Category: Home Improvement

Your Big Daddy Dumpster Rental Experience

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When it comes time to move a parent into an assisted living facility, someone must be deputized to handle the house and belongings. Often it is the person who lives the closest. Unfortunately, this person has become the de facto caretaker already, and the pain of loss and transition can make the moving experience emotionally challenging.

 

It is frustrating how little stuff a person gets to move with them into assisted living.

 

Even a cherished bed is going to be left behind for a safer, lower bed in the residences. Often people can keep their familiar dresser or a few small individual furniture pieces.

 

The scale of the work to clean the house out can become overwhelming.

 

There is furniture, clothing, old memories. Some of it you will keep and sort through, of course, but a lot of it needs to be thrown out.

 

The realtor won’t be any help. She will provide a tight timeline, and probably telling you that the only thing that sells slower than an empty house is one with outdated furniture and that “lived in” feel.

 

You might even need to take out carpets too. This could prove to be a huge job.

 

 

The right sized dumpster for the job

 

First, analyze which things might be useful at a thrift store, and how you could get it there. Your local St. Vincent DePaul will likely be helpful, agreeing to come pick up some items for a minimal fee. They might even sent over a couple of workers big enough to do most of the work themselves.

 

But you might still be left with a lot of stuff.

 

This is where renting a dumpster from Big Daddy Dumpsters come in handy.

 

You may have never rented one yourself, but the concept makes sense.

 

Go to their site to get some guidance on what size dumpster you needed.

 

For residential purposes they offer a 10 yard and 15 yard option. The 15 yarder might be large, but you don’t want to run the risk that the slightly smaller (10 yard) version won’t hold it all.

 

You will be amazed at how simple it is. The employee who answers the phone will be very accommodating, and help you work out a time to drop off and pick up the dumpster.

 

Now you have a timeline for your work that makes the realtor, your parent, and your siblings happy.

 

 

A Family Reunion of Sorts

Transitioning a loved one into a smaller, more supportive place is a hard time emotionally. But the whole process doesn’t have to be hard.

 

Spend a day with family sharing memories, tearing up carpets, and putting old furniture and useless items in a dumpster. It’s therapeutic.

 

Big Daddy Dumpsters can make their part easy. One phone call to set it up, and you can concentrate on everything else.

 

Why Rent a Dumpster?

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You have seen the ads. A company promises to bring a huge dumpster and place it in front of your property for some amount of time. The plan is that you will easily haul away trash from a major project.

 

“Why would I do that?” you asked yourself. “That’s got to hurt my curb value.”

 

Perhaps you’ve wondered if making phone calls and paying for the delivery is worth it at all.

 

But let’s look at the alternatives.

 

Are There Alternatives to a Dumpster?

 

You could get a dumpster, but why? You could just purchase several boxes of large garbage bags.

 

Let’s walk through this process.

 

You fill one bag, then another. You still have to move it someplace. If you’re doing it the day before trash day, great! You can just haul it to the curb. However, many municipalities Have limits on how much trash they will pick up at an individual household.

 

Now you have become a small business manager, determining how much trash to put out … and where to store the rest of it for the next week.

 

Most of us store our trash in the back or side of the house.  So now you are in the business of moving your trash twice.

 

Ordering a dumpster puts YOU in charge of the schedule.

 

Garbage Bags are Not the Answer

 

Besides for many types of garbage, bags aren’t the answer. Table parts, furniture legs, lumber, and more all require separate handling.

 

The easiest way to handle this is the heart directly outside as you’re taking it apart and heave it in the dumpster.  You don’t have to disassemble anything. Just throw and go.

 

This can save countless hours fussing and struggling to break down pre-built furniture.

 

Additionally, with heavy items like old paint or wet and moldy drywall, you will use up dozens of bags and getting it all out to the curb. With a dumpster you can fill and dump buckets or other more solid containers. This makes it less likely that you will rip a bag and have to re-bag it, or that you will get a cut from sharp edges or screws and nails.

 

 

So renting a large dumpster from Big Daddy Dumpsters can save you time, energy, and money, and maybe keep you safer from cuts and scrapes.

 

The only real question is, why haven’t you called to schedule yours yet? Our friendly operators are standing by to take your call and schedule your dumpster today.

