How to estimate a whole-house cleanout
A single-item pickup is a volume problem: how much is it, what does it weigh. A whole-house cleanout is a time problem. The material is light, the truck fills slowly, and the crew spends the day carrying, sorting, and going up and down stairs. Owners who price cleanouts like big junk pickups get the volume right and the days wrong, and the days are where the money is.
1. Scope by room, not by house
"Three-bedroom house with a garage" tells you almost nothing. A tidy estate where the family already took what they wanted is 40 yards. The same house after twenty years of accumulation is 120. The only way to know is to walk every room and rate it.
| Room | Light | Medium | Heavy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bedroom | 3 yd | 6 yd | 10 yd |
| Living or family room | 4 | 8 | 14 |
| Kitchen | 3 | 6 | 10 |
| Bathroom | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Garage, one car | 6 | 12 | 20 |
| Garage, two car | 10 | 20 | 35 |
| Basement | 8 | 18 | 35 |
| Attic or crawlspace | 4 | 10 | 18 |
| Shed or outbuilding | 3 | 7 | 12 |
| Yard and exterior | 4 | 10 | 20 |
Light means furniture and a few boxes. Medium means you cannot see much floor. Heavy means you cannot walk through. These are working averages; after ten cleanouts you will have your own.
2. Yards to loads, loads to hours
Divide total yards by your bed size and round up for loads. Then hours come from three places: loading time, which for cleanouts runs 0.12 to 0.20 hours per cubic yard because everything is carried by hand; a drive-and-dump trip per load; and sorting and donation time per load, because a cleanout is not all trash and you will be separating metal, donations and e-waste. Stairs, no driveway, or a long carry to the truck add 10% to 20% to the whole job.
Divide total hours by your crew's working day and you have crew days. That number, not yards, is what you are really selling.
3. Cleanouts are a labor business, not a disposal business
On a single-load construction job, disposal can be a third of your cost. On a cleanout it is often under 15%, because household material is light: about 175 pounds per cubic yard, so 76 yards is under seven tons. The cost is the crew. That has two consequences. First, your crew cost per hour has to be right, burden and all. Second, anything that speeds loading, a second truck, a dumpster staged in the driveway, a chute from an upstairs window, pays for itself faster than any discount at the transfer station.
4. Quote a range, not a number
You never see everything. The crawlspace, the second shed, the boxes behind the boxes. A single fixed price means you either pad it and lose the job, or hold it and eat the surprise. A range solves this.
Customers accept a range on a cleanout the way they accept one on a renovation. What they will not accept is a number that changes after the fact with no warning.
5. Collect a deposit
Cleanouts are multi-day and the client is often an executor or an out-of-town relative. Collect 20% to 30% of the low end to book the job. It confirms the date, filters out the people who are still getting six quotes, and covers your first dump run if things go sideways.
Worked example
Estate cleanout: 3 medium bedrooms, medium living room and kitchen, 2 light bathrooms, medium two-car garage, medium basement, light attic. Three-person crew.
| Total scope | 76 cubic yards, 6 loads, 13,300 lbs |
| Loading: 76 × 0.15 hr | 11.4 hrs |
| Drive and dump: 6 × 0.75 hr, sorting 6 × 0.5 hr | 7.5 hrs |
| Total job hours / crew days | 18.9 hrs / 2.4 days |
|---|---|
| Crew 18.9 × $100, truck 18.9 × $26, overhead 18.9 × $23 | $2,816 |
| Disposal: 6.65 tons × $65 | $432 |
| Total cost as scoped | $3,248 |
| Low end at 30% margin | $4,640 |
| High end with 20% contingency | $5,569 |
| Quote | $4,640 to $5,569, deposit $1,160 |
Tick the stairs box and the range moves up about $400. That is the cost of a basement with no walkout, and it should be on the quote, not absorbed.
Common mistakes
- Estimating from the driveway. Walk every room. The basement is where the surprise lives.
- Using your single-load loading rate. A garage of boxes loads fast. A house of small items up a flight of stairs loads at a third of the speed.
- Forgetting sorting time. Donations, metal, hazardous items and documents all get separated. Half an hour per load is realistic.
- A single fixed number with no exclusions. Write down what is not included: hazardous waste, pianos, hot tubs, anything above the ceiling.
Frequently asked questions
How much does an estate cleanout cost?
A typical three-bedroom house with garage and basement is 60 to 90 cubic yards, five to seven loads and two to three crew days, which prices between $4,000 and $7,000 at a healthy margin. Apartments run $800 to $2,000; hoarding situations several times more.
How do you estimate a house cleanout?
Rate each room light, medium or heavy, convert to cubic yards using typical volumes, divide by your bed for loads, then apply loading time per yard and drive time per load to get hours and crew days.
Should I quote a cleanout as a range?
Yes. Quote a low end as scoped and a high end with 15% to 25% contingency, state inclusions and exclusions in writing, and take a deposit against the low end.
How many cubic yards is a full house?
A lightly furnished three-bedroom is around 40 yards. A medium one is 70 to 90. A heavily accumulated one can exceed 120, which is eight or more truckloads.
Every default in the calculator is a placeholder. Room volumes, loading rates and tipping fees vary by market and by crew. Replace them with your own numbers. This tool does not provide legal, tax, insurance or accounting advice.