What Size Rental Dumpster Do I Need? Sizing Guide by Project

What Size Rental Dumpster Do I Need?

Short answer: for most home projects in the St. Louis and Lincoln County area, you will need a 15-yard or a 20-yard roll-off dumpster. A 15-yard handles one room, one garage, or one basement. A 20-yard handles a whole floor, a whole house, or a roof. Almost everything people call a “10-yard job” fits a 15-yard with room to spare, and almost everything people call a “30-yard job” is really a 20-yard swapped once.

First, get a feel for what a cubic yard is

A cubic yard is a box three feet on every side. That’s abstract, so here are two conversions that make it real:

•  A full-size pickup bed, heaped, holds roughly 2.5 cubic yards.

•  A 33-gallon trash bag is about one-sixth of a cubic yard — so about six bags per yard.

Run that math and the two sizes stop being abstract:

If you’ve been telling yourself “it’s only two truckloads,” it is almost never only two truckloads. Everybody underestimates. That’s the single most common sizing mistake, and it’s why the 20-yard outsells the 15-yard four to one on our lot.

Sizing by project — the cheat sheet

When you’re genuinely torn between the two: take the 20. The price gap between a 15 and a 20 is smaller than the cost of a second haul, and there is no penalty for having room left over. There’s a real penalty for running out on a Saturday afternoon.

The other dumpster sizes, and why we don’t run them

You’ll see 10-, 30-, and 40-yard cans advertised around the metro. Here are the reasons why we typically only offer 15 and 20 yard dumpsters.

10-yard Rental Dumpster.

Marketed as the small, cheap option. In practice it’s a heavy-debris box — concrete, brick, dirt, roofing — where weight fills the ticket long before volume does. For general household junk it’s a trap: you’ll fill it, and then you’ll pay for a second delivery. Our 15-yard has a footprint close enough to a 10-yard that it fits the same driveways, and it holds 50% more.

30-yard Rental Dumpster.

A real size for real jobs — full commercial demolition, large new construction, a genuine multi-room gut. But two things bite homeowners who order one. It’s typically about six feet tall instead of four and a half, which means every single item goes over the wall instead of in through the swing door, and it’s long enough to swallow a suburban driveway whole. A 20-yard swapped once usually costs less and is dramatically easier to load.

40-yard Rental Dumpster.

Light, bulky, high-volume commercial waste. If you need one, you already know it.

For essentially every residential and light-commercial job in Lincoln, St. Charles, and Warren counties, the 15 and the 20 are the right tools — and because we stock them deep, the answer when you call is usually “yes, tomorrow.” We’d rather tell you that than sell you a size we’d have to go find.

Four things that change the answer

1. Weight, not just volume. Roofing shingles, plaster, tile, and dimensional lumber are heavy. A can that looks two-thirds full can already be at its tonnage allowance. Every quote we give includes what your allowance is, so ask at booking and you’ll never be surprised.

2. Concrete, brick, and dirt are their own conversation. These are extremely heavy and we don’t take them mixed into a regular load. If you’ve got a patio tear-out, call us before you start filling — it’s a separate plan, not a bigger can.

3. What can’t go in at all. Tires, wet concrete, dirt, paints and oils, and air compressors stay out of our cans. Missouri also keeps appliances, whole tires, used motor oil, lead-acid batteries, and yard waste out of landfills. Yard waste is still something we’ll happily haul for you, it just goes to a composting facility instead of a landfill, so mention it when you book.

4. Where it’s going to sit. Both our sizes need about 60 feet of straight approach and 12 feet of overhead clearance. Both go down on skid plates under the wheels so your driveway doesn’t take the hit. If your lot is tight or your HOA has placement rules, tell us at booking and the driver plans for it.

How long you get it, and what happens after

A standard residential rental runs 14 days. Past that it’s $15 per day — that’s the one add-on figure we publish, because we’d rather you know it in advance than find it on an invoice. Contractors and commercial accounts run on unlimited days instead, so a can can live on a job site through the build. Swaps are quoted separately.

Everything else is a flat quote up front: delivery, pickup, disposal, and your tonnage allowance in one number, before you commit.

Still not sure? Just describe the job.

Genuinely — this is a 90-second phone call. Tell us what room, what’s coming out of it, and what your driveway looks like, and we’ll tell you which can to take. We’ve been doing this out of our Troy yard since 2008, and we’ve never once been annoyed by someone asking.

Call (636) 399-6361 or email STL@BuzzDumpster.com. Next-day delivery is standard across Lincoln, St. Charles, and Warren counties and the nearest parts of the St. Louis metro.