I was in HD today and noticed the 250′ rolls of Romex at $52!!!
What’s going on?
I’m going to need a bunch real soon here for our new house (3,000 sf). Do I buy now?, Wait?
Getting depressed,
Jim
I was in HD today and noticed the 250′ rolls of Romex at $52!!!
What’s going on?
I’m going to need a bunch real soon here for our new house (3,000 sf). Do I buy now?, Wait?
Getting depressed,
Jim
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Replies
Katrina. The excuse is one of the major wire companies had a factory there I think.
http://www.hay98.com/
You're going to need a couple thousand feet. I would contact a couple of electrical suppliers and see it they can do better on a spool. I routinely get stuff from my wholesalers cheaper than I would from the boxes.
Re: "I routinely get stuff from my wholesalers cheaper than I would from the boxes."Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. Worth a call. I used to work for a guy who routinely thought the supply houses gave him a better deal. It took a lot of digging, many supply houses make it hard to find out what you actually paid for any particular part, but he was surprised to find that the local big boxes were often significantly cheaper and when they were higher it was only by pennies.This differential being offset by the shop, and many jobs, being a block or two away from the big hardware stores. Saving money is great but not if your driving twenty miles in heavy traffic to save ten cents.Of course the electrical supply houses were usually more responsive on returns, deliveries and special orders or chasing down technical issues. So, to some extent, a good supply house deserves its due and a higher price is justified.IT is a buyer beware world and while I'm not sure how the time needed to identify lower prices shakes out it is increasingly a task which has to be done because no source can be easily assumed to be best when triangulating price, location and service.
The problem I find with the big boxes is that they tend to run out of stuff, and not notice or care. Especially if it's something a little unusual, say a 4 gang box. They also tend only to stock the low end stuff, like HomeLite instead of QO.
-- J.S.
Agreed.They can run out of stuff, and really basic materials at that, at the worse times and I may never understand why anyone would countenance using Homeline instead of the rugged and proven QO line. Saving money that way is IMHO very short sighted.A trick at the big box its to get to know the contractor sales guy. Such establishments are set up as cash and carry but the prices are less chiseled in stone than most think. Managers can ofter get you a 5 to 10% discount just for asking. Also pays to be on the concerned manager's good side.Not to say the big boxes are great all, or even most, of the time but, like anything else, they have their place.
Believe it or not, it's the sheathing on the cable, not the copper that's driving the cost up. There were several plants down south that manufacture cable sheathing and PVC using petroleum products, and they were affected by the hurricanes. That's why romex and other clad wire is going up, as is PVC piping (it was virtually non-existent up her for a short while), while copper pipe prices aren't moving much.
Bob
I heard that too. Good thinkin' putting all the refineries in the same place.
I'm sorry but I am never amazed at this sort of nickel and dime material pricing BS.
If you need 20 rolls 250' what are we talking???? a thousand bucks?? At what price would you be jumping for joy at the savings??? If it were 25 bucks a roll... gee you'd be saving a whopping $500.00, which over the life of a mortgage tells me you should have built when rates were lower and not worry about the price of copper or sheathing.
My advice on wether to buy now or wait... is wait. Call 5 suppliers everyday for the next 2 weeks. Drive to every big box within a 30 mile radius and compare prices every other day. Only when you have wasted hundreds of hours to save coffee money for a month will you be happy. And if this is a problem now at rough wiring make reservations at the local looney bin... you'll need it. ;-)
The price of copper in the metals exchange market has about doubled over the past two years ( 1,779 US dollars per ton in 2003 to 3,328 dollars per ton in the first half of this year). This has been attributed in large part to China's booming economy. Recently, the price dipped a bit, but at the moment, things are a little dicey because one of the top metal speculators for China short sold 120,000 tons of copper on the market and China is now having to make that up. (The speculator has reportedly not been heard from recently...) China reportedly is trying to cool things down but there is no guarantee that things will cool off very much in the near term. For further reading:
http://www.chinanews.cn/news/2005/2005-12-03/15248.html
I took a look at the link. Pretty funny stuff, state controlled propaganda at its silliest.
The Chinese government trying to drive down Cu prices through auctions. They failed to sell everything in the second one (for one simple & obvious reason, minimum asking price too high) so what do they do? They decide to have a third auction.
A couple quotes:
"To show its determination to bring down the prices of copper, China's State Reserves Bureau (SRB), which manages strategic metals, announced it would sell another 20,000 tons of copper on Dec. 7..." which didn't help, on Dec 8, Cu prices in NY reached another all-time high.
The best one:
"But prices kept rising, exposing the government to losses of hundreds of dollars when the contracts fall due on Dec. 21. " Yeah that's a lot of money.
Its CU's fault...nahhhh, its Sphere's
The secret of Zen in two words is, "Not always so"!
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The raw commodity is at an all-time high, closed today at $2.03 / lb on the Nymex. It's been going up like crazy for the past year due to global demand, picked up pace lately due to speculation.
It is possible that it may come down a bit (again, I'm talking the raw commodity) but not by much, because demand sure isn't coming down. The cost to produce the metal is going up (very energy/oil intensive process to extract and refine it), & many of the foreign governments where Cu is produced are beginning to get tough with the mining companies (permiting process, fining them for alleged pollution...)
The cost to turn Cu into wires/cable is also going up, due again to the high cost of oil (and its derivatives used to make the insulation), and to ship the goods (Cu is very heavy).
This is probably more than you wanted to know. The short answer is: Not sure waiting is gonna solve your problem, get used to it.
I cant believe it either. I just wired a small house (used about 1300'). Almost fell over when it came time to buy the wire. The best part was the $76 dollar roll of 12/3.
I should've just bought a 1000' roll, might have been a little cheaper.
Caught a story on the local news last month about Kennecott expanding the size of their Bingham Canyon mine due to China's expanding economy pushing the price of copper ever higher.
buy now ... for everything.
both my plumber and electrician have said their prices for materials have pretty much doubled for everything with in the last year ... and some things have tripled.
plumber/hvac guy said big price changes for A/C units as of the last coupla months too. And furnaces are gonna go up too.
China ... Hurricanes ... Oil ... everything is making everything cost more!
plan ahead and buy it now.
Jeff
Buck Construction
Artistry In Carpentry
Pittsburgh Pa
Where I live no.one scrap is close to $1.35 a pound, when it climbs this high you can bet the costs of new products will reflect the increase. We have two wars going on, the military uses unbelievable amounts of copper. I do plumbing for a living, the supply house will only give me a quote thats good for two weeks. It looks like it may keep going up. I can't advise about buying now or latter, thats a hard call. Luck.
The best I can piece out from the news is that a rogue metals trader for the Chinese government built up a huge short position in copper. He was expecting the price to go down. Instead the price went up. Now the Chinese government has to deliver the metal at the contract price. They are currently out at least $200,000,000 at prices a week ago. The trader has since disappeared. The Chinese are trying to drive down the price of copper by releasing it from their strategic reserve so that they don't lose so much money.
Erich
Re: "They are currently out at least $200,000,000 at prices a week ago."Sometimes things just don't work out. Did you see the one about the Japanese stock trader punched the numbers in the wrong places on a form and cost the company $225.000.000. Word is he wasn't fired.http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051209/ap_on_bi_ge/japan_botched_tradeSeems, on the face of it, the Chinese might have less a sense of humor. Still the Japanese trader might be wise to be very careful crossing the street. Accidents happen.
Pick up acopy of the Wall Street Journal and notice the prices for the raw material compared to four years ago
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