How To Scrap An Oven, Stove, or Range

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With the price of scrap fluctuating so much over the past few years, appliances have gone from being worth over $15 in scrap to being worth as little as $2 a piece. The days of quickly turning around a few broken appliances to make $75 are long behind us… for now. But what does that mean for scrappers? Can a scrapper still make any money by junking an old appliance?

In this article I will review some of the ways you can make money from an old oven, range, or stove. I explain when and where to sell working used appliances, how much you can expect to make, and what types of metals you can find. At the end, I review the fastest way to break down an oven, step by step, so you can make the most money possible from scrap. If you are interested, I recently wrote up my method for scrapping a washing machine, as well as a clothes dryer. For quick navigation, you can click on the table of contents.

Should You Scrap An Oven, or Sell It Used?

Firstly, let me say, with certainty, that if you have a working oven without cosmetic damage, you can always sell it used for more money than you can get from scrapping it. The free-standing oven (aka range) will sell much better than a wall oven or built-in stove top. A commercial grade oven or range is worth up to a few hundred times its value in scrap, so definitely research these before you consider scrapping.

If you are a homeowner looking to make some cash before you buy a new appliance, I recommend selling your old oven on craigslist. A good target price is around $100 for an older free-standing range, but I personally would accept anything over $50. You can obviously get more for high quality appliances, but this really depends on the age of the oven. Expect this method to take as long as 6 weeks, if it sells at all.

If you are a scrapper who regularly acquires working ovens, chances are you do not have the patience or the inventory space necessary to hold onto every appliance for up to 6 weeks or more. You will need a plan to turn over your inventory as quickly as possible, with as little hassle as possible. That means finding a used appliance buyer who can offer you a reasonable price for every working appliance you have. You need an “appliance guy.”

Typically, these are re-sellers or mechanics who fix-up appliances and then sell to customers who just want something cheap and don’t mind buying used. An appliance guy will typically offer you between $25-$75 for a working appliance, delivered, maybe more depending on the brand, age, and how well you negotiate. To make the most of your time, you can hold off on delivery until you have a truck full of appliances.

If you go this route, finding a reliable buyer will take a bit of time. You’ll need to build a relationship. Similar to some people in the scrap metal business, used appliance salesmen can often be flakey.

Very frequently, you will come across an oven without knowing if it works or not. Testing these appliances is not very difficult, but it could be more trouble than it is worth. I am always honest with my appliance guy and tell him if I do not know the condition of the appliance. Yes, it affects the price I get paid, but I still usually make more than scrap price. This is where building a relationship is important.

If your oven or stove is broken or cosmetically damaged, it will be trickier to get any cash for it, especially if it is an old appliance. Broken appliances are a lot more common to come across than working appliances, and they are definitely worth a lot less. That being said, never try to pass off a broken appliance as though it is in working order. Do the right thing and keep your business honest.

If your appliance is broken – and you know what is wrong with it – and you have some time to spare – I suggest you try parting it out.

Can You Part Out An Oven, Stove, Or Range?

In a word, yes. What I mean by that is you can harvest some particular components and sell them as used components if you know they work. Many parts have value as working used components and can be sold on eBay. This is especially true for vintage appliances and commercial grade equipment. Once you have pulled the valuable parts, you can scrap the rest.

Parting out any appliance requires you to systematically test, disassemble, photograph, catalogue, store, sell, and ship each component or lot of components you want to sell. This is no small task, and can take a lot of time and space to do at scale… Time and space that many people do not have for components that may not sell for several months. Unlike scrapping, there is no guarantee of making any money for your time. If you are interested, some of the high value used components to consider selling are gas regulators, heating elements, control switches, and plastic control knobs. (All the example prices below are for working used components only.):

Gas Regulators: Gas regulators can be worth as little as $10, and as much as $50, so you could earn a good amount on top of scrap price if you are willing to put in the effort to sell this component on eBay. Gas ovens/stoves tend to have very little non-ferrous scrap metal, so if you want to earn some extra money when scrapping them, you can try pulling regulators. As far as I know, there is no material difference in price between natural gas and propane regulators.

Gas regulators can be worth as little as $10, and as much as $50, so you could earn a good amount on top of scrap price if you are willing to put in the effort to sell this component on eBay. Gas ovens/stoves tend to have very little non-ferrous scrap metal, so if you want to earn some extra money when scrapping them, you can try pulling regulators. As far as I know, there is no material difference in price between natural gas and propane regulators. Heating Elements: Electric heating elements’ used value depends on what type of heating element it is. Tubular stove elements have almost no value besides scrap, but can be removed easily. Certain styles of built in surface burners are worth between $12-$95, with an average of about $20. Surface burner prices increase greatly if it is a double or triple burner. Either way, surface burners are difficult to remove, so make sure there is a market for them before you spend the time removing them. Oven elements are between $10-$25 each. These are all prices that include free shipping, so to keep a high margin, I recommend only trying to sell the ones you deem to be high value, or sell in lots of at least 2.

