Copper Theft

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rocketwarrior

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Okay, so the main/office level of my building is air conditioned from a roof unit that has liquid lines that travel down the back of the building then enter the building just below this level and travel forward to the exchanger thingie. Well, when I made the first demand for cool this year the fan worked, but no a/c. Hmmmmmmm. I climbed the fire escape up a level, then the steel ladder to the roof. Nothing obviously wrong. I called my HVAC people. They found there was no freon. Hmmmmmm. Then we noticed that about 10 feet of copper liquid line had been unceremoniously removed from the back of the building!!!!!!!!
Total repair cost $849.82 of which the replacement copper was $16.78. So what do you think the meth head vandals got for the copper? 50 cents?
 
If that. Copper theft is becoming a serious problem everywhere. One of the reasons why is that there are a lot of unscrupulous recyclers that will accept copper from obviously suspicious sources. Police around here have been letting the metal recyclers know that they're keeping an eye on who they do business with.
 
I work for our local electric utility. Both our scrap yards and warehouse yards are regular targets for scrap hunters. They never succeed, but they try. We've even had people try to steal conductor from crew trucks when they're out doing line work.
 
They stole all the copper downspouts off of an historic catholic church here this week. The building was built in 1860. The priest woke up and saw what they were doing, but didn't try to stop them, or call the police. He must have been too busy that night.
I don't like theft, but I had to chuckle about this one...
 
There must be some racket for this "scrap" copper around here, I've hear more reports of this than I care to think about. I've heard stories of perps ramming electrical poles to get at the transformers and wire. The last time I went to the recycler over on 84th & Blondo, any person with copper presented for purchase had to show ID and register by filling out a form that supposedly is kept on file with the OPD.

Perhaps some "bait" placed around the building would deter any further mutilation of essential equipment. Pieces of pipe and/or tubing lying around, coils of copper wire hanging from the ladder, etc. Might be worth the investment of a little to save another service call.

There's enough copper running around behind the machines in the basement to give a meth-head a least a few more holes in their teeth - I should start using my alarm system again.
 
Local electric cooperative had two theft incidents from their warehouse/yard. One item was large roll of wire, value of ~$15K. Also an attempt to strip some conductors or a meter loop or some such from an inactive pole/circuit somewhere on their grid.

Acquaintances had some wiring stripped from under a vacation house they own in a town a couple hrs away.
 
We have had a few people fried while trying to steal electrical lines, while they were still energized.

You hear all the time about a/c compressors and equipment being stolen from churches, stores, etc., even from the roof tops!

The problem is so bad a lot of churches and businesses are putting steel cages around their a/c equipment.

The city is finally putting the bite on the recyclers, requiring a drivers license to bring in copper items for recycling.

I'll tell you, when someone stoops low enough to steal from a church it just makes me sick. These people are just animals.
 
A metals theft ring was just busted in my town. The local metals recycler cooperated with the police to nab the gang.

About 15 years ago I theorized that copper could be a good investment, because of the rise in computers and networks. Then pundits were all saying that copper was out, and fiber would be the wave of the future. Fast forward and copper is still in widespread use for data communications. But although I was right about copper being a good investment, it was for the wrong reasons. The worldwide construction boom, especially in China, plus the advent of cheap consumer electronics, has greatly increased the demand for copper.

I recall pricing copper water pipe a couple of years ago, in the winter. In the winter of 2006 I priced it again, and saw that the prices had stayed pretty much the same. Two months later, the prices had gone up 50%. I quickly made the purchases I needed to re-plumb my house. Lately I checked the hardware stores, and the prices are roughly double what I paid.

But, no, I never invested in the copper commodity. Wish I had... but I'll add it to the list of great ideas I've never acted upon. Most of them turn our less than satisfactory anyway ;-)
 
Meth heads

Some of them stole conduit that powered streetlights here in Tucson. Unbelievable!

"A two-mile stretch of streetlights are dark in Tucson, Ariz., after thieves made off with 8 miles of copper power cable that will cost about $250,000 to replace.

'We have not seen anything like this,' said Steve Pageau, deputy director of the Tucson transportation department."

 
There's a company near here called Elkhart Products, where they make copper fittings and such. Last week, someone stole a semi trailer full of scrap copper from the company. Thieves backed a tractor under it, and took off. They have it on video tape, but no arrest's as of yet.

Rick, I heard about that theft! It said the priest looked through the window, and made faces at the thieves! I can't believe he didn't call 911.....

kennyGF
 
If the guys stealing the downspouts would have been under 13, the priest prolly would have had them come in for the night..... Too old for him, no doubt.
 
We had something happen in Tewksbury if I can remember right where 2 guys went out to an abandoned factory and they decided to take the copper wiring. They used hacksaws to get at the main power lines...Only one slight snag they ran into...the power was still on to the plant...and you guessed it..ZAPPPPP! Both killed. What some people will do for copper.
 
Re copper

the summer last their was a new home being built right next to me and both bed rooms and bath faced the house and the windows were open on a cool night and the three dogs were a sleep . it was about 12.30 at night neather me or the dogs hurd a thing or saw a thing.
next morrning I had the contractor knocking on the door to sak if I had hurd or seen anything. of course I had to say no and told him the dogs would have gone off if they did and the dogs had not even hurd them. a three bed two bath house all stripped. need less to say the plumber was cursing up a blue streek. it took him 8 hours the day before to put it all in on a day when it was 112 out before all the concrete was to be poured over it for the slab floor. I did look closer and saw in the back of the lot that their was a huge knot of the copper pipeing that they did not get!
I did get a chance to see just how they fixed the porblem. the builder just used all that ice maker kind of pipe(that white plastic stuff) all through out the house!! for selling price of 589 I would not accecpt that!! just goes to show just how crafty and desperate those crack heads are for their fix!
 
