Compare all five sizes
Dumpster Sizes in Gainesville, GA — 10, 15, 20, 30 & 40 Yard
Five roll-off sizes, and the honest version of which one you actually need. In Hall County two things decide it: what the debris weighs — broken concrete, block, brick, mortar, wet clay spoil and anything that has been rained on all run heavier than they look — and what the container is standing on, because on a long sloping red clay driveway the surface decides where a box can be set long before volume does.
All sizes
Pick by weight first, volume second
Scroll the table on mobile. If your load includes concrete, block, brick, mortar, wet clay spoil, soaked drywall or anything that has sat out through a week of rain, start at the 10 yard no matter how big the job looks — weight fills those long before volume does. Sizing charts written for somewhere else miss two things about this county. The first is the ground. Hall County sits on the Cecil series: deep red Piedmont clay running 35 to 70 percent clay in the subsoil, better than sixty inches to bedrock, well drained, and low shrink-swell — so nothing here is heaving, but wet clay is slick and a loaded box will rut it and then sit in the rut. The driveway is the surface, not the lawn, and mats go under the rails. The second is the housing. Gainesville sits at about 1,214 feet on rolling Piedmont upland, and that ground gives north Georgia what the flat country farther south does not have: basements and crawlspaces are normal here, with an attic over the top of them. So the ordinary residential job is a basement and an attic cleared in the same fortnight rather than one room — a volume job, which is why the 20 yard leaves our yard more often than every other size put together. One more number splits this market in half: Hall County is 68.6 percent owner-occupied while the city is only 39.2 percent, so a county job is usually a homeowner emptying a house they have lived in for thirty years, and a city job is as often a landlord turning over a unit.
| Size | Capacity | Footprint | Weight allowance | Holds about | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 Yard Dumpster | 10 yd³ | 12 ft x 8 ft x 3.5 ft | 2 – 3 tons | ~3 pickup truck loads | Concrete, block, brick and soaked debris — the box that reaches payload before it looks full. |
| 15 Yard Dumpster | 15 yd³ | 16 ft x 8 ft x 4 ft | 2 – 3 tons | ~4 – 5 pickup truck loads | A single room, a small tear-off, or a garage cleared to the walls. |
| 20 Yard Dumpster | 20 yd³ | 22 ft x 8 ft x 4.5 ft | 3 – 4 tons | ~6 – 8 pickup truck loads | A whole-house declutter — the Gainesville default — or a multi-room remodel. |
| 30 Yard Dumpster | 30 yd³ | 22 ft x 8 ft x 6 ft | 4 – 5 tons | ~9 – 12 pickup truck loads | A large remodel, a basement strip-out or a full estate cleanout. |
| 40 Yard Dumpster | 40 yd³ | 22 ft x 8 ft x 8 ft | 5 – 6 tons | ~12 – 16 pickup truck loads | Commercial gut jobs and construction — it needs the most room to set down. |
10 Yard Dumpster
Concrete, block, brick and soaked debris — the box that reaches payload before it looks full.
View this size → 15yd³15 Yard Dumpster
A single room, a small tear-off, or a garage cleared to the walls.
View this size → 20yd³20 Yard Dumpster
A whole-house declutter — the Gainesville default — or a multi-room remodel.
View this size → 30yd³30 Yard Dumpster
A large remodel, a basement strip-out or a full estate cleanout.
View this size → 40yd³40 Yard Dumpster
Commercial gut jobs and construction — it needs the most room to set down.
View this size →The two rules that decide it here
Weight beats volume on dense material, and the surface under the wheels beats both
This is the single most useful thing on the page. A container has two limits: how much volume it holds and how much weight a truck can legally lift and carry. Light debris runs you out of volume first. Dense material runs you out of weight first, and it happens far earlier than people expect.