Junk Removal

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Suddenly find yourself in possession of a lot of junk? Doing a major remodel or rebuild and about to create a pile of junk?

 

You need the Cincinnati, Dayton, and southwest Ohio junk removal experts: Big Daddy Dumpters.

 

When a little dumpster simply isn’t enough, and you need enough space to fit an entire room, Big Daddy Dumpsters is the answer.

 

With three options, ranging from big to humongous, Big Daddy Dumpsters has your dumpster solutions for all of your projects.

 

 

Home projects

 

Are you deciding whether it is time to throw out a mattress? Read about that here.

 

Is your mattress removal part of a bedroom remodel? Learn how to dispose of that here.

 

What about a major dining room remodel? We describe the choices you might need to make here.

 

In fact, at the Big Daddy Dumpsters blog, we have the answers to solve a lot of common questions that arise during common home remodeling scenarios.

 

 

Larger projects

 

Maybe it’s not an individual room, but a whole house or neighborhood you’re working on. Maybe you’re planning for a garage sale for yourself or for your neighborhood?

 

When you’re doing that, you’re going to want to know which stuff can be donated, and which stuff you need to throw away. It can’t all go to the curb.

 

This is when a small, medium, or large dumpster can come in handy, depending on the size of your project, or your neighborhood garage sale.

 

 

Worried about Green Recycling?

 

Are you thinking about the environment these days? Many of us are.

 

We are smarter than ever about how to dispose of potentially hazardous materials, and we have more resources available for safe disposal than any other generation.

 

Our blog can offer you information about a range of potentially hazardous materials. Follow these links to articles about the identified topics to be sure that you don’t throw away something that could potentially harm workers or get into the groundwater near your home.

 

 

These and many other common topics are available at our website, where our searchable blog can help you find the answers you are looking for.

 

And always, when it comes time to throw something away, Big Daddy Dumpsters can offer you speedy service and delivery.

 

Have a dumpster ready when you need it for your project.

When Is It Time to Replace My Mattress?

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Americans have a love / hate relationship with our mattresses. We spend almost ⅓ of our time with them, and if it goes well, we have no memory of the experience.

 

Mattresses can be expensive investments, or cheap afterthoughts.

 

With this much time and money invested in finding the right mattress, when it starts to go, you want to carefully evaluate your options.

 

Here are signs that you need to throw your mattress away.

 

  1. It sags. There’s that sweet spot where you and your loved one cuddle, or you burrow in each night. You can find it easily because you sort of “roll in.” That sag, however, indicates that your support and ability to move around at night are diminished. Toss it.

 

  1. It has lumps and bumps. Lumps and bumps and buttons are signs of broken springs or misplaced foam and support. In addition to being a sign of wear and tear, they work against your good night’s sleep. Toss it.

 

  1. It is creaky, or squeaky. First, check if the creak or squeak is coming from your mattress or your box springs. Often the springs will be the culprit, and they should be replaced. If it is the mattress making the noise, but it’s not keeping you up, you can keep it a little while longer. But soon it will be time to toss it.

 

  1. Stains with odors. Pets, children, and a wide range of non-sleeping activities can leave your mattress stained. You can change the sheets and cover that up – you’re probably not hosting dinner parties on the bed anyway … right? But odors? If a quick spray with an over-the-counter cleaner doesn’t do the trick, toss the mattress.

 

  1. Bugs, especially bed bugs. No discussion here. Toss it. But what about …? No. Toss it.

 

  1. Aches and pains from sleeping. Your mattress and a night’s sleep should leave you feeling fit and rested, not tired and tested. If your mattress is the cause of your aches and pains, there is nothing to be done. Toss it.

 

Often your mattress and your box springs are a matched set. They don’t have to be, but a good match is an important thing to consider.

 

If you’ve got two large items to throw away, maybe it is time to consider renting a dumpster and turning this into a project?

Remodeling and Disposing of Your Dining Room

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As COVID-19 or normal nest-fluffing activities prompt us to make bigger and more comprehensive changes to our house, the dining room is typically considered as an afterthought.

We set it, we forget it.

Silverware pun aside, the formal dining room often receives little love. We do a lot of daily eating in and around our expanded kitchens, and the idea of having company for dinner is still a rare treat.

