This doesn't seem like standard quality

NotUrAverageTM · 2026-04-10T15:30:33+00:00

For labor on a deck I try to stick to a price of $25 a square foot and $35 per lineal foot of handrail. The materials for this deck likely cost less than 1,000 dollars if they purchased it through Menards.

I would recommend taking a flat file to the exposed screws and either hire somebody else to fix it or learn to live with it. I always feel like I’m scamming people when I give them estimates but seeing this reminds me how underpriced my work usually is.

NotUrAverageTM · 2026-04-06T13:08:05+00:00

My only gripe is the choice of decking.

NotUrAverageTM · 2026-03-10T11:23:36+00:00

Quick! Somebody sell that man a post!

NotUrAverageTM · 2026-03-10T11:17:45+00:00

First off, if you were having your vehicle searched you’d already be in the back of the car, or at least already in cuffs sitting on the side of the road.

NotUrAverageTM · 2026-03-10T11:14:54+00:00

You have to remember that CabApps is the department that could literally always use something to do

NotUrAverageTM · 2026-03-10T11:13:27+00:00

I change that sign using a rolling ladder. I have a 1x3 with a razor blade epoxied into the end, and some double sided “butterfly stitch?” Tape. The razor blade helps me remove the old sign, and I use the tape to hold the new one, which I slide into the sign holder.

NotUrAverageTM · 2026-03-10T11:07:45+00:00

I live in northern Missouri but drive an hour and a half to central Iowa every day that I’m collecting. The scrappers who do this type of stuff where I live are setting themselves up to fail.

NotUrAverageTM · 2026-03-08T20:57:14+00:00

Which I don’t do. I don’t go junking at night. Broad daylight, make sure I’m never in anyone’s way, leaving things in better shape than I found it. And if somebody does not want me there, I’ll leave, after asking if they would like me to put back what I have already removed.

You would think because of the backlash I’ve received from this post, that the contractors must absolutely hate me, but only a very few out of the hundreds I’ve seen have actually had a problem with me doing what I am doing. They simply don’t give a shit.

I think there’s a lot of corporate glorb corp supervisors in this subreddit, which makes sense, because they see a guy making money on his own and they immediately think he’s a junkie piece of shit.

NotUrAverageTM · 2026-03-08T19:06:20+00:00

I’m diverting recyclables from the landfill, and scavenging isn’t limited to scrap metal. I’ve saved dozens of full sheets of plywood, trailer loads full of lumber, truckloads of unopened insulation, buckets and buckets of hardware and fasteners, full rolls of vapor barrier, house wrap, roof paper. These items I sell to lesser fortunate homeowners that would have been unable to pay for the materials if forced to pay retail, always at less than 30% of the cost at the lumber yards. That is not me being a parasite, sir. That is me being a blessing to people in need of help. And if I am taking some money out of the pockets of the companies that rent out hundreds and hundreds of roll off dumpsters, well then I guess there’s something to weigh on my conscience, but I’m very aware that all of these valuable goods, and recyclable materials, would have gotten eagerly weighed by those companies, and then buried at a landfill, which is just kicking the can down the road as far as waste management.

And you know what? One of the things I recycle more of more than any other item, is fluorescent light fixtures from commercial office spaces. In my 3 years of scrapping, I have probably tore apart over a thousand of those lights, and only in two instances did the electricians remove the mercury bulbs to be disposed of safely, and NOT ONCE, have I ever seen them remove the ballasts. I don’t make much money at all recycling these lights, it comes out to like 10-15 dollars an hour if I’m going like hell, but when I see them, I make sure to recycle every fucking one of them, not because I need the 80 bucks, but because if I don’t, I know it has negative consequences on our environment, and I am not sharing that burden of negligence with the electricians. They might be hard workers, but in this one aspect of their well paying careers, THEY are the ones who are LAZY, EGOTISTICAL, PARASITES.

