America Picked A Favorite Dumpster, And The Margin Is Half A Point

Ask ten people on a job site to name the standard dumpster and most will say the 20 yard. Our ledger says the country has other ideas, barely. Across the completed roll-off rentals on our books, a share of the 185,000-plus rentals we have delivered nationwide, the 30 yard takes 32.0 percent of all orders and the 20 yard sits right behind it at 31.4 percent. Six tenths of a point separate the two after seven years of hauling.

Together the two middle sizes carry almost two thirds of the nation's cleanouts, and the reason is simple. A 20 yard swallows a whole-house cleanout or a large remodel. A 30 yard handles construction debris without a second haul. When a customer is not sure which way to go, the deciding question is never the size, it is the material. Tell us what is going in the box and the size picks itself.

Not sure which box? Compare every dumpster size.

The sleeper in the fleet is the 15 yard. At the national median our customers paid $499 for a 10 yard and $520 for a 15. That is fifty percent more container for about the price of a large pizza. If you are staring at a garage pile wondering whether it will fit, the answer to close calls is twenty one dollars.

The medians climb in orderly steps from there: $593 for the 20, $693 for the 30, $818 for the big 40, which does just 8.1 percent of the volume and almost all of it demolition and commercial work. Every one of those figures is an all-in price with tonnage and rental days included, because that is the only way we sell.

One more pattern from the books. June is the busiest month in the calendar, May and July close behind, and Monday is far and away the day America orders a dumpster. About one in four of our orders lands on a Monday, which tells you exactly when the weekend's big decisions get made. If your own Monday decision is overdue, the classifieds below know the way.