First trash-out I ever charged for: quoted $1,450, netted $620 for two of us over two days

Guy who flips two or three houses a year asked if I'd clear one out since I was already doing his plumbing. 1,100 square foot ranch, deceased owner, family had taken what they wanted and left the rest.

I quoted $1,450 because I walked it and counted about 26 cubic yards, and I'd read enough here to know I should price the volume rather than the day.

How it actually went:

Trailer rental two days, $180. Disposal 5.8 tons at $71 = $415. Fuel and dump runs, four trips, about $95. Two of us for roughly 15 hours each. So $690 of hard cost and $760 left for labor, which is about $25 an hour apiece for genuinely miserable work.

What nearly broke it was a chest freezer that had been unplugged since whenever. I'm not going to describe it. Freon appliances at my county facility are $35 each with the tag pulled by a certified tech, and there were three of them, so that's $105 I didn't quote plus an hour of arranging. The mattresses were another $18 apiece.

What I'd keep: pricing by the yard, and walking the property before quoting instead of quoting off photos. What I'm changing: appliances, mattresses and tires come off the volume price and go on their own line at cost plus handling.

Answer

1gregpowell66AG4BPRO8

You've already found the two things that matter, so I'd formalize both.

One, price the volume and carry a written overage rate. Something like "estimate 26 cubic yards, additional yardage billed at $48" on the quote itself. Then when a house turns out to have a basement nobody mentioned, you have a number to point at instead of a negotiation while your trailer sits loaded. @canton's scenario stops being a loss and becomes a change order.

Two, the special-handling stuff. Freon appliances, mattresses, tires and paint are all priced separately at most facilities and the rules on what they'll even accept vary by county, so those belong on their own line every time. Call your transfer station and write down the current fee per item, then put it on your quote template. Mine changed twice last year and I only found out at the scale.

One more from the construction side. 5.8 tons out of 1,100 square feet suggests something heavy went in the trailer, maybe carpet and pad, maybe a workbench or masonry. If you're going to keep doing these, start weighing each load and writing the yardage next to the tonnage in a notebook. After ten jobs you'll have your own pounds-per-yard number for your market and your estimates stop being guesses. That notebook is worth more than any pricing advice you'll get here.

5 replies

2jordan_ellis2ActivePRO6

26 yards estimated, 5.8 tons actual. Does that mean you were dense at about 450 pounds a yard? That seems high for household goods, so did you underestimate the volume or was there something heavy in there?

1tylerbrooks9PassivePRO5

$25 an hour for that. Would you do it again at that number or was this a favor rate to keep the plumbing client?

2marcus_hale41CG4A

The interesting question is what happens if the freezer had been two freezers and the tonnage had come in at 8. You'd have been at roughly $850 of hard cost and $600 of labor for 30 hours, which is $20 an hour. The job survived because your volume estimate was close. What's your plan when it isn't?

1mikeoconnell7SP2APRO6

This is the exact reason I've been arguing with myself about flat caps. Your $1,450 held because you controlled the estimate. Under a work order system somebody else sets the yard count off your photos and the freezer surprise is entirely yours.