We buy surplus USE-2 cable

USE-2 arrives from rural service work, well and pump installs, and solar jobs where the conductor is direct buried. We take it in copper and aluminum, 2 AWG through 4/0, single conductor and the dual-rated RHW-2/USE-2 constructions that carry both markings on the same jacket.

Most lots are one or two reels with a few hundred feet left, plus a coil or two in the truck box. Because the material is direct burial rated, the jacket is heavier than building wire and survives storage better. The review still turns on length, since continuous runs are what another crew wants.

The dual rating stamped on the jacket

USE-2 is a single-conductor direct-burial cable. Much of what we see is also marked RHW-2, which means the same jacket carries a second rating and can be used in wet locations above ground as well. Both markings are read from the print on the jacket, not from the reel tag.

Copper and aluminum both come through. Aluminum from 2 AWG to 4/0 turns up on long rural service runs where the distance is great. Copper shows up on pump work, on solar DC and on short services where the installer wanted a smaller conductor for the same load.

One long length against the same footage in pieces

Cut USE-2 into twenty-foot pieces and it becomes recovery material. Left on the reel as a continuous run of several hundred feet, it can go to another crew for a service or a well drop. That is the difference the review looks for, and it is why we ask for the tag first.

Where a length has been cut we still want the pieces listed by size. A fifty-foot tail is worth handling if there are ten of them in the same size. The lot is added up by size and metal, then read against what a continuous length of the same size would do.

Reel tags, county roads and a truck that fits

Photograph the tag, the jacket print near the end, and the whole reel from the side. Note whether the cable was buried and pulled back out, because a jacket scuffed by rock and backfill is a different review from one that never left the reel.

Access matters on rural lots. Tell us the gate width, whether a trailer can turn around, and whether the reel sits on a slab or in grass. The pickup is set after terms are agreed, and a winch truck or a flatbed is chosen for the ground it has to cross.

Long driveways and well drops are the norm west of Austin, where Hays and Burnet county properties sit off the county roads and the meter can be several hundred feet from the house. That work uses USE-2 in lengths that rarely come back to a warehouse shelf.

East of the city the pattern changes. Bastrop and Caldwell county service work, poultry and cattle operations, and the solar arrays going in along US-290 and SH-71 all leave partial reels behind. We cover both sides of the metro and the open country between them.