Around Hall County the dense material is broken concrete, block, brick, mortar, tile set in a bed and wet red clay spoil. Concrete and block run in the range of 2,400 to 2,800 lbs per cubic yard — a front walk, a patio, a section of basement floor or an old block retaining wall reaches legal transport weight in a can that still looks half empty. Dug clay is the one people here misjudge most: it holds water, it does not settle, and a couple of yards of spoil will do more to the scale ticket than a room full of cabinets. Roofing is measured in squares and layers, never in roof area, and it is common to find a second course still sitting on the deck, which doubles the tonnage on a roof that looked like a one-can job. Rain is the other quiet weight: north Georgia runs about 53 inches a year spread right through the year, and an open container left uncovered through a wet week takes on water you pay to haul. Sorting is worth real money here, because Georgia recognizes three landfill classes — municipal solid waste, construction and demolition under Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 391-3-4-.07(4)(b), and inert under 391-3-4-.07(4)(c). A clean load of concrete, brick, rock and cured asphalt is legally a different animal from a mixed remodel load, and it has to be, because the Hall County landfill rejects bulk concrete and asphalt outright — its gate is $20 minimum up to 665 lbs and $60 a ton over that, as published. Yard trimmings are a third load again: Georgia has banned them from lined municipal solid waste landfills since 1 September 1996, under O.C.G.A. § 12-8-40.2, so brush never rides in the corner of a mixed box.
The second rule is the one sizing charts written for other states never mention. The surface under the container decides as much as the size of it. The ground here is Cecil red clay — deep, well drained, 35 to 70 percent clay in the subsoil and low shrink-swell, so nothing is heaving and this is not the swelling clay some regions have. What it does is rut. Several tons on four small contact points will cut into a wet lawn or an unpaved verge and stay there, and Hall County driveways tend to be long, curving and sloping, often running down to a basement walkout. Driveway, not grass, and plywood or timber mats under every wheel and under both rails, on every placement, all year round. There is a code number that goes with placement here, and unusually it is a real one: Georgia is on the 2024 International Fire Code, and § 304.3.4 keeps any container of 1.0 cubic yard or more five feet clear of combustible walls, openings and roof eave lines. There is an ordinance that goes with the clay as well — under City Code Sec. 4-4-2(b) it is a violation to let dirt, silt, sediment or debris be tracked from a parcel into a Gainesville street. The loading rule that ties it all together is simple: load flat, load low, heavy on the bottom, nothing standing proud of the top rail. A load standing proud cannot be tarped, and a covered, leakproof container taken only to a permitted facility is a state permit-by-rule condition under Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 391-3-4-.06 rather than a courtesy. Where the 30 and the 40 yard earn their keep is bulk with no weight in it — a shed, deck or detached garage teardown, a whole-house cleanout, a basement and attic emptied after fifty years — with room to work. Pull the scrap metal and the flattened cardboard out first: both have a route of their own, and in Hall County recovering corrugated cardboard is an ordinance obligation under Sec. 8.60.190 rather than a nice-to-have.
Tell us the material, the rough quantity and what the driveway looks like on the phone and we will size it properly. Getting it wrong costs us more than it costs you, so we have every reason to get it right.
How it works
From phone call to empty driveway
- 1
Call us
Tell us the project, your address and when you want it. Two minutes on the phone and you have a flat price.
- 2
We deliver
Our driver walks the drop, lays protection boards and sets the container exactly where you want it.
- 3
You load it
Take your time within your rental window. Keep it level with the top rail and we handle the rest.
- 4
We haul it
Call or text when you are done. We pull it, sort what can be recovered and dispose of the rest properly.
Choosing a Size — FAQs
Which dumpster size is most popular in Gainesville?
The 20 yard, by a wide margin. It handles a basement and an attic cleared in the same fortnight, a kitchen gut or a multi-room remodel, and it still sits on an ordinary Hall County driveway. That is a north Georgia answer rather than a generic one. The Cecil soils under most of this county run better than sixty inches to bedrock on rolling upland, with the city at about 1,214 feet — the ground that produces daylight basements — so the ordinary residential job here has a downstairs and an attic in it, and that is a volume job rather than a weight job. The 15 yard is next most common, because it is the sweet spot for a single room, a shingle tear-off on an average house, or one unit of a rental turnover; with the city only 39.2 percent owner-occupied, turnovers are a real share of the week. Anything with concrete, block, brick, mortar or wet clay spoil in it goes the other way, down to a 10 yard.
What size do I need for a roof tear-off?
