Copperweld ground wire buyers in Tennessee
Copper-clad steel conductor for station grounds, tower counterpoise and lightning protection, bought on grade, length and the condition of the copper skin. The grade matters more than the diameter when a coil is priced.
Send us your reel list
Six details are enough for a first review: what the cable is, the metal, the size, the footage or reel count, the condition and where it sits. Photographs can follow by text or email. There is no fee and no obligation, and nothing moves until written terms are agreed.
Copperweld began as a trade name and became the word crews use for any copper-clad steel conductor. A copper skin is bonded to a steel core, so the wire carries current at its surface and strength at its center. For grounding and counterpoise that combination is often exactly what the design calls for.
We buy it in coil and in cut lengths, from station work, tower counterpoise and plant lightning protection. It is not priced like bare copper, and any list that shows it as bare copper will be corrected at the scale. A coil with a grade marking and a footage is a straightforward sale. A coil without either takes longer and finishes lower.
Lot basics
- Construction
- Copper-clad steel
- Conductivity
- 30 and 40 percent grades
- Sizes
- #6 AWG to 250 kcmil
- Use
- Grounding and counterpoise
Why copper-clad is specified for grounding
A grounding conductor has to survive fault current and, more often, decades of soil. Copper-clad steel offers a copper surface for conductivity and corrosion resistance over a steel core that will not stretch or break when pulled through a trench or strung along a right of way. It also resists casual theft a little better than bare copper, though not decisively.
Clad conductor is graded by conductivity, commonly 30 and 40 percent, which describes the copper cross-section rather than the whole wire. That grade is what a buyer needs, because it sets both the current-carrying capability and the metal value. A coil with no grade marking is harder to place and is priced with that uncertainty included.
Counterpoise and lightning protection
Counterpoise runs buried outward from a tower or a station, and it is where most copper-clad in Tennessee ends up. The runs are long, the joints are few, and the conductor is asked to work in wet soil for the life of the line. Clad steel holds up where bare copper would work-harden at every bend and aluminum would corrode away.
Lightning protection systems on plants and communications sites use the same material for down conductors and ground rings. Lengths there are shorter and the terminations more varied, so a plant lot often arrives as a mix of coil and cut pieces rather than as full reels with tags. Shorter pieces are still worth collecting, but they are weighed rather than measured.
Station risers are the other place it appears. A down lead from a bus or a steel structure to the grid is short, heavy and bent to shape, and those pieces come out of a retirement in ones and twos. They are worth collecting with the coil stock instead of going into the scrap bin with the fittings.
Lengths, grades and surface condition
Condition matters less than for insulated cable and more than for bare copper. The copper skin can be nicked or worn through, and a worn spot exposes steel that will rust and swell under the skin. Check the outside of the coil where it has rubbed a rack, and the ends, which show corrosion first.
Length is the other factor. Long continuous counterpoise runs are worth more than the same weight cut into short pieces, because the next installation can use them as they lie. Short pieces sell on weight and on the grade printed on the tag or stamped on the reel. A coil with the grade stamp intact is the easiest of the lot to place.
Questions sellers ask
Is copper-clad steel worth more or less than bare copper?
Less per pound, because only the skin is copper and the core is steel. The clad grades typically run a fraction of the copper content by weight, so a coil that looks like a copper coil is not one. It is still worth collecting, particularly in long runs, and it should be listed separately.
How do you tell 30 percent from 40 percent?
From the print, the tag or the reel stencil, since both grades look identical from outside. Where the marking is gone, a cut end and a measurement of the copper wall against the core diameter will identify the grade closely enough for pricing. Do not assume the higher grade without a marking.
Can copper-clad be spliced?
Yes, with the fittings made for it. Compression connectors and exothermic welds both work, though the weld has to be sized for the steel core rather than for copper alone. Splices from a removed run are cut out before resale, because a splice is a joint the next owner did not design.
Does copper-clad steel rust?
The core will rust wherever the copper skin is breached. That is why a coil dragged across concrete or cut with a worn blade loses value at the damaged spots. In undisturbed soil the clad surface stays intact for decades, which is the reason the material is specified in the first place.
Send us your reel list
Six details are enough for a first review: what the cable is, the metal, the size, the footage or reel count, the condition and where it sits. Photographs can follow by text or email. There is no fee and no obligation, and nothing moves until written terms are agreed.
Copper-clad ground wire to sell?
Send the grade marking if you have it, the coil weights and one photograph of a cut end.
Tennessee only · statewide pickup planning