How to Scrap a Washing Machine (and Find Scrap Silver)

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The Easy Way

I’ve discussed this before in my previous article on How to Scrap a Clothes Dryer, but it can be said again. Most appliances these days, while more energy efficient, are not made to last. I’m sure there are some interesting environmental implications regarding a “new and improved” product’s lifecycle and its impact on our planet. What can you do to help ease a value engineered product’s impact on our environment?

You can scrap it! And it won’t cost you a thing. In fact, if you find yourself to be the proud owner of a junk washing machine, you can load up, drive it down to your nearest scrap yard, and they will gladly take it from you. Actually, they will pay you for it!

A typical washing machine will weigh anywhere from 125 – 300 pounds. With the current price of light iron sitting around $80 per ton you could expect to get anywhere from $5.00 – $12. Show up to the scrap yard and drop it off. If you are worried about getting ripped off, call ahead to some of your nearest scrap yards and ask for their prices.

The Scrapper’s Way

Who said life was easy? There’s so much good stuff to find in an old washing machine. For example, electric motors, copper wire, steel… oh, and did I mention silver? Read on to see what I mean.

To keep your expectations for scrapping a washing machine realistic, I decided to demonstrate with an economical brand — a Roper top load washing machine. This guy weighs 150 Lbs, so we could take it in and get a quick $6.00. But what if we scrap it apart?

The first thing to do is cut the power cord off the back of the machine. Easily done with a pair of side cutters.

This washing machine has been value engineered to the point that all that was holding the back panel on was 2 small hex screws at the bottom, and 2 small plastic clips at the top. Buzz off the screws, break off the clips and you’re in business.

The first thing I noticed when I looked into this scrap washing machine is that the drum is plastic. That’s always a little disappointing to find, as you’re hoping it is made of solid gold or platinum (but I’d be happy if it was stainless steel). You can check if the drum is high quality stainless steel by checking it with a magnet; if it sticks then you’re not getting paid anything extra for it. The only type of stainless steel worth extra at the scrap yard is non-magnetic stainless steel. This is because it contains nickel and chrome, which are both much more valuable than iron, and they happen to interact atomically to “turn off” the magnetic properties of the steel. If the magnet doesn’t stick, you’ve got the good stuff.

From this position, I rip out the wiring harness. This is where the side cutters really come in handy. I make it a point to clean up the wire by cutting off any plastic connectors, which will help us get a better price at the scrap yard.

The electric motor in this case is attached to a pump and a transmission. The pump is light and plastic so a scrap yard will still buy the motor if it has the small pump attached. The transmission, however, is made up mostly of a heavy iron casting. That will need to be removed before we can sell the motor. It looks like we need to remove the whole assembly in order to separate out the motor.

The only thing holding this assembly onto the frame is 4 long bolts and a clip inside of the drum attached to the output shaft of the transmission. The bolts can be removed with the help of a socket wrench, and then the assembly can be partially pulled away from the frame leaving a small gap wide enough for us to cut the shaft with a Sawzall. There are many ways to skin this cat, but I find the Sawzall to be the fastest and easiest way to get things cut apart. If you are looking to save the motor for DIY projects, at least in the case of this washing machine, you are fine to use the Sawzall to cut the transmission shaft because the integrity of the electric motor is not impacted.

The electric motor was very easily removed from transmission. It was attached to the motor with nothing but two spring clips (strips of metal, you can see one in the above picture running across the side of motor). If you grab a spring at the end with a pair of pliers and twist, the spring pops open and the transmission falls off the output shaft of the motor.

The Weigh-in

So now that we have separated the metals of the machine, let’s weigh them to see what they are worth.

The washing machine’s power cord (with the plug) weighs in at 0.29 Lbs. Every scrap yard is different, so the copper wire could get bought at many different prices, ranging from 25¢ to 50¢ per Lbs. If you want to get a better price (higher grade), you can cut off the plug off of the cord and save it with your contaminated brass. Many scrap yards will expect you to do this sort of thing.

The weight of our washing machine’s wire harness (with all plastic connector’s cut off) is 0.46 Lbs. Just like the power cord, every scrap yard is different with their pricing, so we can get anywhere from 50¢ to 95¢ per pound. This all depends on the price of scrap copper.

