Big House Converters Ltd
2820 54 Ave SE, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

We've developed this site to reveal the truth about the converter recycling industry and our part in it. Having started in the converter recycling business back in June of 2005, Eric Grand-Maison began by cutting off converters from scrap cars. Starting from the very bottom, Eric has lead Big House Converters to become one of the largest buyers currently in Canada.This site will save you from many hassles and costly lessons that we've picked up along the way. As the old saying goes, “schooling costs money”. We've found this to be too true in the scrap business; you won't find any schools teaching about scrap, but we can do what we can to help you with what we've learned.

What exactly is a Catalytic Converter and why should I care?

Catalytic Converters are essentially an expensive exhaust filter. What makes them expensive are the precious metals used to catalyze with the exhaust to clean the pollutants from the exhaust.

There are 3 different metals used in catalytic converters, Platinum, Palladium, and Rhodium. Platinum and Palladium are the main metals used with very little Rhodium used. These 3 metals are market traded metals, meaning they rise and fall with metal markets, meaning converters follow also. There are 3 different types of materials that are coated with the Precious Metals, Ceramic (being the most common and looks like square honeycomb), Stainless Steel Foil (looks like corogated cardboard), and Bead (looks like beads).
Catalytic Converters have been standard equipment on gas powered cars since the early 80's to current and on diesels since early 90's. Now, one important thing to point out is that 2007 and earlier diesel cats are almost worthless, different emission requirement changes for 2008 in North America brought about the new Cat & DPF systems for all street diesel powered vehicles, and with that, a lot more catalyzing metals were required to make them meet emissions.
This brings us the most valuable converters brought to the scrap industry. With more and more people finding out about these valuable 08 and up diesels systems and with no control over who can buy or sell them is the reason why they are becoming a hot item to steal. The Dodge systems have the most metal, so they are the most valuable (around $700 per system Avg.), GM systems are around $300 per system, 08/09 Fords around $180 per system and 2010/11 around $500. Gas converters are an average of $75 each. These are approximate values that people would get at our door in Calgary.
After the converters are purchased by us, we inventory them and ship approximately 4,000 at a time to be broken down and processed by a large smelter down in Texas. Most of the buyers you will encounter today are middle men though, who eventually sell to a company like Big House, except we mostly buy from the major producers (scrap yards, wrecking yards, tow companies, etc.) and a limited number of small buyers.
It's the smaller buyers that are typically the ones who will buy converters without questioning or investigating their origins. Because cats are quick cash, a lot of guys out there are buying anything they can find, then selling to the highest buyer. Big House Converters stands against these dishonest practices, which is how we've been able to consistently purchase and process converters as a leading key player in this competitive industry.