>I will note that insulated copper house wire is actually cheaper than
>bare copper "ground" wire, so it seems as if the insulation
>is dirt cheap to put on. Or it may be an accounting anomaly.
>
It is unlikely that the manufacturing plant that draws bare wire from bulk
copper ingots is the same one that covers the wire with plastic insulation.
In 1974 I purchased the 16,000 ft of #12 bare copper wire that I used for my
radial system. At the time I shared an apartment with some other people,
and one of my apt mates' father owned a manufacturing business in RI, where
they manufactured all kinds of insulated house wire. He sold me the wire,
wound on large wooden spools, at his cost, which was the current market
price of copper plus "drawing charge." The drawing charge is what the wire
manufacturer charged for converting raw copper into softdrawn wire. The
manufacturing plant in RI bought the bare wire of all gauges in large
quantities from the wire manufacturer, and they produced the house wiring by
putting the appropiate plastic insulation on it, and in the case of romex
type cable, bundling the insulated wires into the familiar cable with the
outer jacket.
So the retailer should have been able to obtain bare wire at substantially
less cost than what they would have to pay for the same size wire with
insulation added. Someone somewhere in the middle is making a tidy profit
from storing bare wire in a warehouse, because they are selling it at a
markup that exceeds what they are paying to have that same wire covered with
insulation.
Don k4kyv
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