Our scrap electric motor (with the plastic still attached) weighs in at 12.8 pounds. There is one main reason this motor doesn’t weigh more: The “copper windings” are actually painted aluminum. This is very common for modern washing machines, however, the older the washing machine the more likely it will have copper windings.

I bring this up because many scrap yards will check to see if you have aluminum of copper windings before buying a motor, and they have separate pricing accordingly. For this reason pricing can range anywhere from 7¢ up to 17¢ per pound.

It should be noted that most of these motors are designed with an aluminum casting that holds the motor shaft. If you are willing to spend the time, you could break apart the motor to harvest all of the aluminum (windings and all). I, however, will just sell this motor “as-is.”

The Results

So let’s tally up what types of metals we have, and see how much money we can expect to make. Remember we were going to make ~$6.00 if we brought it in “as-is.”

Copper Wire Cord: 0.29 Lbs * ~$0.375 = $0.11

Copper Wire Harness: 0.46 Lbs * ~$0.7 = $0.32

Electric Motor: 12.8 Lbs * ~$0.12 = $1.54

Shred Steel: 136 Lbs * ~$0.04 = $5.44

Total: $7.41

So it looks like we made an additional $1.41 for what amounted to about 15 minutes worth of work. One important note here is that I did not throw away the plastic drum, and left it inside the appliance when I sold it for light iron. It would have been too much work to get it out, and I would have ended up getting paid less. I think most scrap yards will not have a problem with such a practice, however some will. In the same vein, many washing machines have heavy concrete weights used to stop the spinning laundry from shaking the machine. I do not take it out of the machine, if I did, it would make more sense to just drop the appliance off without disassembly. I will leave it up to you to decide how to proceed.

With these results in mind, it should be noted that many scrap washing machines will be made with more metal, and will yield better results. Bigger motors, copper windings, and did somebody mention silver? That reminds me…

Where To Find Scrap Silver In A Washing Machine

Yes, even in a cheap washing machine, you can find scrap silver. Albeit, not much, just a small amount. That is because the electronics in the machine make prevalent use of silver contacts. Silver contacts are between 85% and 95% silver, and are used to insure a solid electrical connection in a switch.

The majority of the silver contacts in a washing machine are housed in the controller module, accessible from the back of the control panel. This can be broken out with a hammer, pried out, or in some cases it is easier to unscrew it.

By breaking open the controller with a hammer, you can pull out the brass pins with the silver contacts on them.

After breaking apart the pin assembly, you can begin to strip the silver contacts from each pin.

And this is what you’re left with… 1 gram of silver contacts. We can assume these silver contacts are about 90% silver. With silver price per gram at 59¢, we can assume the value of these silver contacts to be 53¢. We can hold on to these and accumulate more before we try to sell them.

It took me about an additional 15 minutes to pull these silver contacts out of the washing machine. I will leave it up to you to decide if this is worth your time or not. As I said before, nicer/older machines will have better materials and may prove more lucrative.

So if we revise our totals from before:

Copper Wire Cord: 0.29 Lbs * ~$0.375 = $0.11

Copper Wire Harness: 0.46 Lbs * ~$0.7 = $0.32

Electric Motor: 12.8 Lbs * ~$0.12 = $1.54

Shred Steel: 136 Lbs * ~$0.04 = $5.44

Silver Contacts: .9 grams * ~$0.59 = $0.53

Total: $7.94

Final Thoughts

So after about 30 minutes of tear down, we have scrapped ourself an additional $1.94. If you are interested in scrapping even further, you could strip the copper wire, break apart the aluminum motor, and take apart all of the other electronics. This is really a matter of personal preference, but I do not like to spend too long breaking apart machines like this when I could be looking for more scrap metal. The main thing is to do what feels right for your set-up. If you are working out of your garage and space is an issue, or for some reason you cannot spend much time breaking apart your scrap, then you may want to just sell it as-is and call it a day. But for the love of god, cut off the cord.

Thanks to reader Kevin, who sent in this tip: The control panel facia can often be made of aluminum, so check it with a magnet. That may have been the case here, but I did not spend the time extracting the piece. If that is the case, it may lead to an additional $0.10.

Please feel free to comment any insight, ideas, or tips you have below. Happy Scrapping.