But when it is time to re-do the dining room, here is a guide for how to handle each part of the redesign.

The table – many dining room designs and redesigns focus on the table. Appropriately so. The table makes the determination for whether you will eat in the dining room at all. Is it too big? Is it too formal? Is it covered with the bills, or a vexing jigsaw puzzle?

If you dispose of your dining room table and chairs: think of St. Vincent DePaul or some other local agency that employs folks to resell furniture. If it is functional, there is likely another life with another family. If your table was damaged to the point of unusability, only then should it be thrown in your Big Daddy Dumpster.

The china cabinet: was it part of a set with the dining room table? Then it’s got to go to make room for the replacement. If not, try to determine if it can be redone in a way that complements your new look. And what about the curios that are stored inside? Are they heirlooms whose story you know? Keep them, if not …

If you dispose of your china cabinet and contents: Determine if it is functional. If so, donate it. There is simply no sense in throwing away working furniture in a country with a 40% poverty rate. If it’s broken or unusable, BDD!

The carpet: It’s the focal point of the space only in that it must work with the table. But it gets heavy use, especially on the corners where people step on it while traveling from room to room. If the whole room is getting re-done, the most likely casualty in this war is the carpet or rug.

If/when you dispose of your carpet or rug: There really isn’t a second life for carpeting or a rug. It’s time to consider renting a dumpster for your project, it just got big.

Window treatments, art, and wallpaper: Sorry, they’re gone. They served their purpose, but they were unique to that space and time and design. For the most part, they’re difficult to remove in a way that preserves them. And no one can use them again.

When you dispose of your window treatments and wallpaper: Dumpster. MAYBE your art can earn a second life at a furniture reseller, but they will have a say in that. Be willing to make the trip knowing that you will return with the same full trunk you had when you set out.

Remodeling (and Disposing of) a Bedroom

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Bedrooms are our most personal expression of who we are when we can fully be ourselves. Here, we place homages to our values and our aesthetics. We transition from posters of our favorites musicians to paintings of our favorite scenes, or expressions from the minds of our favorite classical artists.

Often we are working in the bedrooms of our children as they transition from one age to the next, moving through different phases of self expression.

Then one day we must grasp the possibility of this space without them, as they take off into the world.

When our children are young, redoing the room typically means paint and rearranging furniture. When they fly from the nest, the transformation needs to be more radical.

The bed: What will this space be next? If it will maintain its use as a bedroom, but now for guests and even the welcome (temporary) return of our progeny, we keep the bed and simply accent around it.

If your vision does not involve a bed: Donate it. In almost every situation, there is a family who can benefit from a hand-me-down bed. As long as it holds together, you have all the parts, and it is not too badly damaged, St. Vincent DePaul or a similar agency will make your life easier by taking it off your hands for a modest price. The mattress, however, is another issue altogether. Your municipality may have special requirements for the donation / disposal of mattresses, and it may be required to be thrown away.

The dresser: The advice here is pretty clear. No, it’s not easily converted into something else. Nothing says “my home office is really a bedroom” like keeping the dresser. So don’t.

To dispose of the dresser: Always start by exploring the donation route. Working furniture can live a long time, why not help it avoid the landfill?

Curtains, art, and wallpaper: This room was great for your kids. You’re not your kids. These were unique to their location and are hard to remove in a way that allows them to be used again.

When you dispose of curtains, art, and wallpaper: Try and get your kids to take them with them. Maybe they have some great memories attached. It’s clear, you’re either going to throw this stuff out now or you’re going to throw it out in 20 years after storing it that whole time. Dumpster.There just isn’t a second life for them.

Remodeling (and Disposing of) Your Living Room

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Once upon a time, the living room was the gathering place of friends and family. Every part of our time at home seemed to center on a space so important to our home that we named it after our primary task: living.

Today, much of the work of a living room has been turned over to the family room or den, a space carved out or given over to a large screen TV, movie-quality speakers, and multiple game devices and streaming services.

Our living rooms have become more formal. They are our house in it’s Sunday Best clothing.

The decision to redo the living room should keep this in mind. Here’s a guide to how to decide what to keep, and how to dispose of the rest.

