Cable arrives healthy and can quietly stop being so in storage. A few warehouse habits protect the value sitting on those drums.
Seal the ends, always
Moisture wicking along a conductor or under a jacket is the classic storage injury, and it starts at an open end. End caps go back on after every cut — heat-shrink caps for anything stored outdoors or long-term. A drum with sealed ends survives a damp season; an open one absorbs it.
Store drums on edge, on dry ground
Drums stand on their flanges, on hardstanding or dunnage, never flat on their side where the bottom layers carry the whole weight into whatever moisture the ground offers. Chock the flanges, and roll drums only in the direction marked — against the winding tightens it, with it loosens the layers.
Mind temperature and sunlight
UV ages exposed jackets, and deep cold makes them brittle to handle. Indoor storage is best; outdoors, a ventilated cover beats a sealed tarpaulin that condenses. Move drums somewhere warm a day before winter installation and the jacket repays the courtesy.
Keep the tag legible
The flange tag ties the drum to its length, batch and test record. Protect it, and re-mark cut lengths at the flange when a drum is partially used. An unlabelled part-drum becomes scrap the day the person who remembers it changes jobs.
