We buy surplus SOOW cord

Portable rubber cord is bought in SOOW, SJOOW and STOW from 18/2 up through 2/0, in full coils, half coils and the cut lengths that come back from temporary power. The letters name the jacket compound and the voltage class, and that is where the review begins.

Almost every lot we see is a mix. A coil of 12/3 still banded, a dozen twenty-five-foot lengths from a stage, a few 10/4 tails from a generator tie. Cord is not a high-value material, but a mixed lot of several hundred feet is worth handling properly.

What the letters on the jacket mean

The first letter is the service rating, the second is the jacket material, and the rest describe oil resistance and water resistance. SOOW and SJOOW differ mainly in jacket wall thickness, and STOW is the tough grade used where a cord gets dragged. All of it is 600 V class.

Configuration is written as gauge over conductor count: 12/3 is three 12 AWG conductors, 16/4 is four 16 AWG. A ground counts in that number on most portable cord. We read the print on the jacket to confirm, since a faded cord can be misread by eye.

Coils, cut lengths and how a cord lot is totaled

Cut lengths are the norm in this trade, and they are not a problem. We sort by configuration first, then total the footage in each. Twenty lengths of 12/3 at twenty-five feet is five hundred feet of 12/3, and that is how it gets reviewed rather than twenty separate pieces.

Full coils still in the wrapper are read separately and usually come out best. Coils that have been opened and rewound are fine too, provided the ends are taped and the length is written down. A coil with no length marked gets measured, which takes time but changes nothing else.

Oil, abrasion and sunlight on stored cord

Portable cord lives a harder life than fixed cable. Oil softens a jacket, abrasion thins it, and a summer on a rack in direct sun will take the flexibility out of rubber. We look for jacket that has gone hard, cracked at the bends, or gone shiny where it has been dragged.

Cord with damaged jacket is still bought, at a recovery read. The exception is cord that has been wet and left wet with the ends open, since water can travel down the strands. Say if a coil came out of a flood or sat in a puddle, and it will be handled as its own item.

Austin's event calendar keeps a lot of portable cord in circulation: the downtown clubs, the festival sites along the river, the hotel ballrooms, and the event companies and staging yards that serve them. Cords come back from a season in mixed condition and often in quantities nobody has counted.

Plant maintenance departments in Round Rock, Georgetown and San Marcos hold the same material in a different form, usually 10/3 and 12/3 tails from pump and motor work. We take both kinds of lot, and a pickup can cover a venue cage and a maintenance crib on the same run.