Late 2017 Steel Prices

[ArtMech]

Here in LTU we pay €600-€900 per metric ton with VAT for structural steel made in Check republic, Poland or Russia. Swedish or other Western steel is much more expensive, could be €2000 per ton or more with VAT excluded.

 

[mark in portugal]

Having worked on 3 continents, I've found that it's a matter of finding the right suppliers; I always make friends with local professionals, and they tell me where to go.
Sometimes you need a commercial account, but usually there's somewhere that offers real prices to walk-in customers.

Plumbing fittings of all sorts have massive markups, and huge room for discounting. As someone said, you have to watch those prices. When you buy 1 or 2 items, you hardly notice; but when you build an irrigation system or plumb a house, then you do.

Wiring and infrastructure material too. Often the book retail rate is 600% of the wholesale rate, what I call "government" price. Contractors can charge the high rate and point at the book, but the educated buyer doesn't pay that. Automated manufacture has reduced the wholesale prices and boosted the quality of a lot of things that used to be expensive.

Raw steel is just really cheap, and there are variations in quality but it's almost always in the physical shape [straightness], not the material.
You pay for stocking, delivering, cutting, and billing.

 

[rswyan]

The stick of 2.5 square tube is ~ 180 pounds. So it is closer to 80 cents a pound. The majority of the drops at my local yard I think are 60 or 65 cents a pound. The bin before it hits recycle 30 cents. They never ever sell schedule 40 pipe as drops. Lots of plate, channel and a good selection of rectangular, sometimes square tube when you don't need it.

The supplier that I have been using had an Ebay store at one time where they offered their drops. IIRC, it was very pricey, shipping was an additional cost of course.

They eventually discontinued it, as apparently keeping up the listings wasn't worth their time.

It seems to me - even before the Ebay store - that they weren't really offering any "deals" on drops ... with the prices being significantly more than full length pieces per pound.

 

[theonlybull]

here in nova scotia, i pay about $0.80 canadian per pound, a little more for tube, a little less for other shapes. this has been pretty constant over the last 10-12 years. i have one supplier, who delivers (they have a minimum order, but i buy enough, they will send what ever i need)
i do buy 10,000.00-15,000.00$ per year on average from them though