Two limits, and they run out at different times
A roll-off container has a size in cubic yards and a weight allowance in tons, and the bill is written against both. You pay a delivery and pull price for the box, and you pay again by the ton for anything over the included weight. Almost nobody plans for the second one, because the box is the thing you can see.
The gap between the two limits is enormous depending on what you are throwing away. Cabinets are about three cubic feet per linear foot as they come off the wall and roughly thirty pounds per foot, so twenty-four feet of cabinets is seventy-two cubic feet and seven hundred pounds. Tile on a mortar bed is a tenth of a cubic foot per square foot and six pounds, so a hundred and eighty square feet of it is eighteen cubic feet and over a thousand pounds. The tile occupies a quarter of the space and weighs half again as much.
That is why the calculation reports which limit binds. If it is weight, a bigger container will not save you, because allowances rise more slowly than sizes do. If it is volume, breaking material down flat is worth real money.
The figures used, and how much to trust them
| Material | Loose volume | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Carpet and pad | 0.10 cu ft per sq ft | 1.0 lb per sq ft |
| Sheet vinyl or plank | 0.06 | 1.2 |
| Hardwood, nailed | 0.10 | 2.5 |
| Tile with mortar or backer | 0.10 | 6.0 |
| Drywall | 0.08 cu ft per sq ft | 2.2 lb per sq ft |
| Plaster on lath | 0.15 | 7.0 |
| Cabinets | 3.0 cu ft per linear ft | 30 lb per linear ft |
| Stone countertop | 0.12 cu ft per sq ft | 18 lb per sq ft |
These are working averages taken from the ordinary range of residential materials, and they are the weakest part of the calculation. A mud-set tile floor with a full mortar bed can be twice the figure above. Plaster varies with how thick the plasterer laid it, which varied by decade and by trade. A cast iron tub is in a category of its own and is entered separately for that reason. If the job is close to a limit, ask the hauler what densities they see, because they weigh trucks for a living and you do not.
The loading factor
Debris does not stack. A cabinet carcass thrown into a container occupies its full box volume plus the air around it, and the pile bridges rather than settles. The loading factor multiplies the bare volume to account for that, and it is a genuine variable rather than a fudge: careful loading with the cabinets broken down flat, the drywall laid in sheets and the heavy material spread across the floor of the box comes close to 1.0, while throwing everything over the side comes closer to 1.3.
It is also the cheapest lever on this page. The difference between 1.0 and 1.3 on a job producing twenty cubic yards is six cubic yards, which is a third of a container. On a job that is one pull away from being two pulls, an afternoon spent breaking cabinets down pays for itself.
What has to be separated, and what has to be tested
Not everything can go in the box. Haulers commonly exclude appliances containing refrigerant, anything with mercury, batteries, paint and solvents, tyres, and pressurised cylinders, and what is excluded and where those items go instead is a local matter set by the hauler and by the waste authority. Ask before demolition day rather than discovering it when the truck refuses the load.
The more serious question comes first. Houses built before the late 1970s may contain asbestos in resilient floor tile, in the black mastic beneath it, in joint compound, in pipe and duct insulation, and lead in the paint on every painted surface. Intact material sitting in place is a different situation from material being broken up and thrown into a container, which is exactly what demolition does. Whether testing is required before the work begins, who is allowed to do it, and what has to happen if a test comes back positive are matters for a qualified assessor and your local authority. That is where this page stops.
Fitting disposal into the rest of the budget
Demolition and disposal is a line that gets left out of homeowner budgets more reliably than any other, and it is not small: multiple pulls, overweight charges, protection of the parts of the house that are staying, and the labour to carry everything out. Put the figure this page produces into the demolition line of the budget allocation calculator rather than letting it live in the contingency, since it is a known cost and not a surprise. If you are building the budget forward from line items instead, the remodel budget calculator takes it directly. For a roof rather than an interior, the roof tear-off debris calculator uses the same two-limit logic with shingle weights.
Questions people ask
What size dumpster do I need for a kitchen remodel?
Work it out from both limits rather than from a size chart. A typical kitchen tear-out of cabinets, countertop, flooring and some drywall lands in the range of eight to fifteen loose cubic yards, which sounds like a small container, until the tile floor and the countertop push the weight past a two ton allowance and the volume figure stops being the one that matters. The practical approach is to estimate both here, then tell the hauler your two figures and let them recommend the box, because their allowances and their overage rates are what determine which size is actually cheapest for your mix of material.
Why is my dumpster over weight when it is not full?
Because you filled it with something dense. Tile set in a mortar bed, plaster and lath, a stone countertop and a cast iron tub are all several times heavier per cubic foot than the cabinets and drywall people picture when they imagine a full container. A container that is a third full of tile and mortar can be at its weight allowance with two thirds of the space unused. The fix is not a bigger box, since allowances scale more slowly than volumes. It is asking the hauler whether they run a separate rate for clean concrete, masonry and tile, which many do, and putting the heavy material in that load instead.
Can I put a toilet or a bathtub in a dumpster?
Usually yes for porcelain and standard tubs, but confirm with the hauler first, because acceptance varies by company and by the landfill or transfer station they use. What is much more consistently excluded is anything containing refrigerant such as a refrigerator or a freezer, anything with mercury, batteries, paint, solvents, tyres and pressurised cylinders. Those have their own disposal routes set locally. A refused item does not just come back out of the box, it can get the whole load rejected or surcharged, so the five minute call before demolition day is the cheapest part of the job.
How do I reduce the number of containers?
Break things down and separate the heavy fraction. Cabinets are the biggest volume win: a base cabinet thrown in whole occupies its full box, and the same cabinet knocked apart into flat panels occupies a fraction of it, which is the difference between a loading factor near 1.3 and one near 1.0. On the weight side, keeping clean concrete, tile and masonry out of the mixed load and disposing of it separately often costs less per ton than paying overage on a mixed container. Donating usable cabinets, fixtures and appliances removes both weight and volume and occasionally removes the removal cost too, though it takes lead time to arrange.
Does the calculator include the subfloor or the framing?
Only through the miscellaneous field, which is deliberately generous. Whether the subfloor comes up depends on what is under the finish floor and what condition it is in, and that is usually discovered on demolition day rather than planned. Framing only enters the picture if walls are moving, which is a structural question rather than a disposal one, and moving a wall raises the header question that belongs with the adopted span tables or an engineer rather than with a debris calculation. If you know the subfloor is coming up, add its area as roughly one and a half cubic feet and forty pounds per sheet of half or three quarter inch material into the miscellaneous line.