What can you use instead of copper wires?

dereksbicycles

dereksbicycles

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I noticed that 2 food pantries have been robbed in the last 3 months. One is in Chicago. Other is in Texas. Both places were robbed because of copper wires. I wonder if they would use something other than copper wires.
 
Take Electrical course and you will understand better.

Copper is the best conductor at the least cost, of course, if you want the best of the best, regardless of money, it will be silver.

The "Better" conductor (meaning copper STILL better than this one) is Aluminum. Problem is that Aluminum conductor is still expensive but not as expensive as copper BUT, they are easily oxidate if not properly connected, not properly stripping, failure to use anti oxidation paste will result degrading connections, thus increase the chance of starting fires.

Homes built during early and mid 60's was wired using 100% aluminum wiring which lead very expensive recalls fire damages, and so on. Code banned using aluminum conductors smaller than #8 I think.
 
they were robbed because they can scrap the copper and get money for it.

No matter what other options is still will drive the demand up and its value will go up making people shift focus on what to steal.

The issue here is its easy to scrap metal as no one asks questions or require ID to do so
 
My bro in law deals with furance. So he got a call to come and fix the furance. So he came to the house that "grandma passed away" and the grandson takes over the house and plan to sell the house but need to have furance working. SO he came to the house, and saw everywhere water that are spreading out and spraying everywhere. The copper pipes are GONE.. stolen!! god.
 
Yup, happens more often when the value of copper goes up. Right now it comes back down.

Solution? I don't know!

I have done some plumbing work from time to time, so is electrical. Some of people ask me which is better for water piping, usually the copper is best, it is durable, last forever, would outlive human being lifecycle. Has almost no known side effect on health from using copper pipe as compared as CPVC which now banned by plumbing code that used to be water pipe, found to cause cancer. There is new plastic tubing, with brand "Sharkbite" Because of what happened with CPVC, I am not sure about this new plastic tubing. State of Maine banned that one too. But for pipes used to get rid of shit, PVC is fine.

Also not just that, but there are incidents where people stole whole house siding that is made of aluminum. Mine used to be, most of houses in my neighbor has aluminum siding. I looked at each house, it is worth about 300 dollars at scrap! I found out by after replace my house siding. Thank god I almost dump at the curb! Whew! Some idiots did stole vinyl siding only to find out it is worthless.
 
This kind of thing is where Goodonya's Tweaker Zapper would be so useful.

It has a really nice app. Your cell rings and there on the screen is a set of crosshairs on the tweaker. You have a number of combinations to choose from depending on how much you wish to invest in the system. The zapper is actually a taser. You have a range of settings. You can have control over a speaker as well that you can talk to the tweaker if you wish or just laugh maniacally while pushing the zap button over and over. Super bright lights are a spendy extra. The strobe is cool too. The robotic jaws are fun too but costly. You can use your own sound or have programmed sound effects as well. I have found German Shepherd growling to have the right sound.
Of course you can video the whole event as well.
The Tweaker Zapper is not cheap. It is made of high quality components and has a lifetime warranty. The app is free.
 
diehardbiker said:
The "Better" conductor (meaning copper STILL better than this one) is Aluminum. Problem is that Aluminum conductor is still expensive but not as expensive as copper BUT, they are easily oxidate if not properly connected, not properly stripping, failure to use anti oxidation paste will result degrading connections, thus increase the chance of starting fires.

Homes built during early and mid 60's was wired using 100% aluminum wiring which lead very expensive recalls fire damages, and so on. Code banned using aluminum conductors smaller than #8 I think.
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Yup - america used aluminum for residental use for awhile when we were in ww1,2 and every pound of copper were used for the military bullets and parts.
Also aluminum expands at different rates then copper so when using the two in the homes, it needs real know how to do it properly to keep electrical connection.
diehardbiker said:
I have done some plumbing work from time to time, so is electrical. Some of people ask me which is better for water piping, usually the copper is best, it is durable, last forever, would outlive human being lifecycle. Has almost no known side effect on health from using copper pipe as compared as CPVC which now banned by plumbing code that used to be water pipe, found to cause cancer. There is new plastic tubing, with brand "Sharkbite" Because of what happened with CPVC, I am not sure about this new plastic tubing. State of Maine banned that one too. But for pipes used to get rid of shit, PVC is fine.
Click to expand...

