (Long Island).
12" shakes is not the same as lap siding (or what looks like it . . .).
Car radiators or house radiators? If you are talking about house radiators, you just scrapped a small fortune. You make more money selling old house radiators than scrapping them. You can get hundreds of dollars for just one---depending on size. I've never seen one go for less than 100. When homeowners with hot water heat need to replace a radiator, they often buy old ones when they can get their hands on one. They're even worth money if they're in bad condition. The trick is finding the buyer, but they're out there.
I put them on Craige list and E-bay. The high bid was $0.50. The guy never came and got them. These were steam radiators, not hot water. No one uses steam anymore. The cost to instal it is prohibitive. We had to buy antique hot water radiators to replace the steam ones because no one owuld conntect a boiler to the existing steam system (too much liability risk if the old pipes break) and the cost to rpelace them was insane ($50,000). We ended up switching to hot water using PEX and just replaced the steam radiators with hot water ones from the same period. Some of our radiators were already hot water type. You can use hot water radiators in a steam system, but you cannot use steam radiators in a hot water system. I cannot remember why, but there is a reason.
Anyway I scrapped a bunch of them when the E-bay guy failed to pick them up and got over $600 in 2007. However in 2009 or late 2008 I took a load in and got $3.70 for them. I was nto about to continue storing them in my yard. I already have a garage full of antique doors that are worth as much as $200 each to the right buyer. I just have no buyer. Not sure what i willd o withthe doors, probably donate them somewhere and take the tax write off once I am certain that we will not use them.
What was this topic? Oh yeah Siding. . . .
the point was that the price for all scrap metals, except precious metals, has fallen dramatically and it may no longer be much savings to scrap aluminium siding.
Did we ever find out what kind of siding this actually is?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Lots of things have gone down with the fall of the economy....