For a Hall County house on asphalt or dimensional shingle, a 15 yard for a single-layer tear-off and a 20 once there is a second layer or the decking is coming off. We do not put roofing in a 30. Roofing is weight-driven rather than volume-driven, so squares and layers decide it, not roof area — and it is common to find a second course still sitting on the deck, which doubles the tonnage. Who pays for the haul is a local question and the answer here is short. The City of Gainesville names roofing debris, lumber and siding in Code Sec. 4-3-9 as things it will not collect, and Hall County provides no residential curbside collection at all, so a tear-off is on the contractor or on you. There is also a placement number worth planning around, and in Georgia it is published rather than vague. Georgia adopts the International Fire Code, 2024 edition, under Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 120-3-3-.04, and 2024 IFC § 304.3.4 keeps a container of 1.0 cubic yard or more — which is every roll-off we run — five feet clear of combustible walls, openings and combustible roof eave lines. On a tear-off the eave line is the one that bites, because directly under it is exactly where you want the box. Older felt, mastic and cement-asbestos shingle can contain asbestos, which stops the job until it is surveyed: in Georgia that goes to Georgia EPD under Chapter 391-3-14, ten working days ahead, at $0.10 per square foot plus $0.10 per linear foot with a $25 minimum, and a RACM survey by an agent of a Georgia-licensed abatement contractor comes first. The duty officer is (404) 363-7026. Our tear-off sizing guide has the full math.
Is the 40 yard just the biggest and best?
No, and treating it that way is an expensive mistake. The 40 yard is a volume container for bulky light debris — framing, cabinetry, decking, packaging and whole-house cleanouts. Put anything dense in it and you will pass legal transport weight long before it is full. It also needs the most room of anything we run, which rules it out on plenty of the older streets around Green Street and the mill villages, where frontages are narrow and driveways are short, and on any lot where the only level ground is lawn rather than a made driveway. A big open box of light material has to be loaded below the rails and covered, or a wet week fills it with weight you pay to haul and the wind puts the rest down the street. Where room is tight we will usually put two smaller boxes through rather than one 40, and it works out better for everyone.
Can I change size after I book?
Yes, as long as the truck has not been dispatched. If you describe the job and we think you have ordered wrong, we will say so before delivery rather than after. Changing on the phone costs nothing; discovering it at the scale house costs a great deal.
How much space do I need?
Roughly the container footprint plus working room: about 60 feet of straight approach for the truck, around ten and a half feet of width, and 20 feet or more of overhead clearance while the hoist operates. Surface matters as much as space here. Tell us whether the spot is concrete, asphalt, gravel or grass, and whether it holds water for a day after rain, because wet red clay will not carry a loaded box and a dry driveway will. On fire code, Georgia gives you a number rather than a rule of thumb: the state is on the 2024 International Fire Code, and § 304.3.4 says a container of 1.0 cubic yard or more must not be placed within five feet of combustible walls, openings or combustible roof eave lines. That applies on a private driveway, not only on a job site. And if any part of the box will sit in a city street, sidewalk or verge, that is permission from the governing body under City Code Sec. 4-4-2(a) before work starts — Sec. 4-4-2(d) makes each day a separate offense, and Sec. 4-4-2(c) reaches whoever gives the instruction, not just the driver. Look up before you decide: a mature hardwood limb, a porch roof, a low gutter or the service drop into the house will stop the arm cold.
Services
What people put in them
Residential Dumpster Rental
Driveway placement for the basement, attic and garage cleanouts a north Georgia house produces.
Learn more →Commercial Dumpster Rental
Containers for businesses and contractors — Hall County runs no curbside collection at all.
Learn more →Construction Dumpster Rental
Mixed C&D in one roll-off, with next-day swap-outs across Hall County.
Learn more →Roofing Dumpster Rental
Weight-rated cans sized by squares and layers, tarped between sessions.
Learn more →Roll-Off Dumpster Rental
10, 15, 20, 30 and 40 yard roll-offs across Gainesville and Hall County.
Learn more →Same-Day Dumpster Rental
Call before the cut-off and we can usually get a container to you this afternoon.
Learn more →Talk to a real person
Not sure which size you need?
Tell us what you are clearing out and we will tell you the right size and the flat price to put it in your driveway. No forms, no waiting on an email — just call and we will sort it out in a couple of minutes.
Serving Gainesville, Hall County and North Georgia · Mon–Fri 6:30am–5pm, Sat 7am–1pm