Most homeowners don't think about a dumpster until they're standing in a pile of debris with no good way to move it. By then you've already made a dozen trips to the curb and your truck bed smells like old carpet. A roll-off in the driveway changes how a project goes. You throw things in as you work instead of stacking junk in the garage until the weekend. Here are five jobs around a Charleston home where renting one is the easy call, and which size tends to fit each.
Kitchen or bathroom remodel
A remodel makes a surprising amount of trash. Old cabinets, countertops, a tub, broken tile, drywall, and all the packaging from the new stuff. It piles up fast, and it piles up dirty. You want it out of the house, not sitting in the dining room.
For a single bathroom, the 7-yard usually holds it, though the 7 is also our heavy-material size, so check what you're tossing. A full kitchen or a bath plus some other rooms is more of a 13-yard job. Cabinets, drywall, and wood all go in the 13. Just keep tile and any old mortar separate, because that counts as heavy material and only the 7-yard takes it.
Garage, attic, or whole-house cleanout
This is the project people put off for years. Boxes you never unpacked, furniture from two houses ago, the stuff in the attic you forgot you owned. When you finally tackle it, you don't want to be hauling carloads to the dump every Saturday for a month.
A cleanout is loose and bulky more than it's heavy, so you fill space before you hit weight. The 13-yard handles a garage or a couple of rooms. A full-house cleanout, or clearing out a parent's place, often calls for a 17 or 22. You can look at all our dumpster sizes and pick based on how many rooms you're emptying. One quick note before you start tossing: we can't take batteries, chemicals, or electronics, so set those aside for proper drop-off.
Roof tear-off
Old shingles are heavy and there are a lot of them. A re-roof on an average Charleston house can pull off several tons of material, and that weight is the whole story with roofing.
Shingles are heavy, dense material, which means they go in the 7-yard and only the 7-yard. The bigger cans aren't rated for that kind of weight. If your roofer is handling the job, ask whether the dumpster's already in their quote so you don't double up. If you're doing it yourself, the 7 is what you want, and on a big roof we can swap it out when it fills.
Yard overhaul or storm cleanup
Charleston gets its share of wind, and a bad storm leaves branches, brush, and downed limbs all over the yard. Same goes for clearing an overgrown lot or pulling out old landscaping. Yard debris is bulky and light, so you fill a lot of cubic feet without much weight.
Brush, branches, and wood are fine in the 13, 17, or 22. The bigger sizes shine here because you're chasing volume, not weight. What you can't do is mix in dirt, sod, or rock with the brush. Those are heavy materials and need the 7-yard. If your cleanup is part dirt and part brush, it's worth a quick call to sort out the right setup before delivery.
Concrete, patio, or driveway removal
Tearing out an old patio, a cracked driveway, or a brick walkway is dense work. Concrete, brick, dirt, and rock weigh a tremendous amount per cubic foot, far more than household trash.
All of that heavy material goes in the 7-yard. It's the only size built for it, and clean heavy loads head to the recycle plant rather than the landfill. You won't fill a 7 to the top with concrete before you hit its weight limit, and that's normal. Don't try to talk yourself into a bigger can for a heavy load. The 7 is sized for exactly this.
Picking the right one
The short version: anything heavy and dense, concrete, dirt, rock, brick, sod, or shingles, goes in the 7-yard. Everything else, household junk, furniture, wood, drywall, and yard brush, goes in the 13, 17, or 22 depending on how much you've got. If you're not sure, that's what we're here for. Tell us the project and we'll point you to the right size.
We rent across Charleston and the towns around it. You can see the towns we serve and check what goes in a dumpster before you book. Tony answers his own phone seven days a week, so call or text (843) 800-0689 and we'll get one in your driveway.
Need a dumpster in Charleston? Call or text Tony at (843) 800-0689, or order online.
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