In new housing they are getting away from solid plumbing all together. Kevlar is the name of the game.
This is a plastic tubing that just runs in the wall. In the utility room you have a box, not unlike a circuit breaker box. Inside this box are little valves that allow you to turn individual plumbing items on and off. Very neat. According to the plumber I spoke with, these are much more resistant to bursting and freezing than solid pipes are.
A house down the street is being built with this technology, and I went over and took a photo of the control box for you all!
I wonder if copper thefts had anything to do with speeding up the use of this technology?
Obviously, blue is cold water and red is hot.

6-23-2007-00-32-8--whirlcool.jpg
 
In the radio station business-copper theft is also a problem.whole ground radial systems for AM stations(for AM stations you see the tower(s) as you drive buy the transmitter site)-what you don't see is the copper ground radial wires that are the same lenght as the towers are high.and the 4-6" wide copper strap connecting them together.and the 50' square perforated copper grounding sheets around the base of the towers.Yes some "vandals" have dug these up for the copper-and messed up the stations patterns-the station then has seriuosly reduced coverage and improper load on the transmitter.At one station some dork tried to take the copper transmission lines going to the towers from the Antenna tuning unit doghouses!On the last line they tried to take peices of burnt skin were hanging from the line-The full transmitter power was going into that tower!One of the local TV stations here had some transmission line sections taken-new ones at that for their new Digital transmission system.the lines weren't even on the tower and someone took them-all of the scrap yards were notified.You need a large truck and help to take these-20' section of 3" transmission line is HEAVY-I have had to handle these-you almost need two people to pick up each section.they had to reorder new lines and post a guard at the transmitter site until they were put on the tower.These had to go up a 1500ft tower-its visible from the SW station where I work.So far the "copperheads" haven't attacked this plant!On that AM directional station me and my friend promply went to Home Depot and got new copper peices-ordinary half in copper water tubing and made new feedlines.Station OK.Had to sign them off for a few hours in the middle of the night to do it.
 
Never thought someone would steal from a radio station. I was reading where China and it's appetite for copper is the reason why copper is at a historical high. I get around 2.25 per pound for #1 copper(clean) and 2.00 a pound for #2 (burned, oxidated or #1 copper with solder on it.) I have to say that I have seen some folks that would steal your copper from you in half a second. That's why I keep mine under lock and key. As many washers and dryers that I have to scrap out for tin, I strip all the insulated wires from them and occasionally burn it. But you know what? Copper is doomed for trouble no matter what. You can even get a citation for burning the crap in a barrel around here.
 
In the large city areas for radio stations theft and vandalism of equipment is a problem.ESP for unattended transmitter sites.Manned radio station transmitters have gone the way of home delivored bottled milk!Stations run them by remote control from the studio.Its possible the tranms site may not be visted by station engineers for weeks or a few months-the trend is to go to the sites only when the tranmsitter breaks and can't be remote reset.I have fixed AM stations that were vandalised-its a miracle the equipment worked-the sation had to spend thousands of dollars to replace broken equipment.-and repair the tower base fences-the vandals tore the fences down.FCC and OSHA rules require non metallic fences around the bases of AM broadcast towers-or the tower feild since the whole tower is RF "Hot"You can get bad RF burns from contacting them.I can speak from expreince.I have seen transmitter buildings borken into-even with burgalar alarms set-and items taken.Stations often use trnasmitter sites for "prize" storage-items the station awards out during contests.I have had to maintain "prize" stockrooms at a transmitter site.These got broken into by some young hoodlums-they took the microawave ovens,sunbeam food processors,and severla Panasonic and Zenith color TV's and portable Hi-fi sets.At one community site-where there are several FM stations and TV stations on one tower-and operating into a single antenna-someone was tampering with the tuning controls on one of the TV transmitters.That is a violation of FCC rules-if you are FCC licensed as I am-that is grounds for fofiture of your license-we never found who was fiddling with the tuning on the tranmsitter.I stopped afterwhile and after we removed the tuning knobs and cranks so the gremlin can't adjust the tuning.The station was lucky they didn't suffer severe transmitter damage-just a nusance.
 
its happening everywhere

a local bar had its airconditiioner stripped of copper & coils last week,a church had the copper gutters stolen ,I see copper being a precious metal real soon .a $11 dollar roll of wire is now $30 plus!!!!
 
Sounds Very Familiar...

"Some of them stole conduit that powered streetlights here in Tucson. Unbelievable!

"A two-mile stretch of streetlights are dark in Tucson, Ariz., after thieves made off with 8 miles of copper power cable that will cost about $250,000 to replace.

'We have not seen anything like this,' said Steve Pageau, deputy director of the Tucson transportation department.' "

Here in Atlanta, we had to do without lighting on our freeways for a couple of years prior to the '96 Olympics (FEH!). Copper thieves were jumping the lights' wiring, and making off with the copper bus bars in their bases. It was only the Olympics that got us freeway lights again- the only good that came from that, trust me (funds that should have gone to repair our crumbling water-mains infrastructure got spent on glitz for the TV cameras, for one thing).

Copper thieves will stop at absolutely nothing it seems.
 

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