Electric heating elements’ used value depends on what type of heating element it is. Tubular stove elements have almost no value besides scrap, but can be removed easily. Certain styles of built in surface burners are worth between $12-$95, with an average of about $20. Surface burner prices increase greatly if it is a double or triple burner. Either way, surface burners are difficult to remove, so make sure there is a market for them before you spend the time removing them. Oven elements are between $10-$25 each. These are all prices that include free shipping, so to keep a high margin, I recommend only trying to sell the ones you deem to be high value, or sell in lots of at least 2. Control Switches: These are sometimes called thermostats. These are the electromechanical devices that are inside of your appliance that you adjust to vary the temperature of the burners or heating elements. (When you turn the knobs, you’re really adjusting a control switch.) I recommend selling electric stove control switches as a complete set, because it is pretty much impossible to make any money otherwise. One standard stove control switch usually sells for about $7 used, free shipping. If you sell as a set of four, you may be able to get $15 or $20, if they sell at all. The good news is that certain types of stove control switches will sell for as much as $50 per switch or more. Keep your eye out for valuable oven control switches as well, which often are worth over $25.

These are the electromechanical devices that are inside of your appliance that you adjust to vary the temperature of the burners or heating elements. (When you turn the knobs, you’re really adjusting a control switch.) I recommend selling electric stove control switches as a complete set, because it is pretty much impossible to make any money otherwise. One standard stove control switch usually sells for about $7 used, free shipping. If you sell as a set of four, you may be able to get $15 or $20, if they sell at all. The good news is that certain types of stove control switches will sell for as much as $50 per switch or more. Keep your eye out for valuable oven control switches as well, which often are worth over $25. Knobs: These are the actual knob pieces that you touch to adjust the temperature of the appliance. Plastic control knobs are great because they are very easy to remove and cost you nothing in terms of scrap value. They are plastic, and otherwise are worthless. These components sell for between $4-$25 each, with an average of about $5. I would recommend selling them as a lot, instead of one at a time, to help keep margins high. If your appliance has metal knobs, that is a dead giveaway that it is a high end appliance and should not be scrapped.

Many of these components will have their own part number printed right on the part, which you’ll need to know for selling these parts on eBay. Likewise, it helps to note the actual model of the appliance it came from, if that is available. If you do not have a part number written directly on the part, I would suggest you reconsider trying to sell that particular part because you don’t know for sure what it is. You can try looking up the part number using the make and model of the appliance, but that is not as easy as it sounds.

How Much Is A Scrap Oven, Range, Or Stove Worth As Scrap?

At the scrap yard, appliances are bought by the pound. Current average prices in the USA, as of November 2019 are around 3 center per pound. As I explain above, it is usually worth selling these appliances as working used appliances. However, the good thing about scrapping something is you get rid of it quickly and get paid for it – regardless of condition. It is pretty much guaranteed income.

A typical wall oven weighs between 100 Lbs – 250 Lbs. A typical free standing oven or range weighs between 125 Lbs – 175 Lbs. A typical stove top usually weighs between 30 Lbs – 75 Lbs. So, in dollars:

A scrap wall oven is worth about $3 – $7.50 as scrap

A scrap range or stand-alone oven is worth between $3.75 – $5.25 as scrap

A scrap stove top is worth between $0.90 – $2.25 as scrap

This is the scrap value of the appliance before you do any type of scrap processing, which can increase the scrap value by double or more, and usually takes about 10-15 minutes.

If you have a gas range/oven and you plan on scrapping it, I suggest selling it as-is without doing any type of processing or scrap harvesting. In a gas appliance, the gas regulators are made from cast zinc with many different types of contamination. Typically, I find the time it takes to extract these regulators, as well as the wear and tear on my tools, to not be worth the effort if you plan on selling them as scrap. Sometimes the regulators will have significant contamination, which means some yards will not pay you extra for them. The only time I pull a gas regulator from a scrap oven is if I know it has significant resale value, otherwise the scrap value is not worth it, in my opinion.

If you have an electric range/oven and you plan on scrapping it, I suggest you break down the scrap as quickly and safely as possible to maximize your profit. That means separating any tubular heating elements, as seen below. (The thin ribbon-style heating elements found in flat surface burners do not have significant scrap value.) Cut out any wire, including the cord. Finally, I like to harvest any scrap silver found in the control switches. See an example, including prices and quantities, below.

