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Putting Scrap Copper To Good Use
Last weekend marked the third anniversary of us moving in. During that time I've removed a fair amount of copper. Mainly because there was too much of it in the first place.
Most of it was taken away by the plumber who put the new boiler in. I thought he was doing me a favour at first until I realised the price of scrap copper had sky-rocketed recently.
Resisting the temptation to weigh-in the rest of the copper that came out I kept it all stored in the cellar. The plan was always that I'd create an arbour for the garden. This was always wishful thinking and I should have known I'd never have the time to. Luckily dad (retired) - who has all the time in the world - stepped in and did a much better job than I ever could have done.
As you can see from below it forms a gateway between the pond/lawn area and the path, which leads down to the bottom of the garden and the gazebo we added last summer.
Here's looking through the arbour, back to the house, from the top of the garden path.
I'd like to share more technical details of its construction but I didn't make it so I can't. It's about 7' tall and 4' wide. It's made up of about 6 pieces joined by many cross-pieces. The top of each was shaped around mum and dad's garden table, apparently.
So, before you go throwing away old copper just remember what you can do with it.
Well done and thank you dad!
August 7, 2007 in Plumbing | Permalink
Comments
Holy cow - what a nice bit of work! Your dad did a fantastic job bending the pipe and it's an attractive design as well. Jake, you've got to have a lucky star around your neck or something. I'd pay really good money for something like that - as I'm sure many would. Great reuse!
Posted by: Jerry Carter | Aug 8, 2007 9:00:37 PM
Hi Jerry,
Somebody who saw it in the flesh said they reckon people would pay about £300 for one.
It's one of those things where the time and materials involved probably means there's little profit in making them - even at £300.
Either way, yeah, Dad's done a great job. Jake's a lucky boy. Right, what's next on my list of jobs I should do but will get dad to do instead...
You never said you had a house blog! It's on my RSS feed now.
Jake
Posted by: Jake Howlett | Aug 9, 2007 8:56:17 AM
I guess I should say I'd pay good money to have your dad visit my house. :-)
I'll tell you - keep on eye on it - over here we've had some brilliant thieves (contenders for the Darwin Awards) electrocute themselves (fatally of course) trying to steal copper line from a utility sub-station just for the scrap value. I would hope with the £ as strong as it is it wouldn't be such a temptation over your way.
£300 sounds about right. I'd expect to get nailed for about $600 for a large piece of work like that if I bought it at the garden shop.
Yeah - I got to the point you're at - too much to say, not enough containers to put it in - so I fired up a blogspot account. Too bad they firewall it at work. ;-)
Posted by: Jerry Carter | Aug 9, 2007 3:14:12 PM
Hi, could do with some basic help re typepad and your name was given to me over in BC!
Great blog here, I am currently stripping all the old paint off our stairs!Boy do I know how to live!
D
Posted by: Denise nesbitt | Aug 19, 2007 4:38:29 PM
I am impressed, my husband and I haven't managed to get a 1/4 of the things done to the house that we wanted, and a lot less than you have done on yours by far. Well done!!
Posted by: Suzanne | Aug 21, 2007 11:20:09 PM
I think anything done with reclaimed materials is a plus, I am always looking for new ideas and projects rather than throwing something away.
It looks brilliant Jake
Posted by: Peter | Aug 22, 2007 2:20:25 AM
