Guides
Before you haul it, know what it pays. Each guide breaks one common item into its scrap components — what metals are inside, what they weigh, and what a yard will pay — with a calculator to run your own local prices.
An aftermarket converter looks like the real thing and is worth a fraction of it. Here’s how to tell a replacement from a factory converter in under a minute, and what each typically brings as scrap.
A sterling flatware set can hold $1,000+ of silver — or be worthless plate that looks identical. The stamp decides everything, and for some patterns, melting is actually the worst way to sell.
Between 6% and 12% of a motor's weight is copper winding — more in small motors, less in big ones, double in DC. Here's the math on selling whole versus tearing down, with a calculator.
Pound for pound, a window AC is one of the most metal-dense appliances you'll find: copper tubing, an Al/Cu radiator, and a sealed compressor. Here's what it pays — and the refrigerant law you can't skip.
A microwave is 28 lb of cheap steel wrapped around one genuinely good component: a copper-wound transformer. Here's what it pays, how to get the good part out, and the capacitor warning that isn't optional.
150 pounds of mostly steel, one copper-wound motor, and a slab of concrete that pays nothing. Here's what a washer is really worth, whole versus broken down — with a calculator for your prices.
Short answer: yes, but not for much unless you break it down — and never with water still in it. Here's what's inside, what it pays, and how to run your own numbers.
Run the numbers before you pay — weight, composition, asking price.