Dumpster Rental FAQ

Start with what the debris is, not how much of it there is. Heavy material — concrete, soil, tile, plaster, roofing — goes in a 10-yard, because the weight limit arrives long before the box is full. Ordinary remodel and clear-out debris goes in a 20-yard, which handles a full kitchen, two bathrooms, a house of flooring or a double garage. Bulky, light material in volume — a whole-property clear-out, a demolition, a commercial strip-out — goes in a 40-yard, which holds twice as much as a 20 on the same footprint. A 3-yard is for a single room or for access so tight nothing else fits. When two sizes both look plausible, take the larger one.

In the East Bay, roughly $250 to $350 for a 3-yard, $375 to $500 for a 10-yard, $475 to $650 for a 20-yard and $650 to $800 or more for a 40-yard. Each of those is a flat rate covering delivery, the rental period, collection and disposal up to a stated weight allowance. The main things that move it are what the load weighs, whether the material is separated or mixed, and whether the container has to go in the street rather than on a driveway.

Seven days is our standard rental and fourteen is common on estate clear-outs, yard projects and rental turnovers. Extending is a flat daily rate agreed when you ask, rather than a penalty applied afterwards. Most homeowners finish in three to five days; if you do, call and we will collect early and give you your driveway back.

Almost anything from a building, a yard or a house: timber, drywall, plaster, tile, flooring, carpet, cabinetry, furniture, mattresses, appliances with the refrigerant already removed, roofing, concrete, brick, soil, green waste, fencing, decking, scrap metal, packaging and general household debris. Heavy and light material go in different containers for pricing reasons rather than permission ones. If you are unsure about a particular item, ask before it goes in — it is a thirty-second phone call and it beats a rejected load.

Anything hazardous. Paint, stains, solvents, fuel, motor oil, antifreeze, pesticides, herbicides, pool chemicals, batteries, fluorescent tubes, aerosols, propane and other pressurized cylinders, medical waste, and asbestos in any form. Tires are excluded almost everywhere. Fridges, freezers and air conditioning units need the refrigerant recovered by a certified technician before they can be loaded. Alameda County runs free household hazardous waste drop-off for residents, and that is the correct route for all of it.

Not on your own driveway or anywhere else on private property. You do need one the moment the container touches the public right of way — a street, a sidewalk, an alley or a parking bay. Oakland handles that through its transportation department and every other city we serve runs its own process, usually with a no-parking posting a set number of hours ahead. We file the application and put the posting up; the fee is passed through at cost.

We put plywood under the rollers and the rear of every container placed on a driveway, which spreads the load and is what prevents the marks people worry about. Sound poured concrete takes a loaded box without complaint. Pavers, brick, stamped concrete and older asphalt carry genuine risk of marking or cracking, and on those surfaces we will walk the drive with you before the truck commits and give you an honest read rather than a reassurance.

The truck needs about 60 feet of straight clear approach and roughly 23 feet of overhead clearance to tilt its bed, plus the footprint of the box and a few feet at the rear for the door. It tilts, the container rolls down on its rear wheels, and the driver eases forward to set it level on the plywood. You do not need to be there as long as we know where it goes and the space is clear of cars. When you are done, call or text and we collect — or leave it and we come automatically at the end of the rental.

Yes, with a city permit, and we handle the filing and the posted no-parking notice. Timescales vary by city, so tell us early if street placement is the only option. Homeowner associations are a separate matter from the city: many East Bay associations have their own rules about how long a container may sit, where it may go and whether it has to be covered, and those are enforced by the association rather than by us. Check before you book — it is the one restriction we cannot find out on your behalf.

Often, yes. Same-day delivery is realistic across the East Bay if you call before mid-morning and the size you need is on the yard. Next-day is normal. The predictable exceptions are Monday mornings, the first dry week after a long spell of rain when every roofer starts at once, and late August, when the Berkeley apartment blocks all turn over in the same two weeks.

To the top rail and no higher, with nothing hanging over the sides. That is a road-legal requirement rather than a company preference: a container loaded above the rail cannot be transported, so it has to be leveled before the truck can take it, which means somebody unloading it by hand. Lay long items flat rather than standing them up, break down anything that breaks down, and it very rarely becomes a problem.

