NM-B and Romex cable buyers in Tennessee
For contractors and plant maintenance groups with coils of sheathed cable on the shelf, this page sets out which NM-B lots we buy and which we pass on.
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.
NM-B is the sheathed cable that wires houses and small commercial buildings: two or three insulated conductors plus a bare ground, wrapped in a paper separator and a PVC jacket. In a plant it is a minor material. What we are offered is almost always the tail of a contractor order, a few coils on a shelf that nobody wants to count.
The decision on an NM-B lot is simple enough. A sealed coil in a common size is worth buying. A sun-hardened coil with staples through the jacket, or a box of three-foot pieces, is not worth the freight. Most lots sit between those two cases, and the photographs decide it.
With NM-B, the jacket decides whether you have cable or copper.
Lot basics
- Voltage
- 600 V
- Conductors
- Copper only
- Sizes
- 14-2 through 10-3 common
- Packaging
- Coils, 250 ft and 1,000 ft
What a leftover NM-B pile looks like
The typical lot is one or two unopened 250 ft coils of 14/2 or 12/2, a part coil of 12/3 that was used for a three-way switch, and a quantity of cut lengths from a remodel. It comes from an electrical contractor's shop more often than from a plant storehouse, and it arrives in a cardboard box or a plastic tote.
Because NM-B is copper only, there is no aluminum version to confuse the count. Conductors are solid in 14 and 12 gauge and stranded in some 10 gauge constructions. The jacket is color coded by size on most modern stock: white for 14, yellow for 12, orange for 10. That code makes a photograph of a pallet easy to read.
- Two or three insulated conductors plus bare ground
- Copper conductors, no aluminum equivalent
- White, yellow and orange jackets for 14, 12 and 10
- Sold in 250 ft coils and 1,000 ft reels
When a coil of NM-B is worth buying
An unopened coil in a common size is the easy case. The length is printed on the coil wrap, the jacket is clean and the copper is bright. Those sizes still move, because small commercial, agricultural and outbuilding work uses them, and a full coil is worth more as cable than as scrap even after the jacket is accounted for.
A part coil can be worth buying when it is at least half full, the jacket is intact and the size is 12 or 10 gauge. Those sizes carry more copper per foot and are used in shops and outbuildings. Fourteen gauge part coils are marginal unless there are several, in which case the lot is weighed and treated as a group.
When the coil stays in the bin
Sunlight is the main enemy. NM-B is not sunlight resistant, and a coil that hung on the side of a truck for two summers will have a jacket that cracks when it is bent. Once the jacket fails, the cable is no longer usable as cable and the value falls to the copper inside, which is a smaller number and a different calculation.
The other disqualifiers are physical. Staples driven through the jacket, crushed coils, and lengths under about ten feet with the conductors exposed all push a lot toward recovery. Paint, oil and concrete dust on the jacket do not matter much. A coil that was used as a ramp for a wheelbarrow does, and so does one stored under a leaking roof.
Related pages
Questions sellers ask
Do you buy NM-B by the coil or by the pound?
By the coil where the length is known, and by weight where it is not. A tagged coil is priced on its footage and size. A box of cut lengths is weighed and priced as insulated scrap copper, because the pieces are too short to resell as cable. Mixed lots are split before either method is applied.
What is the smallest NM-B lot worth collecting?
A single full coil makes a pickup sensible if it is a common size. Below that, the material usually needs to be part of a larger load of wire to be worth handling. We would rather tell you to hold a small lot until you have more than send a truck for two part coils.
Is NM-B ever used in an industrial plant?
Rarely in production areas. It appears in offices, guardhouses, pump houses and outbuildings, and in temporary construction power. Plants that do their own small building work keep a few coils, which is why NM-B turns up in a storehouse clear-out next to very different cable.
Why does the jacket color matter to you?
The color code tells us the conductor size before we read the print: white for 14, yellow for 12, orange for 10. On a pallet of coils photographed from above, that is often enough to sort the lot. It is only a convenience, though, and we still confirm the size from the print on the jacket.
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.
Coils of Romex on the shelf?
Send the sizes, whether each coil is sealed or opened, and one photograph of the whole pile.
Tennessee only · statewide pickup planning