Guides · Ten briefs
How to prepare a wire lot before you call.
Most of the work happens before a buyer sees the material. These guides cover the parts a seller controls: identification, measurement, photographs and access.
Request a quote
Request a wire quote
If the lot is already documented, send it. If not, start with the guide that matches the gap.
- Reviewed by a buyer, not a scale
- Reels, pallets, partials or a full truckload
- Anywhere in Ohio, one desk
- 01Send the wire type, quantity and pickup city.
- 02A buyer reviews the lot and replies with a basis.
- 03Freight and release are agreed, then the load is booked.
Lot details
Everything helps, but the wire type, the quantity and the pickup city are enough to start.
The ten guides
Start with reading a reel tag if the material is still identified, or with separating reusable cable from scrap if it is not. Those two decide whether a lot is inventory or recovery, and everything else follows from that answer.
The rest cover measurement, metal value, manifests, photographs, medium voltage safety, storage, loading and the six questions a buyer asks first.
Why preparation changes the number
A tagged reel with documented footage and a clean jacket is reviewed on its merits. The same reel with a faded tag, no footage and water staining is reviewed as an unknown, and unknowns are priced conservatively because the risk sits with the buyer.
None of the preparation is technical. It is a photograph, a measurement and a sentence about where the cable has been stored. That is the whole difference between a lot that gets an offer basis and a lot that gets a list of questions.
What the guides do not cover
They do not price anything. Metal markets move, freight moves, and a guide written today would be wrong next month if it quoted a number. They also do not replace the plant's own safety procedure for isolation, removal or lifting, which always takes precedence over anything written here.
What they do is get the facts onto one page so the commercial conversation can start with the material rather than with a list of missing details.
Using a guide with the form
The quote form asks for seven facts and a set of notes. If a guide tells you to record something the form does not ask for, put it in the notes: whether the tag is legible, whether the reel has been outside, whether the cable was cut before or after it was de-energised.
That is usually the difference between a review that ends in an offer basis and one that ends in a request for photographs. Both are normal, but the first is faster.
Related pages
Adjacent cities, wire families and regional briefs.
Questions sellers ask
Do I need to test the cable before selling?
Not for building wire. For medium voltage and other shielded cable, any test history helps, and a lot without it is still reviewed but with condition treated as unknown.
Can a guide replace a conversation?
No. The guides make the conversation shorter by getting the facts onto one page. A buyer still has to look at the material and agree terms for the specific lot.
Put the preparation to use
Send the facts you have and name the ones you do not. A buyer will tell you which missing detail actually matters for that lot.
Request a quote
Send the lot details
Use the notes box for anything the guides told you to record: tag condition, storage, removal method.
- Reviewed by a buyer, not a scale
- Reels, pallets, partials or a full truckload
- Anywhere in Ohio, one desk
- 01Send the wire type, quantity and pickup city.
- 02A buyer reviews the lot and replies with a basis.
- 03Freight and release are agreed, then the load is booked.
Second look at the lot
Everything helps, but the wire type, the quantity and the pickup city are enough to start.