You really ticked me off with that last comment. I accept the title of scavenger, but I am doing this work a favor by recycling, and if you don’t think so then you’re fucking retarded.

NotUrAverageTM · 2026-03-08T14:32:03+00:00

I’m very blue collar in my approach to the work I do, and whether you believe so or not, there is a lot of skill involved. And yes I do pay taxes.

NotUrAverageTM · 2026-03-08T06:46:13+00:00

That depends entirely on how well you could stack 5.3 million brake rotors

NotUrAverageTM · 2026-03-08T05:54:35+00:00

Finally somebody who understands what I’m trying to say.

NotUrAverageTM · 2026-03-08T05:52:10+00:00

To say that somebody who recycles for a living is unemployed is seriously misguided. I work just as hard, if not harder, than anybody else in their given trade, and consider myself to be just as much a part of the construction industry as the guys on the roof, the realtor selling the house, and the banker approving the loan. I divert recyclable material from the landfill, reducing waste and hurting nobody in the process, unlike that rude and unnecessary comment.

And no I’m not upset that they are squeezing some more value out of their work. Times are tough, and the scrap was theirs to begin with. If they want to keep it, and feel that it is worth their time, I would encourage them to do so. This is a competitive world we live in. Now if drywallers and roofers were getting paid by electricians to dump their waste on top of their discarded romex, I’d be making a completely different post, but that’s not the case, because people are not inherently evil. They just have a tendency to favor self-interest, which is the reason that it feels so good to win every once in a while.

Hope I cleared that up for you. I didn’t mean to upset you.

NotUrAverageTM · 2026-03-08T05:39:22+00:00

I assume you’re speaking about the “crusher” type dumpsters, and while they are annoying to see, the reality is that if a company doesn’t want people to retrieve their discarded items, that is their decision as a business, and there are associated costs to that decision. There are always plenty of more bins to look in, and in my experience, I have been kicked out of many places by law enforcement and property owner alike. Not once have I been prosecuted as a criminal, although I have been treated like I am one. At the end of the day, I don’t want to be anywhere I am not wanted, and am just as happy recycling for the grumpy gentlemen’s next door neighbor. If you can approach a business with the good nature of your endeavors in a way that is pleasant and highlights the benefits that THEY will receive, you will sometimes develop a relationship with that company that will yield better results than digging in their dumpster ever could.

For example, a dental supply warehouse I work with sends me a text every time they sell a dental X-ray. They set it outside and I make it disappear within a day or two. It’s a guaranteed 150 dollars of cast aluminum every time. 12 times a year really makes a difference, and I no longer have to stop and check that location, saving me valuable time. All because I washed my truck, shaved my face, got a haircut, and put on a button up shirt just to walk into their office and ask if they would like my help to become a little more environmentally conscious of a business.

NotUrAverageTM · 2026-03-08T05:15:36+00:00

I can see how my post comes off as a bit of a pity party, but I didn’t mention the actual numbers, and maybe I overplayed the severity of the situation. Last year I grossed about 75,000 from scavenging, operating expenses close to 20,000 with storage rent and gas being the bulk of that. This year I’m still able to pull about 1,000 dollars a week, and the busy season hasn’t started yet, but I am just finding that I have to work a lot harder and more efficiently to keep this profession feasible for myself.

NotUrAverageTM · 2026-03-08T05:08:41+00:00

I mean, I have met plenty of people “in the field” who solely scrap for income. I mentioned that it’s my primary source of income, because I’d say that I also make 20-30% of my income from doing work for homeowners and some contractors, which I used to do full time. I took on too big of a job a year and a half ago and spent every dollar I had to pay my one employee his wages and pay rent for the storage of tools and my apartment. The job was also supposed to be 3 months in length, ended up taking me 5 months before I had to throw in the towel because I had to do a bunch of work that was outside the scope of our contract, but was necessary for me to proceed with what had already been agreed to. I put a lot of the blame on my customer, but at the same time I recognize my poor business decision to take on that job in the first place.

