Swell factor of Construction Waste going into 30 yard bins

Joe Lall · May 10, 2014

We are doing a few demo's of residential homes...I have calculated my total weight and yardage of debris...What I am unsure of is the average amount of debris (cubic yards) that a 30 yard bin will hold. Thanks for your input

1466IH · May 10, 2014

I'm just gonna take a stab in the dark here and say 30yards

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Ropinghorns · May 10, 2014

Well, I know that it won't hold as much [house] square ft. as the dumpster people told my customer. He ordered the dumpster amount they suggested. I packed and crushed like a wild man while loading a house we did last year in 30 yard dumpsters, and it took twice as many as they said. I'm glad he was paying for them.

clintm · May 11, 2014

the last time we used 30yd dumpsters on a wood frame office like a house it was our dumpsters and dump was only 1 mile down the road was only able to get 5-6 tons packed and heaped

1466IH · May 11, 2014

I understand the question now lol "how many sq/ft of house fits into a 30yard dumpster" in that case I have no idea

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mitch504 · May 11, 2014

The answer is ........................................it depends.

Some houses awaiting demolition have junk in them equal to the volume of the structure itself.

Another factor is how small you can crush it up. I used to demo with a 20 ton hoe. When waiting for the trucks to return, the operator didn't get off, he sat on the pile and chewed until it was time to load again. Then he loaded what he had chewed up. The best I ever saw was 8 tons of wood in a 22 yd bed. Normal was about 6 if it was well chewed, and 2-3 if it wasn't. A smaller machine is at a disadvantage of course since it can't crush floor and ceiling joists, etc. One or two long boards can mean you are hauling a lot of air.

What the structure is made of makes a big difference, too. (4x12 or 2x6 joists, sheetrock or tongue and groove paneling, etc.)

CM1995 · May 11, 2014

All good answers and Mitch hit in on the head. Pay attention to personal contents in the house. If the furniture, clothing, personal items, etc have been removed I use the formula 1,000 SF = 100CY of debris. Divide by size of dumpster used and it's pretty close. This doesn't include slab or foundation, you'll need to calculate that separately. I send concrete, brick and block to inert dumps and usually haul it out on dump trucks.

If the house has been burned and/or the personal contents are still there you need to adjust your yardage up and this is a hip-pocket estimate.

I had my rear end handed to me once on a small burn out. House was less than a 1K SF and front living room and porch were burned. The house was boarded up and I looked in the living room and saw the amount of damage and went with my normal formula. What I didn't see was the two bedrooms on the back of the house which weren't burned that could have a made an all-start episode of "Hoarders".

Landclearer · May 11, 2014

The last demo we did was a 6000 sqft burn job. The roof was about 80 percent gone. It had 2 full floors loaded down with everything you could imagine. We took 175 tons of trash not including brick or concrete. We use our 80 yard trailer and averaged about 12 tons per load. The week before that one, we did a 4500 sqft that was completely empty and got it out in 125 tons.

Chris

Wolf · May 17, 2014

Awesome, Chris. Do you have any pics of these demo jobs that you can post? Sounds like you aer doing some really great work. What kind of machine are you using?

Landclearer · May 18, 2014

Hi Wolf,

I have posted some pics of one of our demo jobs in the "Showtime" part of the forum. It will be under Demolition, clearing and grading. Thanks for prompting me to do this, I have wanted to do it for a while but never got around to it.

Chris

tmc_31 · May 20, 2014

Hey Joe,

I was talking to a landfill manager in a small rural town this morning about a small demo that I was pricing out. He made the comment that 400lb/CYD was a pretty good average for residential demo. That seems to be in the ballpark with what landclearer was saying.

Tim

nobledavis · Feb 9, 2016

rule of thumb for house demo is figure 1000 sqft house 20ft x 50ft x 10 ft =9000cuft * by 3 = 3000cuft convert to yards =111.0

dirty4fun · Feb 10, 2016

Te last house I did had a fire only in one room, but the house was loaded with junk. When I got to the attic tearing it down there must of been enough old bed springs to fill a dorm. I hauled three single axle dump truck loads of metal mostly springs it seemed still took (10) 30 yd. drop boxes with no foundation in the boxes. I was supposed to pay overage if there was to many tons in each box, but used them and enough other times that they didn't charge me extra. over half of them were over by a ton or more. I took most all the concrete to a place that has a permit to control erosion along the river. I really enjoy doing demo work, and seeing they built things years ago.

Dozier Digging · Mar 6, 2016

I'm bidding a 30 x 50 house had a small fire that only took a small part of the roof and its full of contents I see it was mentioned 100 yds per 1000 sq ft what is a safe estimate for the contents

CM1995 · Mar 7, 2016

Dozier Digging said:
I'm bidding a 30 x 50 house had a small fire that only took a small part of the roof and its full of contents I see it was mentioned 100 yds per 1000 sq ft what is a safe estimate for the contents

I like to use a factor in that equation when there's contents like 1.1 to 1.4 depending the amount of contents. Basically just increase the debris by 10-40% depending on how much is there (SF/1000*100*1.2= volume). How much to increase it by is a "guestimate". Rooms packed floor to ceiling will create more debris than one thinks, it's gotten me before - once.

One of the problems with contents especially on a partial roof burn is they can be wet and heavy. If your paying by the CY across the scales then no problem but if you paying by the ton it can be a substantial.

Dozier Digging · Mar 7, 2016

Cm 1995 there is mainly just furniture the Adtic has a lot of stuff but I hope they clean a lot of that out I've got back next week after they get all the stuff there wanting to save I was wanting to get an idea of what I needed to figure the job. And here we pay per ton across the scales which I will haul in 30 yd bins

CM1995 · Mar 8, 2016

A typical 30 yard can on a residential demo will average 9 tons in my experience. The first few cans will be lighter and the last few will be heavier than 9 tons but they always average out close. Basically the bulky lightweight framing and sheathing go out first and the drywall and fines go out last which accounts for the weight.

That volume and tonnage does not include brick, block and concrete - just soft demo debris.

See what they remove and depending on what's left, bump the formula up on what you see. On jobs such as this it doesn't bother me if I don't get it for what I think it will cost. I've never lost money on a job I didn't get.:cool2

Wolf · Mar 8, 2016

Why don't you just bring in the 40 yard or bigger demo trailers rather than dropping a box.

What kind of furniture are they leaving behind?

Is it anything good you can sell to anitque dealers, or stuff to just crush up with the machines?

Dozier Digging · Mar 13, 2016

Wolf said:
Why don't you just bring in the 40 yard or bigger demo trailers rather than dropping a box.

What kind of furniture are they leaving behind?

Is it anything good you can sell to anitque dealers, or stuff to just crush up with the machines?

All I have is 30 yd cans

Wolf · Mar 13, 2016

That makes sense then to use the 30 yard cans. How many do you have?

How old is the building you are wrecking? and what kind of furniture did they leave behind?

are you going to crush up the furniture before you load it into the boxes?

Swell factor of Construction Waste going into 30 yard bins

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