Clear a yard of empty reels

Why yards fill up with empties

Cable arrives on reels and leaves on poles, in conduit or in the ground. The reels stay. On a big job they stack up in a laydown area faster than anyone has time to deal with them, and after a few projects a storage yard can lose a corner, then a row, then a good part of its space to empties.

The maker's take-back route doesn't fix it. Return programs take only their own reels, often only in full truckloads, and only reels in good shape. Service Wire, for example, takes back only its own nailed reels with 30 to 72 inch flanges, an undamaged arbor and at least 75% of staves intact. A typical yard holds reels from several makers, in sizes from 24 to 72 inches and beyond, in every condition. Most of that pile qualifies for no program at all.

Counting the pile

A count by size is the single most useful thing you can send. It doesn't have to be perfect; a careful estimate beats a guess at the whole pile. The quickest way is to work through the yard one size at a time.

1. 01

   Stand them on their flanges

   Reels lying on their rims hide their size and roll. Stood on a flange, they can be counted, measured and photographed, and they stop soaking up ground water.

2. 02

   Group by flange first

   Put reels with the same flange together. Flange is the number that sets handling and trailer space.

3. 03

   Split each group by traverse and drum

   Read the stencil or measure. Two 48 inch reels with different traverses are different sizes to a buyer.

4. 04

   Pull out the obvious rejects

   Set aside reels with split arbors, cracked flanges or most staves missing. We won't buy those as reels, and separating them now saves loading time.

5. 05

   Write it down

   Size, count and a word on condition for each group. Our form takes it as text, or attach a photo of the list.

Mixed sizes are normal

Nobody's yard holds one size. A clearout lot is usually a spread, and it is priced as a spread: each size group is offered for separately, according to its count, its condition and how easily that size sells. Popular sizes in good shape carry the lot. Odd sizes, very large ones or small counts of a size are worth less, but they can still ride on the same trailer.

That is the advantage of clearing a yard as one lot rather than selling it off piece by piece. One trailer, one loading day, and the whole reusable pile goes at once.

Loading access decides a lot

The equipment on your site changes the cost of a clearout more than most sellers expect. A forklift with long enough forks and someone to run it means a trailer is loaded in an hour or two, and that saving shows in the offer. A dock helps for small reels. A ground-level yard with no forklift can still be cleared, but it needs a truck with a liftgate or a loader brought in, and that costs money.

Tell us honestly what you have. A rough yard with a working forklift is easier than a paved one without. Also mention gates, overhead lines, soft ground after rain and any site rules for drivers, such as safety vests, hard hats, sign-in or set receiving hours.

Staging the reels for the trailer

• Keep a clear lane from the gate to the loading spot, wide enough for a 53 foot trailer to pull in and turn.
• Stage reels by size near the loading spot so they go on in groups and can be counted.
• Chock any reel that has to stand on its rim, on both sides.
• Keep the rejects in a separate place so they don't get loaded by mistake.
• Have the counted list and the offer to hand so both sides can tick off groups as they go on.
• Plan for the reels a forklift can't reach; a few buried at the back of a stack are the usual delay.

What happens to the rejects

Reels that can't carry cable again are left on your site. We don't take scrap reels and we don't offer disposal. Some sellers break them up for firewood or pallet wood, some hand them to a wood recycler, and some return sound ones from a qualifying maker through that maker's own program, such as Sonoco's EcoReel, which offers free truckload pickup of viable used reels.

We would rather tell you up front how many reels look like rejects than have them turn into an argument on loading day.

Working safely around an old reel pile

A pile that has sat for years has its own hazards, and the counting and staging above means people walking among it. A reel on its rim can start rolling when the one beside it is moved. Reels stacked flange on flange can slide when the bottom one has rotted. Rusty nails stand out of broken staves, and soft flanges can give way under a boot.

Wear gloves and boots with stiff soles, work in pairs, and move reels with a machine wherever you can rather than by hand. Look before reaching into a drum or under a flange: in warm months, old piles shelter wasps, rodents and snakes. If a stack looks unstable, leave it for the forklift on loading day and tell us, so the plan allows for it.

Partial clearouts and repeat pickups

Some yards can't be cleared in one go: the reels are still arriving, or a section is blocked by live stock. A partial clearout takes the reels that are ready now and leaves the rest for another load. If your yard fills up on a cycle, for example after each phase of a fiber build, tell us the rough rhythm and we can plan pickups around it. Each load still gets its own written offer.