I hate hate hate cpvc pipe. its garbage. easy to work with , but not strong enough. I personally LOVE Pex pipe. Its easy to work with, you can reuse connectors many times over if needed. The tools to with with pex can be expensive but once you have it- you can do pex any time, anywhere and I got pex tools for all of my remodeling projects i do.
 
If everyone had my Tweaker Zapper surveillance system we could use copper pipe anywhere... we could have aluminum siding on our houses.
We could make the tweakers feel the pain they are so eager and willing to cause us.

PEX is cool I will do my next projects with it.
 
The place I work at was constantly having its copper hardware outside (I think it was for the sprinkler system but not sure, I forget now) stolen, so they found a way a way to move it indoors.
 
Copper theft is more common out there... Schools, church, street lights is one of many targets. You can find those in air conditioning machine, wiring box, and things like that. It's very expensive to replace. People and criminals are desperate for money.
 
It doesn't have to be copper people will steal any metal they can sell. Someone stole $30k worth of bronze vases off the graves of a local cemetery a couple months ago.

EDIT: I've even heard of people cutting the catalytic converters off cars sitting on a car lot since they have platinum in them.
 
ncff07 said:
EDIT: I've even heard of people cutting the catalytic converters off cars sitting on a car lot since they have platinum in them.
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That happened to a coworker of mine. He noticed that all of sudden the car was really loud. It cost him over 2 grand to replace it.
 
Yup there's big increase of catalytic converter theft. Very expensive to replace.

ncff07 said:
It doesn't have to be copper people will steal any metal they can sell. Someone stole $30k worth of bronze vases off the graves of a local cemetery a couple months ago.

EDIT: I've even heard of people cutting the catalytic converters off cars sitting on a car lot since they have platinum in them.
Click to expand...
 
Yeah, been like that for several years. I discovered that catalytic converter worth around hundred a piece at scrap. I was about to throw it in garbage, glad I didn't make that 100 dollars mistake. LOL

Calvin said:
Yup there's big increase of catalytic converter theft. Very expensive to replace.
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The way you stop the theft is to throw the book at the people stealing the various metals. However, you don't throw them in prison, you make them pay for what they stole and do a lot and I mean a lot(maybe 2-3,000 hrs 1st offense) of community service such as painting over graffiti or helping crews run new wires that have been stolen, cleaning streets, etc. You also have the tv news people filming them doing the community services and showing it on the 6 O clock news. Right now they go after the recyclers and it's not working. Where I live we have long stretches of streets with no lights at night, street signs have also been stolen for the aluminum.
 
It takes criminals only few mins to snatch the catalytic converters off the cars. Owner of cars face $500-2000 to replace it depending on the vehicles.
 
Yesterday, I saw 2 catalytic converters being sold at flea market for $25 each. I guess they were removed off junk cars.
 
Or cover up the thieves, Flea markets don't ask for ID, today more and more scrap metal buyers are asking for ID. So if want get money without getting caught for stealing, sell at flea market to a sucker. Criminals are not that dumb.

I just sold bunch of metal to scrap yard, they asked me for ID and man! they scanned my ID card and all information showed up. I have no problem with that because I see it as justifiable, and criminals needs to quit stealing metal leaving dangerous elements waiting to injury innocent victims. I have more metal scrap to sell. I need to sort between copper and aluminum. I could do all metal scrap in one trip, but I will get less money that way. I almost mistaken one of metal box as light steel, after scratching it to make sure it is metal not plastic... way too light for steel, close enough to be made of plastic only to find out it was aluminum! (Due to painting)

dereksbicycles said:
Yesterday, I saw 2 catalytic converters being sold at flea market for $25 each. I guess they were removed off junk cars.
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