Roughly one ton on a 3-yard, two on a 10-yard, three on a 20-yard and five to six on a 40-yard, each included in the flat rate. Going over is charged per ton at a rate quoted before delivery. Ordinary household and remodel debris rarely troubles the allowance. Dense material reaches it very quickly indeed: broken concrete runs about two tons per cubic yard, so two cubic yards of it is a full load on a standard allowance.

Put it in a low-sided 10-yard box on its own. A taller container filled with dense material goes over the legal road weight while still looking half empty, which is why the low boy exists. Keeping it clean matters too: a container of nothing but concrete, brick or soil is recycled at a rate well below mixed waste, and the moment timber and packaging go in, the whole load is reclassified. On a job producing both heavy and light debris, two containers usually cost less than one.

A 10-yard for most single-family roofs, and the number that matters is squares and layers rather than area. A square of single-layer composition shingle weighs around 250 pounds, so twenty squares of single-layer is about two and a half tons — and a great many older East Bay houses carry two or three layers, which multiplies it. Roofing is the job we most often see under-sized. Tell us the squares and the layers and we will tell you whether it is one haul or two.

Both, and they work differently. An active job site runs containers on a swap schedule sized to how fast it fills them, with weight tickets that satisfy the CALGreen and Alameda County diversion requirements, and often a heavy box alongside a general one. A business producing waste continuously runs a standing service with a fixed collection day and separate recycling and organics streams, which is a different arrangement from a project rental and priced per lift.

A roll-off is the open-top steel box winched up a tilting truck bed and taken away whole. It is rented for a project, filled over days or weeks, and swapped when full. A front-load is the enclosed bin with a lid and casters that a truck lifts over its cab, tips and puts back in about ninety seconds, on a repeating schedule. Roll-offs suit projects that produce a burst of debris; front-loads suit businesses producing waste continuously. Around the Bay Area a roll-off is just as often called a debris box, which is the same thing.

A day or two is plenty for most East Bay addresses, and same-day drops are often possible if you call before mid-morning. Book further ahead for the predictable rushes: Monday mornings, the first dry week after sustained rain when every roofer in the East Bay starts at once, and late August when the Berkeley apartment blocks all turn over in the same two weeks.

No, as long as we know exactly where the container goes and the space is clear of cars, bins and low branches. Most of our deliveries happen with nobody there. Send a photo of the spot when you book if there is any ambiguity — it takes thirty seconds and it prevents the one situation where a driver has to leave without dropping.

Yes, with a permit from the city. Oakland issues them through its transportation department and the other cities we serve each run their own process, usually with a no-parking posting a set number of hours in advance. We file the application and handle the posting; the fee is passed through at cost. On private driveways and private property no permit is required at all.

You pay a per-ton overage on the excess, at a rate we quote before you book rather than after the load is weighed. It is not a penalty, it is the disposal cost the facility charges us. Where it catches people out is dense material: plaster, tile, roofing, soil and concrete reach the tonnage long before they fill the box, which is why we ask what is going in rather than only how much.

Yes. Seven days is the standard rental and extending is a flat daily rate agreed when you ask, not a surcharge applied afterwards. Estate clear-outs and yard projects routinely run to two weeks and that is entirely normal. Tell us when you book if you already know it will be a long one, and we will build it into the quote.

We put plywood under the rollers and the rear of the container as standard, which spreads the load and is what prevents the marks people worry about. Sound poured concrete takes it without trouble. Pavers, brick, stamped concrete and ageing asphalt carry genuine risk of marking or cracking, and on those surfaces we will walk the drive with you first and give you an honest read rather than a reassurance.

Anything hazardous: paint, solvents, fuel, motor oil, batteries, pesticides, asbestos, fluorescent tubes, medical waste and pressurized cylinders. Tires are excluded almost everywhere. Fridges, freezers and air conditioners need the refrigerant recovered by a certified technician before they can be loaded. Alameda County residents have free household hazardous waste drop-off available, which is the right route for all of it.

A container is cheaper per cubic yard by a wide margin, because you are paying for the box and the disposal rather than for labor. A crew is worth it when there is very little to remove, when it has to be gone the same afternoon, or when nobody on site can safely lift it. For anything that takes more than a few hours to load, the container wins on price and it wins by more the bigger the job gets.

