Sizing · 7 min read
Picking the wrong size is the most common — and most expensive — mistake in renting a dumpster. Too small and you pay for a second haul; too big and you pay for air. Here is how we size it on the phone.
For a home renovation in Janesville, a 20 yard dumpster — about six pickup truck loads — fits most single-room to multi-room jobs and is the size we rent most. Go 10 yard for a bathroom remodel, a garage cleanout or anything heavy, 15 yard for a kitchen, a fence line or a floor, 30 yard for a whole-house renovation or a double-layer roof, and 40 yard for demolition or commercial work. Not sure? Call (608) 530-0711 and we size it for you.
Walk the job and estimate how many full-size pickup beds it would take. Roughly: 3 loads is a 10 yard, 4–5 is a 15, 6 is a 20, 9 is a 30, 12 is a 40. Most people under-count by about a third, so when the number lands between two sizes, go up.
| Size | Pickup loads | Typical job | Weight included |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 yard | about 3 | Bathroom remodel, garage cleanout, broken-up concrete in its own box | 1–2 tons |
| 15 yard | 4–5 | Kitchen remodel, flooring, fence or deck removal | 2–3 tons |
| 20 yard | about 6 | Multi-room renovation, whole-house cleanout, roof tear-off in its own box | 3–4 tons |
| 30 yard | about 9 | Renovation to the studs, new build, double-layer roof | 4–5 tons |
| 40 yard | about 12 | Commercial demolition, multi-unit projects | 5–6 tons |
Volume and weight are two separate limits, and dense material hits the weight line long before the container looks full. Concrete, brick, roofing shingles, plaster, dirt and tile are the Wisconsin regulars — the pre-war housing on the streets either side of the Rock River is full of plaster-and-lath walls, and an old roof can be two layers of shingle. For those, the right answer is usually a 10 yard loaded level with the sides, not a 20 heaped to the rail, because a loaded 20 of rubble is more than the truck can lift safely and more than the included tonnage covers.
Why weight matters to the price: landfills charge by the ton. The Janesville Sanitary Landfill on Black Bridge Road, where every Rock County load tips, charges $46.00 a ton as of 1 January 2026, with a $12 minimum for a car or pickup and $20 for anything else, and the state's own $13.097 a ton in fees is built into that gate rate. Every flat quote we give includes a stated tonnage; load heavy material level and you stay inside it.
Two Janesville rules change the sizing conversation before it starts. The City landfill has refused asphalt shingles since 1 July 2012 (ordinance 30-37(a)(10)), and it also refuses concrete and asphalt in a mixed load. So a roofing job gets a container of its own that we route to a facility licensed for shingles, and clean concrete, brick and unpainted lumber go to the Clean Fill Facility next door at $6 a cubic yard for Janesville residents and $8 for everyone else — priced by volume, not weight. A broken-up patio in a 10 yard on its own is cheap to tip; the same patio mixed in with a kitchen is a problem at the scale.
A 10 yard is about 14 feet long and a 15 about 16 feet; the 20, 30 and 40 all share a 22-foot footprint and just get taller. Every one of them needs about 60 feet of straight, level run for the truck to roll it off and 25 feet of overhead clearance for the lift. Low branches, overhead service lines and the alley-loaded garages in Look West and the Old Fourth Ward are the usual Janesville obstacles, so a quick photo of the driveway before we book saves a wasted trip.
If the container cannot fit on your property, check the town's rule before assuming the street is an option. In Janesville a container in a street, alley, sidewalk or terrace needs the City's Dumpster Permit through the Building Division (608-755-3060) — two weeks maximum, a barricade or drum with a flashing yellow light on the traffic side, and the rental company has to be the applicant. Beloit's code bars obstructing the street and has no container permit route at all; Stoughton names a dumpster as an obstruction needing a permit; Fort Atkinson wants it on your own asphalt or concrete for up to 30 days. The town-by-town guide covers every town we serve.
People sometimes try to avoid a container by feeding a renovation through the weekly pickup. In Janesville that does not work: the City carts exclude appliances, furniture, concrete, demolition and building debris, dirt, gravel, sand, stone, electronics and tires, and the City publishes no bulky-item pickup at all. The towns around it are similar — Milton, Edgerton, Footville and Clinton each have one bulk day a month for a couch or a fridge, Stoughton's Bulk-On-Call takes construction material only in two 32-gallon cans a month, and Fort Atkinson's John's Disposal says bulk service "is not a substitute for full-scale remodeling." A container is for the pile that is bigger, heavier or sooner than that.
A second haul costs more than the step up to the next size. If you are between a 15 and a 20, take the 20. If you are between a 20 and a 30 and the material is light, take the 30; if it is heavy, take two 10s or a 20 with a planned swap. And if the job mixes a roof, a slab and a kitchen, tell us — that is three different streams at the landfill and sometimes three different boxes. Or describe the job on the phone and let us do the arithmetic; it takes about a minute.
Talk to a real person
Call (608) 530-0711 with the address and what is going in. A flat price and a delivery window before you hang up.
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From this guide
A 15 yard covers most Janesville kitchens — cabinets, countertops, flooring, drywall. If you are also gutting an adjoining room or replacing tile through the house, step up to a 20.
A 20 yard handles a single-layer tear-off on most houses, and a double layer wants a 30 for the weight allowance. Either way the shingles go in a box of their own, because the Janesville landfill has refused asphalt shingles since 2012.
A 10 yard — about three pickup loads — suits a single garage. A full estate cleanout with furniture and appliances usually needs a 20, and a 30 if the house is large. Fridges, freezers and air conditioners carry a $15 fee at the landfill, so tell us how many are in the pile.
Usually. It is about 22 feet long and 7.5 feet wide, so a standard two-car driveway has room, and the truck needs roughly 60 feet of straight clearance. We found no City of Janesville rule requiring a permit on private property.
Keep reading
The rest of the series, same approach — official sources, no filler.
Permits
Janesville needs no permit on your driveway and a City Dumpster Permit in the street. Across the 17 towns we serve the rules range from a $10 street permit to a city hauler licence. Every town, from its own code.
Read the guideCost
We quote a flat rate per job, not a price list. What is in that number, where it comes from — the Janesville landfill's $46 a ton, the Clean Fill yard's $6 a cubic yard, the permit fees that are and are not published — and how to keep a job inside the quote.
Read the guideGuide
Everything in one place: how a roll-off rental works in Janesville, sizes and weights, what the City does and does not collect, placement and the Dumpster Permit, what the Black Bridge Road landfill refuses, and the hauling rules across the 17 towns we serve.
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