Free fence wire and concrete reinforcement from box springs that you're paid to take away. Wood,felt

This first bit is copied from a post about what to do with old box springs. --- I have broken down dozens of mattresses and box springs as part of my demolition and salvage work. A queen sized box spring takes me about 7 minutes to process. This is done so that I can avoid paying the $10 per unit over sized charge at the local transfer station. I have never sold any components but have put stuff in my free pile.

The products produced are wooden slats, wire in the form of springs and bind wire, and fluff. I have never been paid for springs at the scrap yard due to minimum tonnage requirements which I have never reached with such a light product. I put the wood in the free pile. The fluff is made of cloth, foam and sometimes felt or lint and is dumped since it is filthy and there is no market for it.

A business could be created in disposing of these things but it is based on what can be charged for removal. Resource value is insignificant.

I charge $10 per unit if the materials are brought to a job site where I have a bin for the fluff. It's an occasional thing but pays well when it happens. I would charge $40 to pick up a set at someone's house.
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I processed this box spring yesterday. It took 5 minutes. This one has heavy gauge wire that could be used as concrete reinforcement. It would also make good woven wire fencing, but it would rust. When the spacers are bent over, the mesh sits about 2 inches off the ground. Two layers could be used on slabs over 4" thick.

Some nice strapping was produced. Keep the good stuff, burn the scraps in a RMH.

The felt on this one was nice and clean. It makes good filler for insulated curtains.

Not a bad haul. The last shot shows how the mesh would sit for use in a slab.

If used for a fence, the spacers could be clipped short or left an inch long to present little barbs. Even with no alteration, if the spacers were pointed into a paddock, they would present a surface that animals would not find comfortable to push against. My brother had a horse who learned that no gates were built to withstand a backwards push from his rump. We had to wrap barbed wire around it. He jumped out whenever corn or oats were ready, but he didn't release the cows or wreck another gate.

With no alteration, the wire would make a great drying rack or a spot to hang things.

Hi Dale,

Just a quick "drive by," note...

Metal of any type in OPC or better yet "geopolymers" and the related are becoming less and less liked because they will, in time (slow or fast) inevitably fail and cause issues. In any reinforced masonry work of quality, only carbon fiber, or some other non corrosive reinforcement is being spec, especially in critical or wet environments. Old climbing ropes would be better that any ferrous metals. Its great to recycle, yet I see way too much "concrete work" that is just going to fail in short order or have issues that you really can't see. Just something to concider.

Regards,

j

Perhaps those wire mesh pieces would be more useful as tomato cages, or pea trellises.

Jay, do you see steel as a problem in dry situations ? The rebar and wire that I see coming from dry slabs at demolition sites, looks new. I have seen old water soaked bridges where corroded rebar expands and blows out chunks of concrete.

Cob walls should be kept nice and dry. They might benefit from some reinforcement.

Trellis material is an option. I think the highest use would be as fencing when many similar units are accumulated.

Hi Dale,

In many cases the rebar you are seeing has either a treatment on it like epoxy coating and some may even be fiberglass. I would also point out that even if it is steel, it is of much better grade than you are going to see in anything from recycling a metal into a "reinforcement" for masonry work. Rebar is a grade of steel (or should be by spec) onto itself. I would use that material either for trellis work or send it for proper recycling into something else made of a similar steel alloy. Even in cobb work, there is lantern interstitial moisture at times...enough to cause a "rust blum" in steel alloys. I would rather see just 20 mm fiberglass used than any steel of any type, and/or heavy carbon fiber, or other high tensile polymer designed for such application (if the architecture warranted such a stiffening.

Regards,

j

Fence material, trellises, tie wire, drying rack and fence staples.

I am making a fence with mattress springs

Lorraine, welcome to the forum!

That is a nifty fence and a lot of mattress springs.