Wire Types ยท AC / BX
We buy AC and BX cable.
Old BX comes out of a 1940s house in dusty coils with the armour twisted and the copper still bright. It is one of the few cable lots where the metal inside outranks the jacket.
Call or text the buying desk954-740-1983
ArmourSteel, interlocked
Bonding stripAluminum, inside
Typical gauge14/2 and 12/2
Where it comes fromOlder housing stock
Get a buy quote
Send the reel list. A buyer reads it.
Six details are enough to start. Tags and photos can follow by text or email once a buyer has looked at the basics.
- A buyer reviews the lot: construction, footage and condition, not only metal weight
- Copper and aluminium, 600 V building wire through 345 kV cable
- Full reels, partial reels, cut lengths, pallets and truckloads
- No fee, no obligation, and no automatic pickup
Reel list · AC / BX
Reviewed by a buyerTell us what you have and where it sits. Nothing is moved until written lot terms are agreed.
Armoured cable with an internal bonding strip wired most of San Antonio's older housing stock. Alamo Heights and the blocks near downtown are full of it, and so are the historic quarters around Fort Sam Houston. A rewire there means a truck bed of short, dusty pieces nobody wants to coil twice.
That is the lot we buy. It is small conductor, usually 14/2 and 12/2, and it is almost always short. It is also nearly all copper, with very little insulation mass compared to modern cable, so a bucket of it weighs more in metal than its size suggests.
01
Where armoured cable still runs here
Any building wired before non-metallic sheath took over will have AC in the walls. That means older residential blocks, the small commercial buildings that grew out of them, and the historic quarters on post. It also means schools and parish buildings from the same era, where a panel upgrade exposes runs that have sat in one stud bay for two generations.
- Homes rewired with AC in the mid-century decades
- Historic quarters and administrative buildings on post
- Small commercial buildings along older strips
- Church, school and hall buildings of the same era
- Additions where old AC meets new work at a junction
02
The bonding strip, and telling AC from BX
Modern AC carries a flat aluminum bonding strip in contact with the armour, which is what makes the armour an acceptable ground path. Older BX often has no strip, or a thin one that has corroded away, and the armour alone was never reliable. That difference matters to an installer and almost none to a buyer pricing metal.
For valuation the useful question is simpler: how much copper is in the piece, and is it bright. Old rubber and cloth insulation falls away as the cable is handled, which is fine for recovery and bad for anyone hoping to reuse the cable in a wall.
03
What a rewire puts in the truck
A residential rewire produces armoured cable in lengths measured in feet, not hundreds of feet, because it was installed between boxes. Pieces come out with connectors still on the ends, staples through the armour and plaster dust in every interlock gap. There is no tag, and there never was one.
- Two and three foot pieces between boxes
- Longer home runs from panel to first device
- Armour with connectors and staples attached
- Mixed 14 and 12 gauge in one bucket
- Bare grounding conductor run alongside
04
Steel armour, weight and the copper inside
Steel armour is heavy and worth almost nothing. A pallet of BX weighs like feeder and pays like a bucket of mixed metal, so the honest method is to strip a representative length, weigh the copper and scale it across the lot.
We do exactly that with old armoured cable, because there is no footage print to read and the pieces are all different lengths. It also answers quickly whether a lot is worth moving, which is fairer than quoting a number and withdrawing it at the dock.
| Product | Sizes | How we take it |
|---|---|---|
| AC with bonding strip | 14/2, 12/2, 10/2 | Coil, bundle, boxed |
| Older BX without strip | 14/2 to 10/3 | By weight of copper |
| AC branch with ground | 12/2 and 12/3 | Coil or loose length |
| Armour with crushed interlock | Any | Sorted recovery |
| Connectors and fittings | Steel and die-cast | Separate box |
Questions
Answers before you send anything.
If your question is not here, call the desk. A buyer answers, not a call centre.
Is old BX worth anything at all?
It is worth the copper inside, and old BX is mostly copper by weight because the insulation is thin. What it is not worth is a trip for one bucket. Collect the rewire into a single pile, keep the fittings out, and it becomes a lot.
Can the old cable be reused instead of scrapped?
Rarely. Cloth and rubber insulation from that era is brittle and the armour is usually deformed where it was stapled, so no electrician will put it back in a wall. It is a conductor lot rather than a cable lot.
How is armoured cable measured without a footage tag?
By weight and by sample. We strip a length, weigh the copper and identify the gauge inside, then scale that ratio across the lot. The estimate is close enough to quote against, with the final figure set when the lot is weighed.
Do you want the boxes and connectors too?
Keep them in a separate container and we will look at them. Steel and die-cast fittings are a different material stream, and mixing them slows the lot down. A bucket of fittings beside a bucket of cable is easy to price.
Keep reading
Related pages
No fee · no obligation
You have the cable. We have a scale and a check.
Send the reel list, the tags or a photograph of the pallet. A buyer comes back with what the lot is worth and how pickup would work, before anything is moved.
954-740-1983 Call or text
- Reel tags, or the print on the jacket
- Reel count and footage, even roughly
- Where it sits and what can reach it
- Whether the cable is still energised