Dumpster Options for Home Cleanouts and Moving Day

25
Aug
2025

Dumpster Options for Home Cleanouts and Moving Day

Decluttering a home can result in a surprising amount of waste, regardless of whether the home is being sold or a family member is simply downsizing their belongings. Bulky furniture, old appliances, and other trash can quickly accumulate beyond the limits of local curbside pickup services. A dumpster rental provides Virginia Beach homeowners with an efficient way to organize their cleanout and dispose of everything without breaking local laws. 

This guide reviews the best dumpster options for different situations, including home cleanouts and moving days, and clarifies how to rent, place, and use a dumpster effectively. Mistakes can cause delayed pickups or fines depending on the violation. Here’s how to avoid those from happening to you.

 

Why Rent a Dumpster for a Cleanout or Moving Day?

large green dumpster is being lifted by machinery within a warehouse environment

Homeowners may wonder why a dumpster rental is necessary when curbside pickup and city garbage collection can be used for trash disposal in many cases. In most cases, renting a dumpster presents benefits that curbside services cannot offer, including: 

  • Higher capacity, accommodating larger items like furniture, appliances, and large debris
  • More flexibility, since the homeowner can schedule the pickup themselves with their dumpster rental service provider
  • Single-location loading, which saves trips to the curb, dump, or disposal facility by consolidating the cleanout to one receptacle
  • Lower risk, since dumpster rental services handle disposal and recycling, allowing homeowners to potentially avoid disposal compliance fines
  • Fewer personal costs, such as handling heavy or dangerous trash, using a personal vehicle, or leaving debris in the yard while waiting for city pickup

The main benefit of using weekly city pickups for a cleanout is that these services are free. Though the cost of disposing bulk trash using city services may not be evident at first glance, the risks add up, including the risk of fines for improper disposal. Dumpster rentals provide fast, streamlined, and compliant methods for cleaning out an estate, decluttering before a move, following a big project, or as part of a major cleanout. 

How to Choose a Dumpster 

The goal of choosing the right dumpster for any cleanout is to make sure it has enough space to take care of the entire cleanout in one trip, without overspending on an unnecessarily large size. A dumpster rental company can help you assess your needs based on the project using these guidelines to help clarify which dumpster rental may be the right one: 

  • 10-yard dumpsters, or around 50-75 trash bags, can handle most single room or garage cleanouts.
  • 20-yard dumpsters, or around 100-150 trash bags, are appropriate for most multi-room cleanouts, including home renovations or landscaping projects.
  • 30-yard dumpsters, or around 150-225 trash bags, are the largest commercially available dumpsters and should be reserved for more extensive cleanouts related to whole-home renovations, estate cleanouts, commercial construction, and more. 

To use another perspective, a 10-yard dumpster holds around three pickup truckloads worth of debris, while a 30-yard dumpster holds around nine. Choosing the right dumpster for a project is not an exact science, but an experienced waste management company can help homeowners choose a size that fulfills their needs without overpaying. 

Homeowners can prepare for this choice themselves by piling or grouping some of the larger items and trying to visualize how they would stack in a dumpster. They should also keep the weight in mind since heavier items could exceed the dumpster’s weight capacity before filling up its space. Typically, a 10-yard dumpster has a weight limit of around 3,000 pounds, but this is an important question for the dumpster rental company. 

As a frame of reference, consider that an average refrigerator weighs around 250-400 pounds, but a cubic yard of broken concrete weighs over 2,000 pounds. This means that the nature of the cleanout and the type of debris being produced will heavily impact the dumpster that homeowners need. 

What Items are Not Allowed in Dumpsters? 

Dumpsters are versatile tools for cleaning up a variety of projects, but not all materials can be disposed of in a dumpster. Virginia Beach has rules for prohibited items and substances, and this brief summary of items that are not allowed in dumpsters can help homeowners prepare for their cleanout: 

  • Paints, solvents, cleaning chemicals, thinners, and other liquid chemicals
  • Aerosolized chemicals 
  • Oil or fuel
  • Tires
  • Refrigerants such as freon
  • Asbestos
  • Auto batteries

Anything that can leak into the air, water, or soil is likely a prohibited substance, requiring disposal at a designated facility. Disposing of hazardous or prohibited items in bulk trash piles using a dumpster goes against Virginia Beach codes and can result in fines. 

Book Your Virginia Beach Dumpster Rental Today

empty dumpster outside a home

Dumpster rentals provide an efficient way to manage cleanouts in Virginia Beach. However, choosing the right dumpster size for the project and organizing trash to avoid disposing of prohibited items can be difficult without expert help. 

At Full Strut Disposal, our experienced waste management team helps homeowners in Virginia Beach clean up their homes, renovation projects, and more with our white glove dumpster rental service. Contact us today and request a quote so we can match the right dumpster to your cleanout project.