Submersible pump cable · Harris County / Greater Houston
We buy submersible pump cable.
Well cable pulled out of a dead pump, or left over from a municipal job: 600 V, two and three conductor with ground, bought in small lots across the region.
Submersible pump cable spends its working life under water in a borehole, and it gets treated accordingly when the pump comes out. It is pulled up wet, coiled in the grass, loaded on a trailer and left in a shed. What comes back is a coil with a story on it, and the story is usually readable at the cut end.
We buy that cable: flat and round constructions, two and three conductor with ground, from 14 AWG up to 2 AWG. Municipal water departments, utility districts, well drillers, pump installers, irrigators and rural property owners all end up with a coil of it, and none of them are set up to sell a single coil to anyone.
Flat cable, round cable and the ground that carries a fault
Submersible pump cable comes in two shapes. Flat cable has the insulated conductors moulded side by side in a single jacket, with the ground conductor running in the web between them. Round cable puts the same conductors inside a circular jacket, and the ground is a separate insulated or bare conductor in the core.
The shape follows the borehole. Flat cable sits against the drop pipe in a narrow well and packs tight against a torque arrestor. Round cable handles better on deeper sets and longer pulls, because a round jacket does not catch on the casing the way a flat edge can. Both are 600 V constructions and both are made for wet locations.
Ground matters more than people expect. A pump motor down a borehole has nowhere to dissipate a fault, so the ground conductor is sized to carry fault current back to the panel for the time it takes a breaker to open. A coil missing its ground is still bought, but as a partial lot rather than a complete one.
Wells, lift stations and the rural water systems
The biggest holders of this cable are small water systems. Utility districts and municipal water departments across Harris, Fort Bend, Brazoria and Montgomery counties pull pumps for service on a schedule, and each pull leaves a length that is too short to reuse and too long to throw away. Lift stations add their own supply cable and float control runs.
Away from the districts, the source is acreage. A property off a farm-to-market road with its own well, a nursery with three pumps, a rural subdivision on a shared system, an irrigator running a deep well for a hay field. Pumps fail in July, they get replaced, and the old cable goes on a shelf in the pump house.
Well drillers and pump installers hold the rest. They buy cable by the coil, use part of it on a set, and carry the balance on the truck until it is too short for the next job. A truck cleanout at the end of a season produces several coils of mixed sizes and shapes.
If the cable came off a working pump, say what size motor it served. That single detail places the conductor size faster than a measurement.
Why small lots are the normal case here
Almost nothing in this category arrives as a reel. A 200 ft coil of 12/3 flat is a real lot, and so is a single 10/3 round length with a splice kit taped to it. The volume per stop is low, which is why these lots tend to be grouped with other material from the same property or the same utility yard.
Grouping is not a downgrade. A dozen coils from one pump house, listed by size and shape, is easier to review than a single coil sent on its own with no context. The same is true of a utility yard where several pulls have accumulated: one list of everything on the rack beats twelve separate enquiries.
There is a floor, and it is honest about it. A coil of 14/2 with 30 ft left is metal content, not cable, and it is reviewed that way. A full 500 ft coil of 2 AWG round is a different conversation entirely, and it does not need a truckload behind it to justify the trip.
- Flat two and three conductor with ground in the web
- Round constructions with a separate ground conductor
- Sizes 14, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4 and 2 AWG
- Coils, partial coils and single cut lengths
What to note before a submersible lot is sent
Send the shape, the gauge, the conductor count and an estimate of length on each coil. Note whether the cable is new surplus, came off a failed pump, or was pulled and replaced during a service call. Those three starting points grade differently, and saying which one applies saves a round of questions.
Photographs help more than description. The jacket print gives the type and size, a cut end shows whether water has reached the copper, and a wide shot of the rack shows how much is actually there. Flat cable photographs poorly in a pile, so lay a few lengths out straight and shoot them in daylight.
Access is usually easy. Coils load by hand into a pickup or onto a liftgate, and most pump houses and utility yards have a door a truck can reach. Anything still on a wellhead needs the pump pulled first, and that work belongs to whoever owns the pump, not to the buyer.
- Flat or round, and which
- Gauge and conductor count
- New surplus, or off a failed pump
- Length remaining on each coil
- Whether the jacket print is still readable
Questions sellers ask
Do you buy a single coil of well cable?
Yes, when there is enough length on it to be cable rather than scrap. A 10/3 round coil with 150 ft left is a normal lot. A short tail of 14/2 is usually grouped with other material from the same property.
Is flat cable bought as readily as round?
Both are bought on the same basis: gauge, conductor count, length and condition. Flat cable is more common on shallow domestic wells and round on deeper sets and larger motors, so the mix you send tends to say something about where it came from.
What about cable with a splice or a pump splice kit on it?
It is still reviewed. A heat-shrink splice kit on the end confirms the cable was in service and tells you the motor size it served. The spliced section is normally cut back and the remainder graded on its own.
Can you collect from a utility yard or a pump house?
Usually. Give the address, the gate hours and whether someone will be on site to open up. Coils are hand-loaded, so no forklift is needed unless the material is palletised or stacked at the back of a shed.
Buying desk · Greater Houston
Got this cable in stock?
Tell us what is on the reel, where it sits and what condition it is in. A buyer reviews the lot, asks for photographs of the tag and the cut end, and comes back with a real answer — not a request to call a call centre.
- Cable type, size and voltage class
- Footage, reel count or weight, and condition
- City, and whether the site has loading equipment