Bexar County ยท Universal City
We buy surplus wire in Universal City.
Universal City was largely built in the 1960s, and its original services, panels and feeder are now being replaced house by house and strip centre by strip centre.
Call or text the buying desk954-740-1983
CountyBexar
What we see mostService cable and feeder
Typical lotTruck bed to one pallet
AccessDriveway or rear alley
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 · Universal City
Reviewed by a buyerTell us what you have and where it sits. Nothing is moved until written lot terms are agreed.
The housing stock along Pat Booker Road and the streets behind it went up in one long push, which means it is failing in one long push too. Aluminum branch circuits, small service panels, and feeders sized for air conditioning that did not exist when the slab was poured. Electricians working these blocks pull the same material out week after week.
Randolph sits alongside, so there is a second building type close by: commercial property that serves the base population, from shops and offices to the service bays behind them. Between the two, most of what we buy here is service entrance cable, feeder and the small-gauge building wire that comes out of a rewire.
01
A 1960s rewire produces a predictable list
Open a wall in a house of this vintage and you find two-wire circuits, cloth or early plastic insulation, and a panel that has been added to three times. The rewire replaces all of it, and the old conductor comes out in short, tangled pulls that are honest scrap rather than cable.
The new material is where the value sits. A rewire job rarely uses a full reel, so what returns to the shop is partial 12/2 and 14/2, a coil of 10/3 for a dryer or a range, and the tail of a service reel.
- SER and SEU service entrance, 2/0 to 4/0 aluminium
- 12/2 and 14/2 NM-B, banded or loose
- 10/3 and 6/3 for ranges, dryers and subpanels
- Old two-wire branch conductor, as scrap
- Mast, weatherhead and meter-base conductor
02
Pat Booker Road commercial and base-adjacent trade
The commercial strip serving Randolph runs on three-phase service and a lot of it is original. When a tenant takes a bay and refits it, the service gets upgraded, the panel gets replaced, and the feeder between them is pulled out or abandoned in place.
Feeder is the prize in those jobs. Copper 1/0 to 350 kcmil, aluminium 250 to 500 kcmil, often with a good length left on the reel because nobody orders the exact footage. That reel is what we want to hear about.
03
What makes a small service lot worth collecting
Service cable is valued on conductor size, insulation type and length, and length is the argument. A 40-foot tail of 4/0 SER is a real asset. Four six-foot tails are close to scrap, so coil each length separately and label it with a tag or a piece of tape.
Aluminium service cable from this era is common and is priced as aluminium, which is a different number from copper. Neither is a problem; mixed reels with no marking are.
- Conductor size and metal, marked on each length
- Number of conductors and whether a neutral is included
- Length of each tail, measured rather than guessed
- Insulation type, and whether it is rated for wet locations
- Whether the reel is sound enough to travel on a truck
04
Driveways, carports and narrow streets
Most of Universal City loads from a driveway. That is fine for a pickup or a box truck, and it is the usual way we work here. The constraint is turning space and overhead lines, not dock height.
If the reels are in a back yard behind a gate, say so before the truck is sent. We can carry reels out by hand for a modest lot, but a 4-foot reel of feeder on a full barrel is a two-person job and a long carry.
| Material | Typical sizes | Shape it arrives in |
|---|---|---|
| Service entrance cable | 2/0 to 4/0 SER, SEU | Tails, partial reels |
| Building wire | 14 AWG to 6 AWG THHN, NM-B | Coils, part rolls |
| Panel feeder | 1/0 to 350 kcmil copper | Reel, pulled lengths |
| Aluminium feeder | 250 to 500 kcmil | Reel, cut lengths |
| Old branch conductor | 12 AWG and 10 AWG, 2-wire | Bundled scrap |
Questions
Answers before you send anything.
If your question is not here, call the desk. A buyer answers, not a call centre.
Is old 1960s branch wiring worth anything beyond scrap?
Mostly no, and that is the honest answer. Cloth or brittle insulation, short tangled pulls and mixed gauges do not read as cable. It still has metal value, and it can travel with a better lot rather than on its own.
Do you buy from a homeowner clearing out a garage?
Yes, if there is enough of it. A single coil of 12/2 is not a pickup, but a garage holding a service reel, a coil of pump wire and a box of offcuts from a rewire is a legitimate small lot, and it can be quoted from photographs.
What about cable still stapled inside a wall?
We do not take cable out of a building. Your crew does the removal, and we buy what is on the ground, on the pallet or in the truck bed. That keeps the work with the people licensed and insured to do it.
Can you pick up behind a shop on Pat Booker Road during business hours?
Yes, in a window that keeps the lot clear for customers. Rear alleys and service bays are usually the easiest approach. Give us the cross street and whether a trailer can get in without blocking the drive-through.
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