Garage Cleanouts

Why a garage costs less than the same pile indoors

Our price is built from the time a job actually takes, and the largest single variable is not how much there is but how far it has to travel to reach the trailer. A garage is the best case on every count: the trailer parks at the opening, there are no stairs, no doorway to protect, no corner to pivot a sofa around, and no floor to lay protection over.

The same volume of material in a basement can take substantially longer to load, because every item goes up a flight and back down a hallway. So if you are clearing a whole house and want to know where the money goes, it is rarely the garage — even though the garage usually looks like the worst of it.

The practical upshot: photograph the garage with the door open and stand back far enough to get the whole depth in frame. A clear shot of an accessible space is the easiest thing for us to price tightly.

The part of a garage we cannot take

Garages accumulate exactly the categories that are barred from a junk removal load, and there is no version of this where we quietly take them anyway — the Regional facility weighs and inspects loads, and hazardous material in a mixed load is refused at the scale.

Almost all of it is accepted free at any of the three Durham Waste Management Facilities, but only as a dedicated drop-off rather than mixed into a general load. So the honest advice is to make one trip yourself with the chemicals and let us take the rest.

• Paint, stain, solvents, motor oil, and pool chemicals — free, up to 50 litres or 25 containers per vehicle
• Propane tanks and gas cans
• Car batteries and automotive fluids
• Tires — free, up to 10 per vehicle
• Fluorescent tubes and bulbs — free, up to 40 per vehicle
• Electronics, including that monitor in the corner — free in a dedicated load

How much is a garage-worth?

Single garages and double garages price very differently, and people consistently underestimate the double. A single garage cleared to the walls is usually somewhere between a half and a full trailer. A double that has been filling for a decade is frequently a full trailer plus a second trip, particularly once shelving and workbenches come apart.

The things that push it up are rarely the obvious ones. Bagged clutter compresses and takes less room than it looks. What eats volume is bulky and awkward: an old chest freezer, a dismantled bed frame, sheets of plywood, a bicycle collection, stacked patio furniture. Photograph those specifically rather than assuming a wide shot covers them.