Every rewire, installation, or consumer unit swap leaves offcuts behind — cable ends, old fittings, redundant fixtures. Most electricians treat this as waste to clear up at the end of a job. Treated properly, it’s a real secondary income stream that costs you almost nothing extra to collect.
What’s actually worth keeping
- Cable offcuts — by far the most valuable, particularly once stripped
- Old consumer units and fittings — often contain recoverable copper and brass components
- Redundant cable runs pulled during a rewire — frequently the single biggest source of scrap from any one job
- Motors from old extractor fans, immersion heaters, or similar — easy to overlook but genuinely valuable
Making it a habit, not an afterthought
The electricians who make real money from this treat it as part of the job, not a separate task. A dedicated bag or bin in the van for cable and offcuts, filled as you work rather than sorted from general waste afterward, is the difference between this being genuinely profitable and being more trouble than it’s worth.
Stripping cable: worth it or not?
If you’re generating cable regularly, a basic hand stripper pays for itself quickly — bright, stripped copper sells for meaningfully more than the same cable left insulated. For occasional smaller amounts, it’s often not worth the time, and selling insulated is the more practical call.
Where the real money adds up
It’s rarely one big job that makes this worthwhile — it’s consistency. A modest amount of cable and offcuts from every job, sold regularly rather than left to accumulate indefinitely, adds up to a genuine ongoing income line over a year, not just a one-off clearout.
Where to sell it
Rather than taking whatever a single local yard offers, getting competing offers from multiple verified buyers on the same load consistently gets a better price than a take-it-or-leave-it yard visit — worth it even for smaller, regular quantities once it’s part of your routine.
Turn your offcuts into competitive offers, job after job. Request a free ScrapBays bin→