A roll-off is an open-top steel box that is winched onto a truck and taken away whole, rented by the project and swapped when it is full. A front-load is the enclosed bin with a lid and casters that a truck lifts, tips into itself and puts back, on a repeating collection schedule. Roll-offs are for projects that produce a burst of debris; front-loads are for businesses producing waste continuously. Plenty of our commercial customers run a front-load year round and rent a roll-off when they refit.

Roughly 60 feet of straight clear approach so the truck can line up and winch the container off, about 23 feet of vertical clearance for the tilting bed, and the footprint of the box itself plus a few feet at the rear for the door to swing. Low branches, phone and power lines, carport roofs and parked cars are what actually stop deliveries — distance almost never is.

It is the Bay Area name for the same thing. Roll-off is the national term, debris box is what the trade and the transfer stations here have always called it, and your contractor will probably use both in the same conversation. There is no difference in the equipment and none in the price.

Yes, and on any running job it should be. We bring the empty on the same visit, take the full one away and the crew keeps working. Most East Bay swaps happen within a day of the call and same-day is available on active sites where production would otherwise stop. It is the standard arrangement on anything that runs for more than a week.

Whichever way you tell us. The rear swing door is the difference between wheeling debris in and lifting it over the side, so it should point at wherever the material is coming from. Say so when you book, and remind the driver on arrival if the layout is not obvious from the street.

No. An empty roll-off already weighs a couple of tons and there is no safe way to shift one by hand, even a few feet. If it ends up somewhere that does not work, call us and we will reposition it. Trying to lever or tow one is how driveways get gouged and people get hurt.

It is a good idea from November to March. Rain adds weight you pay for by the ton and can turn a comfortably-inside-allowance load into an overage. A tarp also keeps other people’s trash out overnight, which on some streets is not a hypothetical. We can provide one if you do not have one.

About one full pickup load, or twelve to fifteen contractor bags. In practical terms: a single bathroom strip-out including the tub, a small kitchen without the appliances, one room of carpet and closet contents, or a week of a small café’s waste. A garage, a roof or any whole-house job needs something much larger.

No. It is a front-load bin with a lid and casters, lifted and tipped by a truck with forks, whereas a roll-off is an open-top box winched onto a tilting bed. That difference is what lets it reach places a roll-off truck cannot, and it is also why long items have to be cut down to fit under the lid.

Usually, and that is precisely what it is for. The bin itself is around six feet by four, and the truck delivering it is much smaller than a roll-off truck. Send us the width at the narrowest point and the height of anything overhead and we will give you a straight yes or no before you commit.

Cheaper per haul, more expensive per cubic yard. One three-yard bin costs less than one 10-yard box. Three three-yard hauls cost considerably more than one 10-yard, and the crossover comes faster than most people expect. Where the access allows a larger container we will tell you to take it.

Yes, and that is what most of these bins do. Weekly, every other week or several times a week, priced per lift rather than per rental, which works out well below the one-off rate. Restaurants, shops, small offices and apartment buildings across Oakland and Emeryville run on exactly this arrangement.

Around a ton, which is the lowest allowance in our fleet and easy to reach with dense material. Tile, plaster, soil and roofing debris will get there long before the bin looks full. If the material is heavy, the honest answer is a low-sided roll-off rather than this bin, and we will say so when you describe the job.

Yes, across level ground — it is on casters and that is one of its advantages in a shared yard or a loading bay. Do not try it on a slope, chock the wheels wherever it sits, and remember it gets substantially harder to push as it fills.

A 10-yard for most single-family roofs, and the deciding number is squares rather than area. A square of single-layer composition shingle weighs roughly 250 pounds, so twenty squares of single-layer is about two and a half tons and twenty squares of a two-layer roof is around five. Older East Bay houses very often have two or three layers. Tell us the squares and the layers and we will tell you whether it is one haul or two.

You can put them in a container, but not in a large one and not mixed with everything else if you want the price to make sense. Concrete runs about two tons per cubic yard, so a 20 or 40-yard box loaded with it would be far over the road-legal weight while still looking half full. Heavy material goes in this low box, and a clean single-material load goes to a recycler rather than to landfill at a better rate.

Roughly one cubic yard of concrete plus a bit, or two cubic yards of soil, or around fifteen to twenty squares of single-layer roofing, or the tile and mortar bed from a couple of pre-war bathrooms. It sounds like a lot and it is reached faster than almost anyone expects when the material is dense.

