Buying URD cable pulled out of North Texas ground.

Utility and site crews pull URD out when a loop is replaced, a transformer is relocated or a service is upgraded to a larger conductor. The cable is cut at both ends, dragged out of a trench and coiled on the spot, which is why it arrives kinked, soiled and often shorter than the run it came from.

It is also the family most likely to be left in a yard rather than a warehouse. Coils sit against a fence through a summer, get moved twice by a loader and end up with the outer wrap facing the sun and the inner coils still wet from the trench.

A padmount loop is a short, heavy run between a transformer and a service pedestal, and it produces lengths in the tens of feet rather than the hundreds. Those lengths are useful again, because the next loop may need exactly that much conductor and nobody wants to cut a fresh reel for forty feet.

Subdivision work produces the long pulls, and those are where the footage is. A lot of subdivision leftovers is a mix of full coils from the original pull and shorter pieces cut for a service that moved, and separating the two tells a buyer most of what is needed. Single conductors from the same trench are usually USE-2 rather than URD.

Buried cable is inspected rather than trusted, because the damage that matters is never visible from the outside of a coil. Four checks settle most of it, and every one of them can be done in a yard with a knife, a rag and daylight.

• Wipe a few feet of jacket and look for ring cracks where the cable was bent around a spool or a tree.
• Cut back six inches at each end and check for water between the strands and dark discolouration under the jacket.
• Look for shovel nicks, scrape marks and flattening where the cable was pulled against rock or a conduit edge.
• Confirm the length from the coil tag where one exists, and measure the coil where it does not.

Almost all URD in North Texas is aluminium, and almost all of it is 2/0 or 4/0. The metal is reviewed on strand condition rather than on weight alone, because aluminium that has sat in wet soil can pit along the surface while the core of the conductor stays bright.

Copper URD exists but is unusual here. When it turns up it is separated immediately, since the two metals do not share a valuation basis and a coil that mixes them cannot be described in one line. A wet coil is likewise a condition note rather than a rejection, provided the ends have been cut back and photographed.