Aluminium Doors and Windows: Clean Extrusion or Irony, and the $19 Question

An aluminium window frame or storm door is clean extrusion once the glass, steel screws and rubber are out, and irony aluminium if they are not. That distinction is the whole job: clean extrusion sits at the top of the aluminium board at about $0.85 a pound today, while irony aluminium pays a fraction of it. A single steel screw left in a bin can move the entire load down a grade.

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.

A typical storm door holds around 22 pounds of aluminium, worth roughly $19. Whether you actually receive that depends on twenty minutes with a screwdriver and a pair of pliers.

The grades you are choosing between

Published market commentary puts painted extrusion at a discount to bare metal because smelters burn coatings off, which produces emissions and reduces yield. Yard price lists commonly show clean extrusion around the top of the aluminium range and structural 6061 in a similar band.

What actually comes out of a door or window

Break one down and it is four or five separate materials, not one.

• The frame: clean or painted extrusion once stripped. This is the value.
• The glass: removed, and most yards insist on it. Some accept units with glass in and pay accordingly.
• Steel screws, hinges and corner keys: cut or punch them out. Leaving them is what creates irony aluminium.
• Rubber spline, felt and thermal breaks: pulled out with pliers. Thermal breaks are a plastic or polyamide strip inside the profile and high-volume operators shear them out to keep the clean grade.
• The slide mechanism and handles: usually die-cast, a separate lower grade.
• Insect screen: aluminium mesh is a low grade and fibreglass mesh is waste. Neither repays much effort.

Is it worth the labour

Honestly, on one door, marginally. The experienced view among scrappers is that storm doors are a lot of work for what you get, and the arithmetic supports that.

At roughly 22 pounds of aluminium and $0.85 a pound, a stripped door is about $19. Left whole with the glass and screws in, it drops toward the irony grade and you have carried the glass for nothing.

Where it changes is volume. A replacement job with ten windows and two doors is a few hundred pounds of extrusion, and at that point the twenty minutes per unit is the best-paid work in the whole clear-out. Renovation and glazing contractors are sitting on this material constantly, which is one of the permissioned sources we cover in where scrap metal comes from.

The order that works

1. Take the glass out first, or ask your yard whether it accepts frames with glass. Hold the unit over a container if you are breaking it, and wear eye protection and gloves.
2. Pull the rubber spline with pliers and remove any screen.
3. Punch or cut the steel screws and corner keys out.
4. Pry out the die-cast slide mechanism and handles into their own pile.
5. Shear or pull the thermal break strip if the profile has one.
6. Flatten or bend the frames to fit a container, and keep them separate from cans.

Our aluminium grades guide sets out the full ladder from wire and extrusion down to cast and irony, and the preparation guide covers the cutting.

The magnet test, before you load

Run a magnet over the finished pile. If it sticks anywhere, there is steel left, and that is the difference between the top grade and the bottom one.

This matters more at volume than most people expect. Trade commentary describes a single steel bolt in a thousand-pound bin as enough to move the whole load from a clean price to a dirty one, which is the reason yards grade the bin rather than the piece.

Common mistakes

• Bringing frames with the glass still in when the yard requires it out.
• Leaving corner screws in and losing the clean grade on the whole load.
• Mixing die-cast handles and slide mechanisms into the extrusion pile.
• Putting window frames in with cans, which yards want kept separate.
• Bothering with fibreglass screen mesh, which is waste rather than scrap.
• Assuming anodised or painted frames are worthless. They are a step down, not a write-off.

Key numbers

• Clean aluminium extrusion sits at $0.85 a pound on our board today; a typical storm door holds around 22 pounds, or roughly $19 (Scrap Price Today series).
• A typical aluminium window frame holds about 25 pounds, or roughly $21.
• Painted and coated extrusion trades at a discount to bare metal because coatings burn off as dross and reduce yield (published market commentary).
• Irony aluminium, meaning anything with steel attached, pays a fraction of the clean grade.
• Recycling aluminium uses about 95 percent less energy than primary production (The Aluminum Association).
• Grade definitions for extrusion, cast and irony aluminium are published by the Recycled Materials Association.

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.

How we produced this

Weights are typical figures for residential units and vary considerably with size, profile thickness and whether a door is a light builder's model or a heavy extruded one with a thermal break. Weigh your own before deciding whether the work is worth it.

Prices are our current aluminium board grade, documented on the editorial policy page, with live figures on the board and a weight converter at the calculator. Grade descriptions follow published specifications and yard practice; individual yards name grades slightly differently, so ask which line your material will be booked under before you strip anything.