Two reasons. A full box of heavy material has to stay inside the legal weight for the road, and a taller box would be over the limit long before it was full. And the low sides make loading heavy material by hand possible — you lift broken concrete over a three-and-a-half-foot wall rather than wheeling it up a ramp.

More often than anything larger will. At about twelve feet it can sit level on ground where a 22-foot box would be resting on two corners, which is why it is the container we send most often into the Oakland hills, Castro Valley and the streets above Arlington in El Cerrito. Send a photo of the drive if you are unsure and we will look before we send a truck.

If there is enough of it, yes. A container of nothing but concrete or nothing but soil goes to a recycling facility at a recycling rate; the moment timber, plastic and packaging go in, the whole load becomes mixed waste at a higher rate. On any real breakout this is usually the largest saving available on the job, and it costs nothing but a bit of discipline on the ground.

A container filled above the top rail cannot legally be transported, so it has to be leveled before the truck can take it — which on a heavy load means somebody unloading it by hand. On weight, an overloaded box either has to be partially emptied on site or comes with an overweight charge. Neither is a good outcome and both are avoidable by talking about tonnage before delivery.

For a single kitchen, comfortably. Cabinets, counters, appliances, flooring and the drywall behind them will use most of one, with room left for packaging from the new units. Where it gets tight is a kitchen plus bathrooms in the same phase, or a kitchen where the old floor is tile bedded in mortar — at that point the weight matters more than the space and it is worth a phone call.

Six to eight, depending on how well the truck is loaded and how much of the debris is bulky rather than dense. If you are weighing up a container against trips to the transfer station, it is worth counting the trips honestly and putting a value on the weekend they take.

It needs about twenty-two feet of clear length plus a few feet at the rear for the door, and a clear straight run for the truck to line up on. Most post-war driveways in Hayward, San Leandro and the Oakland flatlands manage it easily. Older Berkeley, Alameda and Piedmont drives frequently do not, and a photo sent when you book settles it in seconds.

About three tons is included and anything beyond that is charged per ton at a rate quoted before delivery. Ordinary household and remodel debris rarely reaches it. Tile, plaster, roofing and soil very much can, and if the job has a heavy fraction the cheaper answer is often a separate low box for that material rather than an overage on this one.

If the debris is light and bulky — furniture, cabinetry, carpet, a whole-house clear-out — take the 40. It has the same footprint on your driveway, holds twice as much, and costs far less than two hauls of this size. If the debris is dense, the extra height is wasted because you will reach the weight limit while the box is half empty, and this size or a low boy is the right call.

Seven days is standard and a two weeks is common on remodels and rental turnovers. Extending is a flat daily rate agreed when you ask rather than a penalty applied afterwards. If you already know the schedule is long, say so when you book and we will quote it that way from the start.

To the top rail but not above it, and nothing may hang over the sides. A container loaded above the rail cannot legally go on the road, so it has to be leveled before it can be collected — which means somebody unloading it by hand. Lay long items flat rather than standing them up and it is almost never an issue.

Twice the capacity in the same footprint. Both are around twenty-two feet long and eight wide; the 40 has eight-foot sides where the 20 has four and a half. So it takes up no more driveway, it needs the same approach for the truck, and it holds twice as much. Whenever the debris is bulky and light, that makes it much better value per cubic yard.

No, and this is the most costly mistake available at this size. Concrete runs around two tons per cubic yard, so a few feet of it in a box this big is already over the legal road weight while the container looks nearly empty. Heavy material goes in a low box with a proper tonnage. On a demolition producing both, run two containers and keep the heavy stream separate — it also gets it recycled instead of landfilled.

If a 20-yard fits, so does this, because the footprint is identical. The two things to check are overhead clearance — the truck needs about twenty-three feet to tilt the bed, and low branches, cables and carport roofs are what actually stop deliveries — and whether you can comfortably load over eight-foot sides. Steep hillside drives above Montclair or in Castro Valley are usually a no regardless of size.

By hand, yes — an eight-foot wall is a real barrier and it slows a crew down noticeably. With an excavator, a loader, a ramp or an upper-floor opening it makes no difference at all. If there is no machine on site and everything is going in by hand, be honest about that when you book, because the labor cost of the extra height can outweigh the saving on the haul.

Twelve to sixteen, which is another way of saying an entire weekend of trips replaced by one phone call. For a whole-house clear-out or an estate, the container is not a luxury — the alternative is two weeks of driving.