The couch: Every living room has at least one multi-person couch. Large, dramatic, with distinct features that helped form the character of the room, sometimes it is the first decision made in a space, and all others happen around it. Is it in good shape, though maybe a little work. A good re-upholstering is often expensive, but slightly cheaper than a whole new sofa. But it is is heavily scratched or dinged, perhaps from a pet years ago, or another piece of furniture placed too close, it needs to go.

If you must dispose of your couch: consider giving it to a second-life furniture outlet like St. Vincent DePaul. Often these places will send a truck and a couple burly folks over to your house, and for a small price you can save yourself the big work, and know it’s going to a second home.

The carpet: The carpet in your living room was the most used feature especially on the corners or pathways where people walk while passing through. If it is not worn, and If the colors still work for your new vision, keep it. Otherwise, it’s got to go.

If/when you dispose of your carpet or rug: There really isn’t a second chance for carpeting or a rug. Think about renting a Big Daddy Dumpster for your project, it just got big.

Comfortable chair: This was likely, at some point, matched to the couch. It should face the same fate. Keep it and reupholster it if you can.

If you must dispose of your comfy chair: Donate it, unless it is too badly damaged to re-use. In that case, throw it in the dumpster.

Window treatments, art, and wallpaper: I hate to say it, but they’re the most likely casualties of the decision to remake your living room. They did what they needed to do, but they were unique to their location. For the most part, they’re difficult to remove in a way that preserves them. And no one can use them again.

When you dispose of curtains and wallpaper: Dumpster.There just isn’t a second life for them.

What Size Dumpster Do I Need?

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One of the biggest challenges in doing a major remodel project around the house is finding the right size dumpster. This is because there are so many variables.

There are lots of sizes to choose from.

They are built on a scale that is difficult for the average person to visualize.

Most people rarely need to rent one, so we have no experience.

It is hard to imagine how big your project will look when it is dumped in a dumpster.

We are going to try to demystify the process a bit.

Garbage Bags

You’ve probably already looked at the website of a local dumpster dealer and you’ve seen a picture of an average scale human standing in front of an average scale dumpster.

This is meant to be helpful. Really it is. However, we seldom think of our garbage as being scaled with our body.

Instead, we are much more familiar with the size of a garbage bag. We handle those frequently. We have a sense of their size.  So in order to help you visualize it, we are going to explain it in terms of garbage bags.

Your dumpster choices will be marked in terms of “cubic yards” or “yd³”

On average, 1 cubic yard looks about like a medium size dresser, or about 6 trash bags.

Your smallest dumpster choice, the transition point where it makes more sense to rent a dumpster than to put it out in your own trash can, is 10 cubic yards. So this is about 60 trash bags.

  •             10 yd³ = 60 trash bags
  •             15 yd³ = 75
  •             20 yd³ = 120
  •             30 yd³ = 180
  •             40 yd³ = 240

Pickup trucks

OK so maybe garbage bags aren’t how you think. Maybe you are a do-it-yourself kind of person who understands what it means to throw a shovel in the back of a pickup truck, or what it means to load the pickup truck with mulch or dirt.

And besides, it does get pretty challenging to think about size in terms of 60 garbage bags.

Let’s measure in pickup trucks.

  • 10 yd³ = 3 pickup truck loads
  •             15 yd³ = 4-5
  •             20 yd³ = 6
  •             30 yd³ = 9
  •             40 yd³ = 12

This is an especially helpful measure when you are imagining each of those pick up truck loads being driven to your local dump. If it’s right around the corner three trips is no big deal.

However, if you’re like most folks who are doing a big fix-it-up project around the house, the local dump is NOT right around the corner.

And the further away it is, the more time and effort it adds to your project to haul everything there yourself.

Now you’re loading, driving, unloading, driving back … multiple times. And this is time added to the work of demolition or removal.

Many people might even choose a 10 yd³ dumpster to avoid that pain and hassle of even one or two trips to the dump.

Also, you should round up, and get the next biggest size if you are unsure. No one is judging you for not wanting to make any more trips than you have to. Or making no trips at all.

We hope this guide helped you with your project.

Keep Others From Using Your Rented Dumpster

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We know what happens. We might, if pressed, even admit that we’ve done it ourselves.

Sometimes things get thrown in the dumpster by someone other than the owner or renter.

It’s no big deal when a member of the working crew throws their Wendy’s bag in there, or someone passing by on the street does the same.

