What Size Dumpster Do I Need in Cottonwood Heights, UT?

Almost everybody gets the volume roughly right when they estimate a container. What they get wrong is assuming volume is the constraint at all.

The question that actually matters

When somebody rings and asks for a 20 yard, the useful reply is not "certainly, when would you like it." It is "what is going in it, and roughly when was the house built?" Those two answers change the recommendation more than any estimate of cubic yardage.

Every roll-off has two limits: the space inside it, and a tonnage allowance set by what the truck can legally carry and what the landfill charges by weight. You reach whichever comes first, and on a lot of jobs around here the second arrives long before the first.

Weight versus volume

Materials vary enormously in density. A cubic yard of loose household clutter might weigh a couple of hundred pounds. A cubic yard of broken concrete weighs closer to four thousand.

Roughly from lightest to heaviest per cubic yard: packaging and insulation, furniture and household contents, framing timber, drywall, decking, carpet and underlay, asphalt shingles, tile and mortar, plaster and lath, brick and block, poured concrete, stone, wet soil.

If your project sits in the top half of that list, order by volume and you will be fine. If it sits in the bottom half, order by volume and you will be paying overweight charges on a container that looks two-thirds empty.

Why the housing changes the answer

This is where local knowledge stops being a marketing line. The Salt Lake Valley has a split housing stock, and which half you are in determines the sizing advice completely.

The older material - the established east-bench homes, Holladay, Millcreek, the Sugar House-area neighborhoods - was often built with plaster over wood lath and heavy dimensional framing. Both are considerably heavier than modern drywall. Plaster comes off in dense slabs, does not compact, and fills a container with heavy, dusty rubble. A container filled with that reaches its tonnage allowance at around two-thirds of its visible height.

The newer material - Sandy, Draper, the valley-floor subdivisions in West Jordan and beyond - is the opposite. Drywall over stud, engineered flooring, MDF cabinetry, carpet. Bulky and comparatively light. You will fill the box before you trouble the scale.

Same square footage, opposite recommendation. That is why the second question is always about the age of the house.

Older bench homes versus newer subdivisions

It is worth dwelling on because the two housing types sit close together here and need completely different containers.

A renovation in an older home on the Cottonwood Heights bench and a remodel in a 2015 subdivision down in Draper might be fifteen minutes apart and want opposite containers. The bench home wants a 15 yard swapped, because the plaster and heavy framing will hit the weight limit fast. The subdivision remodel wants a 20 or 30, because the drywall and cabinetry are light and bulky and you are racing volume, not weight.

Getting this wrong is the single most common and most expensive mistake we see. Order a 20 for the bench home and you pay overage on a container that looks half full. Order a 15 for the subdivision job and you are swapping it twice when one 30 would have done.

Size by size, honestly

10 yard. Twelve feet, one to two tons. The heavy-material container. Concrete, brick, block, tile, stone and dry soil go here regardless of quantity. Also the one that fits tight bench driveways.

15 yard. Fourteen feet, two to three tons. The one we recommend most often and the one customers argue about most. For interior demolition in an older bench home it is nearly always correct.

20 yard. Twenty-two feet, three to four tons. Most requested, right about half the time. Kitchen and bathroom together, a multi-layer roof, a large basement clearance.

30 yard. Six-foot walls, four to five tons. A volume container. Whole-house clearances, new construction framing, commercial refits, newer-home remodels.

40 yard. Eight-foot walls, five to six tons. Commercial work almost exclusively - and rarely fits a bench lot.

Project-by-project recommendations

Single bathroom remodel: 10 yard.

Kitchen alone: 15 yard in an older home, 20 in a newer one.

Kitchen and bathroom together: 20 yard.

Basement finish: 15 yard if it runs to dense material, 20 if it is bulky and light.

Whole-house flooring: 20 yard, and tell us carpet or tile.

Asphalt roof tear-off: depends on squares and layers. Single layer, 15 yard. Multiple layers, 20 and expect it to look half empty when full.

Fully furnished family home clearance: 30 yard.

New construction or major addition: 30 yard.

Patio, driveway or foundation removal: 10 yard clean fill, level, probably more than one.

What the bench lot will allow

Sometimes the material says one thing and the driveway says another, and on the east bench the driveway often wins.

A 30 yard needs around seventy feet of straight approach. A 10 yard needs about forty-five. If the drive climbs or curves - as many bench and canyon-mouth drives do - the larger container physically cannot be placed however much material you have.

Overhead clearance is the constraint people forget. The truck bed rises well above roof height when it tips - roughly twenty-three feet of clear air is needed. Through Holladay, Millcreek and the tree-shaded bench streets, mature canopy stops more deliveries than narrow driveways do.

The fix is simple. Stand in the street, photograph the intended spot with the sky in frame, and send it when you call. We plank and chock on grade so the container sits level, but we need to know the approach first.

Getting the answer in one call

Have five things ready and this takes ninety seconds: what the project is, roughly when the house was built, what the main material will be, when you need it, and a photo of the spot from the street.

You will get a size recommendation and a flat rate covering delivery, seven days, collection, disposal and a tonnage allowance - with tarping to meet the secured-load law included. If we think you have asked for the wrong container we will say so, including when that means selling you something cheaper.