On 8 October 2025 at 16:25 larry phelan 1 Said:

Old copper tanks

Good afternoon all,

I have two old hot water tanks […]

 

Any ideas ??

PS   I hate to throw out anything and then find a use for it later !

Check the price of scrap copper

… especially if they have heating pipes inside !

MichaelG.

The old ones are much more useful than the new ones covered in foam. They are too thin for a lot of uses but are good for a) model boat sheeting over wood if recreating the plates of so many historic ships.
b) making small feed water tanks in model boats that are not pressurised
c) slug repellers for gardeners
d) electrodes for copper plating

There use is dependent on what they were, mains pressure or gravity fed. Gravity tanks are thin but the sheet copper is useful for many things. Mains pressure will be much thicker eg 1.2mm and are very handy BUT they do not go as copper at the scrap yard unless you cut out all fittings and seams, as they are they are classed as brazery copper a lower class/price and if foam covered even lower.  Before going to a scrap yard phone round for prices, also remember they change daily. Good luck. Noel.

Cut the thin the copper into the form of leaves, use a brick bolster to tap the veins of the leaves into the shapes and then make very presentable garden ornaments for your loved one.

I made a water fountain feature where the water rose up through some copper tube, onto the top leaf and slowly splashed its way down the other leaves back into the pond.

bob

My father made a couple of exquisite candle sticks and a large log box out of my scrap tank.

Andrew.

I also have a bird bath made from the upturned base, one of my grandfathers locos has the boiler clad with the sheet from the centre section. One day I hope to make some 3 1/2 gauge box vans with corrgated ends made from these.

Paul

Here you Go Larry, nice little winter project for you!!

Weigh them in.  The scrappy would pay you a considerable amount for them!

If you want to salvage some of the copper before taking the remainder to the scrapyard, knock out any deposits if there is any limescale inside. The scrappie buys by weight and only wants the copper.

There are ‘hopefully’ many less of them about but the first house I bought circa 1980 had a rare old mix of cable. Some lead covered which actually wasn’t too bad electrically but stacks of rubber insulated which when you took in both hands and bent just shed all the insulation leaving bare wire. The house was a fire waiting to happen.

I believe copper prices are now high and when checking remember they are brazery copper not No 1. Noel.