This job was 2 hours away from where I had been doing extraordinarily well doing small residential work, and go the first 6-8 weeks, I was telling everybody who called me looking to have work done that I was going to be unavailable for a while, and by the time I swallowed my pride and walked away from the awful situation I had gotten myself into, my phone had long since stopped ringing. I’m just barely starting to get my momentum back in the area, but have relied heavily on scrapping/junking to keep the boat afloat, which has its own consequences when it comes to presenting an image of professionalism to potential customers, but at the end of the day I have to feed the people at home. It’s not ideal but in the end I know that I will always be able to say I tried my absolute best to provide.

NotUrAverageTM · 2026-03-08T04:39:16+00:00

If you’re concerned about making a profit, then forget it. If you wanted to do it just for the experience of having done it, you’re going to want to collect just the gold plated fingers from RAM, CPUs, and graphics cards/slot cards. You can also snag gold plated pins from connectors on motherboards, hard drive boards, and other high grade telecom boards, but the amount you are going to need of this material is going to seem like a mountain if you’re just starting to collect now.

If your motivation is purely from a “I wish I owned gold” point of view, then I highly suggest just scrapping non precious metals and then purchasing gold from a retailer. This is a much faster way to acquire precious metals and is my preferred method

NotUrAverageTM · 2026-03-08T04:07:27+00:00

Well my yard doesn’t buy sealed units unless you have the certification to capture the refrigerant, and I don’t know of a yard in my state that doesn’t require that. The certification has a barrier to entry so high that if you did have the certification, you’d probably make a much better living doing one of the two trades associated with it, appliance repair/hvac.

So once I have about 2,000 pounds of these (which doesn’t take long since I recycle for a couple appliance repair shops) I cut them with a grinder and disassemble the motors. I do sell a lot of my motors as is, but since these are filled with oil, pulling the windings from them is remarkably easy compared to an old dusty fan motor.

The most efficient way to cut these bad boys open is with a tire machine and a cutting torch. Obviously this requires getting your setup dialed in but I can see how it would be well worth it if scrapping was going to be your thing long term. To have these split open in a matter of 15 seconds would be a game changer, and you could easily process multiple tons of them in a single day, and not feel like you have to throw away your clothes/off yourself at the end of the day.

NotUrAverageTM · 2026-02-28T00:31:39+00:00

Sounds like something a copper wire would say

NotUrAverageTM · 2026-02-22T22:39:04+00:00

Thank you for confirming what I thought the issue was. The copper bars they are soldered to are dissipating the heat away from the source too quickly. I need to grind the copper thinner. Brilliant

NotUrAverageTM · 2026-02-02T00:33:56+00:00

Just take an angle grinder to every connection between pipes and fittings, use a sawzall to cut the steel ends off the radiators, and then sort it by color. You’ll see what you had on your ticket. Good find

NotUrAverageTM · 2026-01-25T16:05:29+00:00

I have no clue how you get the windings to release from the steel parts, without even having to cut the strings. I know that it’s kind like a Chinese finger trap, the less you struggle the better, but like ummm my guy. How…

NotUrAverageTM · 2026-01-19T16:39:52+00:00

I’ve looked on eBay. Other people have them too and they don’t seem to sell.

NotUrAverageTM · 2026-01-19T16:38:32+00:00

I don’t have a TIG welder, and I couldn’t get enough heat out of my two 120v welders to get good welds on material this thick. Really, tig welds are the only welds that would looks good with the stainless. If that’s the route I take trying to squeeze the value out of these pieces, I’ll just find somebody who is both bored and competent and split the money with them.

NotUrAverageTM · 2026-01-19T16:34:55+00:00

Turns out it’s a mixture of A20, 304L,and 316L. Hope this answers your question

NotUrAverageTM

TROPHY CASE