Tearing Out an Old Deck: What to Do With the Lumber

Old decks come down faster than people expect. The hard part is what to do with the pile once the boards are off. A summer deck demo on a typical Charleston lot can fill a surprising amount of space with lumber, railings, and posts, and if you plan the dumpster around it, the cleanup goes smooth.

Here's how I'd think about it if you called me.

What an old deck actually weighs

Most deck lumber is pressure-treated pine. It's bulky, but it isn't dense the way a load of concrete or roofing is. A deck's worth of boards, railings, balusters, and posts takes up a lot of room without weighing much, which is good news for picking a size.

For most single-deck tear-outs, a 13-yard or a 17-yard is the right call. Go with the 13 if it's a smaller deck off the back of the house. Step up to the 17 if you've got a big wraparound, a second-story deck with long runs of railing, or you're tearing out stairs and a pergola at the same time. Both of those sizes take wood, drywall, furniture, yard brush, and general remodeling debris, so if your project spreads into the yard or the garage, they'll hold it.

The 22 is there too if the deck is huge or you're clearing more than one structure. You can look over our dumpster sizes if you want to compare them side by side.

The footers are a separate problem

This is the part folks miss. The wood is light, but the concrete footers under your posts are heavy. Same goes for any old patio pad or sidewalk you break up while you're back there.

Heavy, dense material can't go in the 13, 17, or 22. That kind of load has its own dumpster, the 7-yard, which is built for concrete, dirt, rock, brick, and roofing. If you've only got a handful of small footers, you might be better off setting them aside and dealing with them another way. If you're pulling up a dozen big concrete piers or a whole patio slab, get the 7-yard for that and keep it separate from the lumber.

Don't mix them. Concrete in a wood dumpster is the kind of thing that causes problems at the disposal end, and clean heavy loads like concrete go to the recycle plant when they're sorted out right. Keep the two piles apart from the start and it's easy.

Load it nails-down and stack it flat

A few things that make the demo go better:

Pull or hammer your nails and screws down before the boards go in. Loading nails-down keeps the pile safer to walk around and easier to pack tight. Stack the long boards flat instead of tossing them in crisscross, and you'll fit a lot more in the same box.

Break down railing sections and snap apart the balusters. Long, intact railing eats space. Posts can go in whole.

One thing to know before you start tossing: we can't take batteries, chemicals, or electronics. That rarely comes up on a deck job, but if you've got old solar deck lights or a battery pack from a power tool laying around, those go somewhere else.

Where to put the dumpster

Driveway placement near the deck is usually best. You want a short carry from the tear-out to the box so you're not hauling boards across the whole yard in July. I'll set it where it makes sense for your layout, and I'll talk through the spot with you when we schedule.

We run from James Island and cover Charleston plus the towns around it, about a 40-mile reach. You can check the towns we serve to make sure you're in the area.

Take your time with it

A deck demo is hot, heavy work, and most people don't want to knock it out in one Saturday. Rentals run anywhere from one day up to 30, so you can spread the job across a few weekends if that's how your summer's looking. Tear out a section, load it, rest, come back to it. On bigger jobs we can swap the box out and bring a fresh one if you fill up before you're done.

I'm Tony, and I answer my own phone seven days a week. If you tell me roughly how big the deck is and whether you're pulling footers too, I can point you to the right size and get you scheduled. Call or text me at (843) 800-0689 and we'll sort it out.

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