Electric Motors and Compressors: Four Questions That Decide the Price

A whole electric motor is bought at around $0.20 to $0.45 a pound depending on grade, and a sealed appliance compressor at roughly $0.18 to $0.30. Both look cheap next to copper at $5.79, and both are still worth carrying, because a motor is about 2.6 times the price of light iron for the same weight. The reason the gap is so wide is that around 90 percent of a motor's mass is steel, and the yard is paying you for copper it cannot see.

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.

What follows is not a price list. It is the four questions that decide which bucket your motor lands in, because the difference between the top and bottom bucket is roughly five to one.

Question one: copper or aluminium windings?

This is the single biggest price determinant and it takes ten seconds to answer.

Scratch the windings with a screwdriver or a file. Copper shows copper underneath. If it shines silver, it is an aluminium motor, and it belongs in a different pile.

Published yard rates put copper motors at a national average near $0.34 a pound, with dock prices commonly $0.30 to $0.45. Aluminium and dirty motors sit around $0.09 to $0.22. Trying to slip an aluminium motor into a copper bin does not work and risks the whole bin being downgraded.

Question two: what is the yard actually paying for the copper?

Here is the calculation almost nobody does, and it makes every quote easier to judge.

A motor is roughly 90 percent steel by weight. Subtract what that steel is worth at light iron rates, and whatever is left is what the yard is paying for the contained copper. Divide by the copper content and you get an implied price per pound of copper.

That is at the $0.34 average rate for copper motors, against our copper board of $5.79 a pound.

So the yard is paying you somewhere between a fifth and a half of the copper price for metal that is welded inside a steel shell and has to be sheared out. Once you see it that way, the rate stops looking like a swindle and starts looking like a processing charge, which is what it is.

Question three: whole or opened?

Leave it whole. This is the rare case where the published advice from yards and the arithmetic agree completely.

A residential sealed compressor of about 45 pounds contains roughly three to five pounds of copper. At our board that copper is worth $17 to $29, and sold whole at $0.24 a pound the compressor pays about $10.80. The gap looks tempting until you price the work.

Cutting a sealed steel dome open with an angle grinder is slow, the shell is thick, and the windings come out contaminated with oil, solder and enamel. That copper grades as number 2 rather than number 1, so you do not receive the clean price you were imagining. Yard guidance is blunt about it: do not waste your time.

The exception is a large open-frame industrial motor where the windings are accessible and the volume justifies a proper puller. That is a business, not an afternoon.

Question four: is it actually a special motor?

Most are not. A few are worth several times the standard rate, and knowing the difference is the last piece.

High-efficiency electronically commutated motors used in modern heating and cooling equipment carry both dense copper and rare earth magnets. One specialist buyer publishes up to $1.10 a pound for them, against $0.15 to $0.30 for a generic permanent split capacitor motor. That is roughly five times the price for something that looks similar on a shelf.

General yards frequently do not distinguish. The same buyer notes that mixed heating and cooling scrap sold to a general yard might bring $0.08 to $0.15 a pound, while the same material sorted and graded yields $0.20 to $0.50 blended.

If you handle this material regularly, that difference is the whole business case for finding a specialist rather than the nearest gate.

Where each grade sits, relative to plain steel

Relative pricing is more durable than absolute pricing, so this is the version worth remembering.

• Copper electric motors: about 2.6 times light iron at the national average, up to 3.4 times at the top of the range.
• Automotive air conditioning compressors: about 2.2 times light iron.
• Sealed appliance compressors: about 1.8 times.
• General mixed motors at a non-specialist yard: about 1.5 times.
• Aluminium and dirty motors: about 1.1 times.
• Aluminium and steel transformers: slightly below light iron in some listings.

Everything in that list beats putting the item in with the shredder steel, which is what happens by default if you do not separate it.

The mistakes that cost the most

Mixing categories is the expensive one. Tossing automotive alternators in with clean copper motors invites the buyer to price the whole bin at the lowest common denominator, and published commentary puts that at roughly twelve cents a pound of lost value across the bin.

Leaving attached junk is the second. Pulleys, heavy mounting brackets and gearboxes are weight the yard is not paying a motor rate for, and their presence can move the grade down. Cut them off.

The third is quieter: not asking which grade your motors will be booked under before you tip them out. Once they are in the bin, the conversation is over.

Where this fits

Motors and compressors are the reason appliances are worth more than their steel. Our page on recycling appliances covers what to pull from each machine, and where the copper hides gives published copper content per appliance so you can estimate before you start.

For cooling equipment specifically, refrigerant must be recovered by a certified technician before any of this, which is covered on our fluids page.

Method, and what these numbers are not

The rate ranges are taken from published yard and specialist buyer listings rather than from our own series, because we do not publish a motor grade. Light iron and copper prices are our own daily board, documented on the editorial policy page, with live figures on the board.

The implied copper calculation assumes 90 percent steel by weight and prices that portion at light iron. Real motors vary from that, and the copper content assumptions in the table are a range rather than a measurement of your motor. The point of the table is the shape, not the decimal: whole motors are priced at a substantial discount to contained copper, and that discount is the shearing.

We do not buy motors or take referral fees, and the specialist rates quoted are that buyer's published figures rather than a recommendation.

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.