An average single-family home contains about 439 pounds of copper, according to the Copper Development Association: 195 pounds in building wire, 151 in plumbing tube and fittings, 47 in built-in appliances and the rest in brass goods and hardware. At today’s board that is roughly $2,555 if every pound were recovered as bare copper, and closer to $1,850 once wire is priced as insulated rather than stripped.
Scrap Price Today market analysis, written from exchange settlement data, mill and refiner pricing practice and published policy documents. Figures are examples; today’s numbers are on the live scrap price board.
Nobody is stripping their own house. The point of those figures is proportion: they tell you where copper concentrates, which is what decides where to spend an hour on a clearance or a demolition job.
Where the copper sits in a building
| Building wire | Plumbing tube and fittings | Built-in appliances | Brass goods | Hardware | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Measurement | Pounds of copper in an average single-family home, and value at today’s grades | Same | Same | Same | Same |
| Single-family home | 195 lb | 151 lb | 47 lb | 24 lb | 12 lb |
| Multifamily unit | 125 lb | 82 lb | 38 lb | 20 lb | 6 lb |
| Value if recovered bare | About $1,135 | About $879 | About $274 | About $86 at brass | About $43 at brass |
| Realistic grade | Insulated wire unless stripped | Number 1 or number 2 depending on solder | Mixed, motors sold whole | Brass | Brass |
| Effort to recover | High, behind walls | Moderate on a strip-out | Low per item | Low | Low |
Two lines carry nearly 80 percent of the copper in a house. That is the whole map: wire and plumbing, then everything else.
What each appliance actually holds
These are the association’s published figures for copper content by appliance, priced at today’s clean copper level.
- Central air conditioning unit: 52 lb, about $303.
- Heat pump: 48 lb, about $279.
- Dishwasher: 5.0 lb, about $29.
- Refrigerator or freezer: 4.8 lb, about $28.
- Clothes washer: 4.4 lb, about $26.
- Dehumidifier: 2.7 lb, about $16.
- Waste disposer: 2.3 lb, about $13.
- Clothes dryer: 2.0 lb, about $12.
- Cooking range: 1.3 lb, about $8.
The air conditioner and heat pump are in a different league, holding more copper than every other appliance in the house combined. That is why HVAC is the grade that matters in hot-climate markets, and why our Phoenix and Miami pages both single out coils and compressors.
Note also how little is in a dryer or a range. A van filled with white goods that are not cooling appliances is mostly light steel with a motor in each, and it should be valued that way.
Air conditioning, in more detail
A complete residential split system typically holds 10 to 20 pounds of copper, with the outdoor condensing unit alone at 5 to 15 pounds in coils, refrigerant lines and motor windings. Commercial units can exceed 50 pounds.
The variable that catches people out is the coil. An all-aluminium coil unit may hold only 3 to 5 pounds of copper, mostly in the compressor windings and wiring, against 8 to 12 pounds in a copper-coil equivalent. Check the coil before valuing the unit.
Compressor copper generally grades as number 2 because of oil, solder and enamel on the magnet wire, and cleaning it to number 1 rarely repays the labour. Refrigerant must be recovered by a certified technician before any of this, as our preparation guide sets out.
Motors, and the rule of thumb worth knowing
Experienced dismantlers use roughly one pound of copper per horsepower as a working estimate for electric motors, and published figures broadly support it: around 8 to 15 pounds for a 10 horsepower motor, and 150 to 250 pounds for a 200 horsepower industrial motor.
At today’s copper price that puts a 10 horsepower motor at roughly $58 of contained copper and a 200 horsepower motor well over $1,000. Yards buy motors whole by weight rather than for the copper, so the rule is a valuation check rather than an instruction to cut them open.
It also explains why farm, workshop and plant clearances outperform household ones. One large motor holds more copper than every appliance in a typical kitchen.
Vehicles
Dismantlers commonly estimate around 50 pounds of copper in a conventional car once the harness, alternator, starter, window, seat, mirror and blower motors are added together, worth roughly $291 as bare copper.
Most of that is insulated or inside motors, so the realistic recovery is lower, and the full vehicle arithmetic is in our analysis of what a junk car is worth.
What this changes about how you work
- On a house clearance, the copper is in the walls and under the floor. If you are not doing the strip-out, the appliances are the accessible portion and the cooling ones are the only large ones.
- On any job, find the air conditioning first.
- Value motors by horsepower before deciding whether to carry them.
- Do not judge a house by its size. An older property with copper plumbing throughout holds far more than a newer one plumbed in plastic.
- Farm and industrial clearances beat domestic ones for the same hours worked.
Key numbers
- An average single-family home contains about 439 pounds of copper; a multifamily unit about 278 pounds (Copper Development Association).
- Building wire and plumbing account for roughly 346 of those 439 pounds, or nearly 80 percent.
- A unitary air conditioner holds about 52 pounds of copper and a heat pump 48, more than all other household appliances combined (same source).
- All-aluminium coil condensing units may hold only 3 to 5 pounds of copper against 8 to 12 in copper-coil equivalents (HVAC trade figures).
- Electric motors run at roughly one pound of copper per horsepower as a working estimate.
- At today’s board of $5.82 a pound, the copper in an average home is worth about $2,555 as bare metal and about $1,850 valued at realistic grades.
What this metal pays around the world
Scrap is a global market priced in US dollars, but what reaches a seller depends on trade position, freight to the nearest consumer and how many buyers compete locally. The table below converts the same grade into each market’s own currency and units at the day’s exchange rate, and shows the factor we apply.
| Market | Local price | USD per lb | Market factor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Turkey | ₺645.55 / kg | $6.04 | 1.04 |
| Germany | €11.25 / kg | $5.93 | 1.02 |
| United States | $5.81 / lb | $5.81 | 1.00 |
| China | CN¥84.35 / kg | $5.69 | 0.98 |
| Canada | C$7.79 / lb | $5.64 | 0.97 |
| United Kingdom | £9.10 / kg | $5.58 | 0.96 |
| Australia | A$16.89 / kg | $5.52 | 0.95 |
| United Arab Emirates | AED44.69 / kg | $5.52 | 0.95 |
| Saudi Arabia | SAR44.67 / kg | $5.40 | 0.93 |
| India | ₹1,114 / kg | $5.35 | 0.92 |
| Bangladesh | ৳1,386 / kg | $5.11 | 0.88 |
| South Africa | R173.74 / kg | $4.94 | 0.85 |
How we produced this
The copper content figures are published by the Copper Development Association and by HVAC trade sources, and are named in the text. They are averages across a housing stock, not measurements of any particular building, and they will overstate a modern home plumbed in plastic and understate an older one.
The values are those weights multiplied by our current board grades, documented on the editorial policy page. The bare copper figure assumes complete recovery to a clean grade, which no real strip-out achieves; the realistic figure prices wire as insulated and brass goods as brass, which is closer to what a yard ticket looks like.
Live prices are on the board and the calculator converts your own weights. Nothing here is an instruction to remove material from a building you do not own, and the sourcing rules are covered in where scrap metal comes from.