Today I want to tackle the topic of making the proper container size choice. Every job is different and therefore has different disposal needs. To the untrained eye, even a moderate size job can look quite overwhelming. Often times, the knee jerk reaction is to get “the big one”. Many times it is warranted, and sometimes we pull containers that aren’t even half full.
I hate seeing a container that is half used. I hate seeing anyone waste hard earned money. We have plenty of customers and the need to oversell jobs certainly doesn’t exist here. Our boxes are busy. If you don’t take that “big one”, one of my other customers will. So, I prefer to see to it that each customer gets the size that fits their needs.
Figuring out what size dumpster rental you need is not that hard to accomplish. If it is a construction debris dumpster you need, you may have a pile of debris. This makes sizing your container a little easier than say a house cleanout dumpster. If you have a tape measure, a calculator and can do a little “estimating”, you can get pretty close to how much yardage you have on your site. Let’s get started.
So, here we are facing our pile of debris. It looks pretty big. It has to be 30 feet long. And it is at least 5 feet wide too. And it is almost up to my waist too. We need a “big one”. Well, hold on a minute. Let’s REALLY look at that pile again.
Yes it is 30 feet long, and it is about 3 feet high in the middle, but it does look like a “hill”. So, overall the AVERAGE height is lower. Let’s go with an AVERAGE height of 2 feet. Now let’s assume the width of 5 feet is pretty accurate. We now have a pile that is 30 x 2 x 5 (height adjusted to be more like a cube than a “hill”).
The formula for calculating cubic yardage is very simple. With this formula and some simple measurements, you are moments away from transforming your “mountain” of trash into a simple number of yards. So, the formula for calculating cubic yardage is (length x width x height)/27
Now if we plug our numbers from above into our formula, we get 30 x 2 x 5 / 27 = 11.11 yards. Not only do you need our SMALLEST container, but you will even have some room left over for any little things you may find laying around as well.
House cleanouts are much more complicated and require a trained eye to accurately assess size accurately. However, a simple conversation with us can easily narrow down what you are likely to need. I hope this helps and feel free to post any questions. I am here to help.
Be safe, be well and most of all BE HAPPY!
Dale Olander
President
D&D Disposal
(732) 341-6900