But having strangers illegally filling a dumpster that you rented can be an expensive a time-wasting event.

So how do you prevent it?

Here are some suggestions.

Location: where are you place your dumpster will influence how much outside debris gets placed in it. If it is possible for you to move the dumpster away from the property line and against the building, that is an ideal situation. Removing from sight from the street is even better.

You should work to put it as much on private property as possible. It’s unavoidable that a dumpster placed on or near a public right of way is simply going to collect a little bit of community trash. You can reduce that by placing it in the yard instead of in the street, for instance.

You can make the call if saving some unwanted refuse is worth the dead spot in your yard.

Signs: sometimes it helps just to post simple easy to read signs that explain to people it is illegal for them to put trash in your dumpster. It can be helpful if you know the local municipal fines for doing this.

Signs can be especially helpful if they point out that the site is monitored. Of course, it can help even if you are just claiming that, even when a spot is not monitored.

Fencing: if your dumpster is going to be in place over a long period of time, or perhaps dumped and refilled multiple times, it might be tempting for other work crews in the area to dump larger and larger loads in it over time.

Putting fencing around your dumpster does several things to prevent illegal dumping. First, a good fence makes it clear that dumping from strangers is unwanted.

Second, it just makes it physically harder to get large loads into your dumpster, because now they have to go over a fence.

Third, if you can allow some space between the dumpster and the fence it can make it almost impossible to place anything heavy in the dumpster. This is important because typically charges are added to your final fee based on the weight of the trash in the dumpster. And while we’re not talking hundreds of dollars, we know that this weight and these fees can add up.

Get proactive: Does a neighbor up the street also have a project going on and no dumpster? Knock on their door. Tell them what you’re planning on doing and ask them if they want to get involved and perhaps share the cost of renting a dumpster.

Identifying and heading off potential conflicts down the road can be beneficial for your bottom line and for neighborhood harmony.

A Quick Guide to What You Can’t Put in Your Dumpster

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We get versions of this questions of this version all the time:

“What CAN’T I put in my rental dumpster?”

Of course, there is a list of items included in the rental contract, but you want to know the answer before you make the decision to rent a dumpster. So here’s a quick guide to what you can’t put in your dumpster.

First of all please note, this is a list of what you can’t put in YOUR dumpster.

There is a much shorter list to what you can’t put in someone else’s dumpster: everything. You should never put anything in someone else’s rental dumpster. If you do this, you are subjecting yourself and them to possible citations and fines.

The list of prohibited items falls into a couple of different categories.

Home interior:

The following home interior items should not be placed in your dumpster.

  • Mattresses
  • Couches
  • Upholstered chairs
  • Beds
  • Paint / paint cans
  • Televisions
  • Household cleaners
  • Light bulbs
  • Refrigerators
  • Large appliances

Each of these items likely have specific rules in your community for their disposal. In some cases this is because the items can be reused, usually decent furniture fits into that category, and televisions you’ve replaced not because they weren’t working but because you’ve upgraded. Keeping them in use and in circulation saves landfill space and saves another family money.

In other cases the items can’t be disposed of because they are themselves toxic or they contain toxic ingredients. Placing them in the landfill those poses problems to your environment including the drinking water for your community. Your community likely has rules and procedures for disposing of hazardous ingredients.

Garage or lawn and garden:

These garage, lawn, and garden items should not be placed in your dumpster.

  • Pesticides
  • Lawn chemicals
  • Weed killer / herbicides
  • Engine oil or lubricants
  • Propane tanks (even if you’re CERTAIN they are empty)
  • Tires

In each of these cases throwing out the indicated item is a risk to the environment and the people who handle or work at your trash processing facility. In some cases, including engine oil and lubricants, proper recycling means that they can be useful again. It might take an extra step, but reusing and reducing waste goes a long way towards helping the community.

Large item removal

Many municipalities offer the service of removing large items for you. Often you have to call ahead to schedule a pickup of the item on a specific day. This might not be your normal trash pick-up day, because the schedule is handled separately and sometimes is handled by an entirely different company or contractor.

Most communities require you to get it out to the curb which doesn’t require any more or less work than it would’ve taken to get it into a large dumpster. Some communities will even offer the help of someone coming into or up to your house to help with the removal process.

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