How To Scrap An Oven, Range, Or Stove

As an example, I have a scrap range to take apart, seen above. It is a GE brand appliance, and it weighs about 135 Lbs. It has a partially digital interface. You can expect a tear-down for a scrap appliance like this to take a max of 20 minutes, and it can be done in about half that time with some experience. I will walk you through my method for processing this appliance, and that should help you get a feel for how to do it yourself. Every appliance is different, but this basic process should cover most scrap electric ovens & stoves.

A common variation you’ll find is the burner controls at the front of the stove, above the oven door. Appliances designed like that will take a longer time to process, but the basic principles are the same. Another common variation in more modern appliances is for all components to be replaced with fully digital components similar to a modern microwave, in which case I usually just scrap it whole after cutting the power cord. As I already mentioned, I do not strip gas ovens of their non-ferrous metals because it takes too much time without enough return; I suggest scrapping a gas oven as-is.

Before you get started, the tools you will need are: bolt cutters, channel locks, side cutters, an electric drill, a hammer, and it helps if you have a bench-mounted vice.

Step 1. Remove The Heating Elements From The Stove Top

Burners, like the ones shown above, are known as tubular heating elements and are made of a stainless steel alloy sheath wrapped around a NiChrome wire (80% Nickel, 20% Chromium). The first step of scrapping our range, and quite frankly the easiest scrap processing step I know of, is to remove the tubular heating elements from the stove top. It’s so easy because tubular heating elements are designed to be removed so they can be cleaned. All it normally takes is a pull.

Tubular heating elements are purchased by most scrap yards as contaminated stainless steel, and if you check with a magnet you will find they are non-magnetic. While you are doing this, check for stainless steel or aluminum inserts that may sit in the burner wells.

(Alternatively, surface style stove tops have built in heating elements that are made of very thin ribbon style wire, and these are not worth very much in terms of scrap.)

Step 2. Remove The Heating Elements From The Oven, Check If The Grates Are Stainless

An oven will generally have 2 different heating elements – one on top and one on the bottom. I use bolt cutters and snip the heating elements as close to the base as possible.

These oven heating elements, like the stove top elements, are also bought at the scrap yard as contaminated stainless steel. Oven heating elements, however, do not come out as easily as the stove top elements. Sometimes oven heating elements can be ripped out with the full pulling force of your body, but I do not recommend this because it is not safe. Bolt cutters work best.

Sometimes you will find that the wire frame shelves/grates in the oven are made of 304 stainless steel. You can check by testing if they stick to a magnet. More often than not, they stick to a magnet, which means they are plain steel.

Step 3. Remove The Back Covers and Cut Out The Scrap Copper Wire

The rear cover of the scrap range can be removed very quickly with an electric drill. Usually it is held in place with 1/4” of 5/16” hex head screws, so you will probably want to find a corresponding bit. (Sometimes I just adjust the drill chuck to the size of the screws and unscrew them without using a bit.)

There is usually a secondary cover that protects the main power supply, which can be removed in the same manner.

The copper wire can be cut out quickly with a pair of side cutters. A lot of the wire can just be pulled out by hand, but the connector ends will need to be cut off eventually.

Step 4. Remove The Power Cord

A standard oven will have a 220V power hook-up, with thick gage copper wire. Usually this hook-up is made with some brass crimpings that are screwed onto connectors on the back of the appliance. This power cord can be cut off with side cutters, but if you unscrew the connectors, you can easily harvest the little bit of brass that is crimped to the end of the copper wire. This is such a small amount of brass, but it only takes about 30 seconds to harvest it.

Optional Step 4b. Harvest The Brass From The Plug

The power cord connector end needs to be cut from the cord to get the best price for the scrap wire, so what do you do with the connector ends?

Some scrap yards will buy these connectors as contaminated brass. Some yards, however, do not buy power cord plugs at all, or if they do, they pay shred. If that is the case, and you cannot find a yard that will buy your connector ends for a fair price, I would recommend pulling the brass out of the plug. This is not a hugely lucrative activity, but if you save them up to do during a slow day, you can make up to 5 dollars an hour, before taxes, from tearing brass from power cord plugs.

If you want to do this, I recommend gripping the power cord ends in a bench mounted vice, and then pulling on the individual brass pieces with some channel lock pliers. Using the pliers, you can get some significant leverage by torquing down against the vice. To do this correctly, you will need to tighten up the vice as much as possible, otherwise you will just pull the plug out of the vice. (You can also try holding the brass piece in the vice, and torquing on the plastic piece.) Either way, if done correctly, the brass connector pieces will come out, usually with a small amount of copper wire attached.

