PCBs, Oil and What It Means for Selling

What the categories actually are

United States regulation sorts oil-filled transformers into broad bands by PCB concentration: non-PCB below 50 parts per million, PCB-contaminated from 50 to 499 ppm, and PCB units at 500 ppm and above. Each band carries different handling, labelling, storage and disposal requirements.

A transformer with no test data and no nameplate statement is treated as presumed-contaminated. That is a default assumption rather than a finding, and it is why a nameplate marking is worth so much: it can move a unit out of the presumed category on paper alone.

How status gets established

Three ways, in order of cost. First, the nameplate: many post-1979 units carry an explicit non-PCB statement. Second, existing records: some facilities have oil analysis on file from a maintenance programme. Third, a laboratory oil sample, which is inexpensive relative to the equipment but takes time and requires safe access to a sampling valve.

You do not need to arrange testing in order to sell to us. If status is unknown we price the presumed-contaminated path in and tell you plainly which category we are treating the unit as.

What it does to the price

A documented non-PCB unit is worth more because it can be resold and transported with ordinary handling. A presumed-contaminated or confirmed PCB unit carries a documented disposal route with real cost attached, and that cost comes out of the offer.

The practical implication is that if you happen to have oil analysis records in a maintenance file, digging them out can raise your number for the price of a filing-cabinet search.

What not to do with the oil

Do not drain it, do not top it off with unknown fluid, and do not mix oils between units. Draining can create a waste-generation obligation in your name, mixing can convert a clean unit into a contaminated one, and both make the transformer harder to resell.

If the unit is actively leaking onto soil, that is worth flagging to us at quoting time so we bring containment. It does not stop us buying the unit.

Storage and liability while it sits

An idle oil-filled transformer in a yard is a standing liability: it is a spill risk, it may be subject to storage rules depending on status, and in the meantime it occupies space. Selling it transfers both the asset and the handling obligation to a buyer who does this routinely, with paperwork documenting the transfer.