Case Study · Remodel Debris · University Park, Denver · July 29, 2026
Two Full Loads of Remodel Debris, One Empty Garage.
By Darius Schultz, owner · Updated
A small rental home, a garage off the back alley, and a whole remodel's worth of debris packed inside it: here is how the job actually went, what the dump runs actually cost, and the honest pricing lesson we took away from it.
Cabinets, drywall, nail boards
80210, south Denver
Truck and trailer, twice
Darius solo, both dump runs included
$130 STS South + $117 STS North, in receipts
Today: priced by the yard, extra trips never charged
Garage empty, five-star Google review, repeat customer.
Have a pile like this? Text us a photo and we will text back your price.
A Rental Garage Holding a Whole Remodel.
The property was a tiny rental home in the University Park area of south Denver, with a garage off the back alley. The owner lived next door and was remodeling the rental himself, and everything the remodel produced had been going into that garage.
By the time he called us, the garage held broken-down cabinets, a bookshelf, a lot of drywall, boards with nails still in them, and an overflowing contractor tote of mixed debris filling in every gap. He had a van parked in front of it all, which is why nobody had seen the full picture yet, including him.
He moved the van, Darius looked at what was actually in there, and the estimate changed on the spot: this was not a one-load job. It was two.
Three Things Working Against Us.
The alley. The garage opened onto a narrow back alley, and a truck pulling a trailer is a wide rig for a tight lane. Getting in and back out took some careful maneuvering, twice.
The debris type. Small loose debris is the slowest kind of load there is. No big lifts, just grab and throw, piece by piece, hundreds of times. Drywall chunks, cabinet pieces, boards, and bagged scrap all load that way.
The rain. It rained through the job. Wet boards are heavier, wet alleys are slicker, and nothing about loading debris in the rain makes it go faster. The work does not wait for a nicer day.
A Sledgehammer, a System, and 5.5 Hours.
The cabinets were the first problem. Whole cabinet boxes eat trailer space fast, so Darius broke them down with a sledgehammer the customer lent him and loaded the pieces flat. Everything else went the only way small debris can go: piece by piece, load it tight, keep moving.
The boards with nails in them are why gloves, tarps, and a little experience matter on debris jobs. A couple of them got through anyway. That is part of what you are paying a junk hauler not to deal with.
First load filled, dump run, back through the alley, second load filled, second dump run. Start to finish the job ran 5.5 hours, including both trips to the transfer station. When it was done the garage was empty.
We Charged $700. That Was Too Low.
Here is the part most companies would leave off the page. We charged $700 for this job, and after the roughly $247 in dump fees, the fuel, and 5.5 hours of piece-by-piece loading, that number underpriced the work. We are publishing that on purpose, because the math is the useful part.
Today, a job like this is priced by the yard: $149 for the first 2 cubic yards, then $75 a yard, plus $25 a yard for any heavy material like tile, and the second trip costs nothing extra. That is not a markup story, it is a cost story: two loads means two dump fees, and small debris means every piece gets handled twice, once loading and once unloading. Pricing every yard, on every trip, is what covers that.
Faster for us, and a quicker job for you. The full yard table is on our pricing page.
What the Disposal Actually Cost.
Most junk removal pages never show you this part. Here is exactly what the transfer stations charged us on this job.
Load 1: STS South
First full load, weighed in and paid at the gate on the way out.
Load 2: STS North
Second full load, different station, same by-weight charge.
Disposal Total
Plus fuel for two round trips, before a single hour of labor counts.
Dump fees like these are built into every quote we give. You hear one number up front and never see a tonnage charge added later. More on how that works in our junk removal cost guide.
An Empty Garage and a Repeat Customer.
The customer got his whole garage back in one afternoon, without renting a truck, making four dump runs of his own, or touching a single nail board. He told Darius he was impressed with how the job went, and it showed in what happened next.
He left a five-star Google review, and about a month later he reached out about hauling debris from another remodel. That is the outcome we care about most on a job like this: not just a cleared garage, but being the guy he calls the next time a project fills one up. In his words, Darius is his new junk guy.
About This Job.
What does a two-load remodel debris job like this cost?
Do you take remodel and construction debris?
How do dump fees work?
Why does small loose debris cost more than furniture?
Is this a real job?
Snap a Photo of the Items, Get a Price
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