All three of our dumpsters are 14 feet long and 7.5 feet wide, the footprint of a pickup truck. Only the wall height changes: 3 feet, 4.5 feet, 6 feet. Nothing else changes, and that’s why a 20 yard parked next to a 10 looks shorter than people expect. The volume is in the walls.
Charles filmed a short video standing next to the dumpsters, and it settles the question faster than reading. Customers mention it in reviews because it saved them a wrong order.
The quick rules
A 10 yard holds about four pickup loads. It handles the garage cleanout, the yard project, the small remodel. The low walls load easily by hand, and it’s the only size that takes heavy material: concrete, dirt, gravel, and brick go in the 10 and nowhere else.
A 15 yard holds about six pickup loads, and it’s what roofers book. Tear-offs, deck and fence removal, a kitchen or bath remodel, a multi-room cleanout. If your debris is coming off the house rather than out of it, you’re probably here.
A 20 yard holds about eight pickup loads, and the back door means you can walk the heavy, awkward pieces straight in. Full house cleanouts, estates, construction debris, big remodels. Charles’s own booking page has said it for years: you can’t go wrong with the 20 yard.
When you’re stuck between two
Go up. The gap between sizes is $25 to $30 on a 1 day rental, and a second dumpster because the first one filled is a lot more than that. The only exception is heavy material, which stays in the 10 no matter how much of it there is. On a mixed job, plenty of customers book a 20 for the bulk and a 10 for the concrete, and the two get delivered together.
Still unsure after the video? Call (540) 444-3867 and describe what’s going in it. Sizing jobs over the phone is half of what Charles does in a day.