Junk Removal Prices

How much does junk removal and hauling cost? If you’ve ever run a search for ‘how much does junk removal cost?’ or ‘prices for junk removal’ you’ve probably found that information is scant. At best you’ll probably get a big range of prices from suspiciously low to offensively high. Well there’s a reason for that. Part of it is because of the nature of junk removal and how to price it, and part of it a little bit of gamesmanship on the part of the site you landed on.

In the case of the former, it a fact of life that advertisers want to get you to call. Most of the sites that list numbers for junk removal are aggregator sites that collect information for various junk removal companies. Because there are many different companies listed on these sites, all with their own methodologies, processes and policies on pricing services. Each company also offers slightly different services too. Depending on how services are bundled their price will differ. That said, range of prices you will find on such sites is 120 to 1000 dollars.

So much for the local and regional players in the industry’s pricing strategies. There are a couple of national junk removal companies. Companies generally charge based on the size of their trucks, or per cubic yard. The cubic yard is also the standard unit for roll off dumpsters, the big containers you find outside of construction sites and at renovation projects. For these companies the minimum charge is about 130 dollars. Prices go up from there based on eighths. The average size of one of these standard trucks is about 10x8x5, the equivalent of a 10 yard roll off dumpster. An eighth of the truck will cost about $250, with a quarter costing $370, half $470 and a full truck up to $800.

There are some caveats to the above pricing and that’s what makes pricing junk removal genuinely shifty, instead of willfully ambiguous. Pricing based on volume capacity of the container, can be off by a lot for dense items like concrete, dirt, bricks or shingles. For these kinds of times the items are charged based on their weight or are limited to the amount of space they take up in the truck. For example, dense items might be limited to half a truckload. These limits are for a couple of reasons. One, there are weight limits on all roads, and the companies do not want to exceed the statutory weight limit. More commonly, the reason for the limit is profit. If the material weighs the same amount as a comparable load of a lighter material but takes up half the space, it is going to take workers twice the amount of effort to get it into the truck. Plus, because it weighs twice the amount, it is going to cost the company twice the amount to dispose of it at the waste disposal facility.

That said, the best junk removal prices are transparent, upfront, and direct. The only way to get you a fair quote is to do an onsite assessment where the difficulty of getting to the junk, how heavy it is, and the amount of it can be surmised. And that’s exactly what we do with our free estimates so there’s no guesswork on what you’ll be paying or the quality of the service you’ll be receiving for that matter.