Step 5. Remove Control Switches And Harvest The Scrap Silver Contacts

This step depends on the construction of your particular electric oven or stove. Most electric ovens and stoves have an electromechanical control switch which usually uses a bi-metal strip to turn on and off the electric burners. These control switches each will have some scrap silver contacts that can be extracted.

First, you need to remove the controllers from the control panel. Most controllers can be unscrewed from the front of the stove’s control panel. Some can just be broken out with a pair of channel lock pliers. Even though we are going to end up breaking them, I suggest unscrewing them to avoid breaking it open accidentally and losing some pieces on the floor.

With a hammer, break open the controller and look for the silver contact pads. These can be removed with a pair of pliers or cut off with a pair of side cutters. The less contamination left on the silver contacts the better.

Optional Step 6. Remove The Low Grade Circuit Board

This step is optional, because some stoves don’t have this type of board. Also, what you do with the low grade boards is a matter of personal preference. It really depends on if you have a way to sell low-grade circuit boards. Some scrap yards will buy low-grade circuit boards for more than shred price, in which case you could pull these boards. More likely than not, your local scrap yard will only pay shred/light iron price for low grade boards. That leaves you with the option of selling to a specialty buyer over the internet, in which case shipping costs will likely offset the profits of selling the boards at all.

THE RESULTS

Remember our scrap oven weighed a total of 135 Lbs, and at $60 per ton, was worth $4.05 if we sold it as-is. Now that we broke it apart, let’s see how much it is worth. All pricing is as of November 2019.

Our scrap copper power cord weighed in at 1.99 Lbs, and with an average scrap price of $0.85 is worth $1.69. This power cord is thick gauge wire, and is a good candidate for wire stripping. If you did strip this copper wire, you could make an additional $0.75 or more.

Our scrap copper wire weighs in at 0.77 Lbs, and with an average price of $0.85 per pound, is worth about $0.65. Mark sure you cut all contaminants and attachments from your wire to get the best price. Although I didn’t clean up this wire very well before taking the picture, I did clean it up before selling it to the scrap yard.

Our scrap heating elements weigh in at 3.98 Lbs, and with the average scrap price of contaminated stainless steel at $0.20 per pound, is worth $0.80. Remember these scrap heating elements, the tubular kinds at least, are made of NiChrome wire (80% nickel, 20% chromium) wrapped in a stainless steel alloy sheath. Some sources claim this stainless steel alloy sheath to be Incoloy, or a similar high cost alloy, while other claim it is just regular stainless steel. Either way, scrap yards are willing to pay more than shred for these tubular heating elements.

Our scrap brass weighs in at 44 grams, and with an average price of $1.15 per pound, is worth $0.11. Extracting these brass pieces took less than 1.5 minutes total, so hypothetically, if you did nothing but extract this brass you would be making about $5 / hr.

Our scrap silver contacts weigh in at 3 grams. These silver contacts are most likely 90% silver, and have a melt value of $0.50 per gram, which means they are worth about $1.50. It would be impractical to sell such a small amount, so let’s hold on to these until we have more.

TOTAL EARNINGS

(Although I did not photograph it above, the balance of the original 135 Lbs is sold as light iron.)

Scrap copper wire: 2.76 Lbs * $0.85 per Lbs = $2.35

Scrap heating elements: 3.98 Lbs * $0.20 per Lbs = $0.80

Scrap brass: 44 grams * $1.15 per Lbs =$0.11

Scrap silver contacts: 3 grams * $0.50 per gram = $1.50

(Balance) Scrap light iron: 128 Lbs * $60 per ton = $3.84

Total $8.60

Final Thoughts

So for about 20 minutes’ worth of work, we made an additional $4.55, meaning we more than doubled our scrap value by processing and tear down. I talk about this in other write-ups, but that is always my goal when processing scrap, to double its value or more by processing. With about another 10 minutes of work, we could make about a dollar more if we stripped the thick gauge copper wire and harvested the low-grade circuit boards. Again, these are optional steps, and doing them would depend on the prices you get from your preferred scrap yard.

As I said in the beginning, the days of selling a few broken appliances for $75 are behind us… And, seeing how this scrap range is worth not even $10 total, it is worth keeping your eye out for resale opportunities. Always consider selling a working undamaged appliance on Craigslist, and maybe even parting out a broken appliance if you know what is wrong with it. With some ingenuity and time, an enterprising scrapper can make that $75 through these other means. That is until the price of scrap rebounds.

Feel free to leave your questions, insights, ideas, or tips in the comments. Happy Scrapping!