Can we imagine 33,000 pounds of copper and other metals ?
yikes.
Well, I can imagine it, but what are we talking about in terms of how much time & effort it took to gather it together? Was this from stripping out houses and some overhead power lines or did this guy find 500 lb pigs at a smelter or major metal supply place?
According to:
http://www.copper.org/education/c-facts/c-home.html
An average single-family home uses 439 pounds of copper.
In an average single-family home, you will find about:
195 pounds - building wire
151 pounds - plumbing tube, fillings, valves
24 pounds - plumbers’ brass goods
47 pounds - built-in appliances
12 pounds - builders hardware
10 pounds - other wire and tube
a foot of 1/2” type “L” (medium) copper tubing weighs .285 lbs/ft. (seems high to me, but WTH, I never weighed it!)
So the 151 lb “average” is 529 feet, but there’s prob some 3/4” in there so there’s maybe 425 ft 1/2” tuning and 60 or so ft of 3/4”.
Nearly 200 lbs of wire..?
The same perp got out of prison just last year after serving a sentence for taking 5 cent returnables from NY and cashing them in for a dime in another state.
As he was being surrounded, he shouted, “you’ll never take me alive, coppers!”
He was talking to the pipes sticking out of his stolen shopping cart.