Electric motors — from appliances, tools, HVAC systems, and industrial equipment — are one of the more overlooked sources of valuable scrap, largely because what’s actually inside them isn’t obvious from the outside.
What’s inside a typical motor
- Copper windings — the coiled copper wire around the motor’s core, often the single most valuable component
- Steel or iron casing — the outer housing, generally lower-value ferrous material
- Aluminium components — in some motors, particularly end brackets or certain housings
- Small amounts of other metals — depending on motor type and age
Why buyers value motors differently
Because motors are a mix of materials rather than a single clean metal, buyers typically price them as “mixed” unless the copper winding has been extracted separately. A motor sold whole is priced lower per kilo than the equivalent weight of stripped copper winding alone — but strip-out takes time and tools most sellers don’t have on-site.
Whole vs. stripped: which is worth it?
For occasional or small quantities, selling motors whole is usually the practical choice — the time cost of stripping rarely outweighs the price difference for a handful of units. For sellers regularly generating larger volumes of motors, it’s worth working out whether stripping copper windings separately is worth the labour, since the value difference compounds at scale.
What to look out for
Larger industrial motors and older equipment often contain more recoverable copper relative to their size than small modern appliance motors, which increasingly use less copper-intensive designs. Weight alone isn’t always a reliable guide to value — motor type and age matter too.
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