Yes, on every load. Each container is weighed at a licensed facility and you get the ticket showing the tonnage and where it went. California’s CALGreen rules require documented construction and demolition diversion on covered projects, Alameda County adds its own requirements, and those tickets are what the paperwork is asking for. Ask when you book and we will make sure the format suits your plan.

Next-day is standard across the East Bay and same-day is available where a full box would otherwise stop a crew. On sites running a regular rota we schedule against the fill rate rather than waiting to be called, which in practice means the empty tends to arrive before anyone notices the full one is a problem.

Yes. Every load is weighed at a licensed facility and ticketed with the tonnage and the destination, and recoverable material is separated where the mix allows. CALGreen requires documented diversion on covered projects, Alameda County adds its own requirements, and Oakland and Berkeley both expect the evidence at final inspection. Tell us at the start what your waste management plan needs and we will make sure the tickets match it.

On a small job, one. On anything with real volume, separate. Clean concrete, clean timber and clean metal are each recycled at rates well below mixed construction debris, and the saving on a project of any size is considerable. The moment packaging and finishes go into the concrete box, the whole load is priced as mixed waste.

No. Asbestos-containing material does not go in a debris box under any circumstances — it requires a survey before demolition, notification to the air district, and a licensed abatement contractor with its own disposal route. Lead-painted debris from pre-1978 buildings has its own handling requirements too. We will tell you plainly what we cannot take before a container arrives rather than having a load rejected at the scale.

It changes phase by phase, which is the point of planning it rather than reacting. Demolition wants the largest box available and often two. Framing runs comfortably on one general container swapped weekly. Finishes need something much smaller. A site producing heavy material at the same time should be running a low box alongside whatever the general container is.

Regularly — infill lots in West Oakland, Emeryville and Berkeley frequently have no yard at all. The answer is usually street placement with a city permit and a posted no-parking window, using a smaller box swapped more often rather than a large one nobody can fit. We handle the permit and the posting as part of arranging it.

Yes, and on anything running more than a few weeks that is the sensible arrangement. Give us the schedule and the likely phases and we will price the container plan as a job, so the number does not move every time the work changes character.

A front-load is the enclosed bin with a lid and casters that sits behind most businesses. A truck lifts it over the cab, tips it and sets it back down, in about ninety seconds, on a repeating schedule. A roll-off is an open-top box winched onto a tilting truck bed and taken away whole, rented for a project and swapped when full. Front-loads suit continuous waste; roll-offs suit projects. Many businesses run a front-load year round and rent a roll-off when they refit.

It depends on volume and on how often it can be collected, and the two trade off. A small café often runs comfortably on a two-yard bin collected twice a week; a restaurant with heavy packaging usually needs four or six yards weekly. The target is a bin that is comfortably full on collection day and not overflowing before it. We would rather propose something smaller with a sensible frequency than sell you capacity you are paying to store air in.

Alameda County operates mandatory recycling requirements for businesses, and California law requires organic waste diversion from commercial premises, so in practical terms yes. It also saves money: cardboard, paper, glass and metals collected as separated streams cost less than the same material filling a general waste bin. Restaurants and food businesses additionally need an organics container. We set the streams up as part of the service rather than as an extra.

No. Our commercial service is month to month, priced per lift, with no annual escalator written into the terms. If your volume changes we change the plan; if you want to leave you can. It is worth checking what notice your current arrangement requires, because that is usually the part that catches people rather than the rate.

Call us and we will get a truck back out, usually the same day, because our dispatch is local rather than routed through a national center. The most common cause is a blocked approach — a vehicle parked across the enclosure or a gate locked outside the hours we were told about — so it is worth checking that first, and worth telling us at setup exactly how the access works.

Yes, charged per lift, with no need to change the standing schedule. Post-holiday retail volumes, a busy stretch in a restaurant, a unit turning over in an apartment building — those are all temporary and should not turn into a permanently larger bin you pay for all year. If the peaks are big enough, a temporary roll-off alongside the regular bin is usually cheaper still.

Regularly, and it is one of our largest categories. The pattern is almost always the same: a standing bin sized for the resident baseline, plus a temporary container at turnover when carpets, appliances and tenant leavings all arrive at once. Managing several buildings on one arrangement makes the whole thing simpler to route and cheaper to run.