How to Choose the Right Bin Size for Your Skip Bin Hire

Our Perth skip bins come in a variety of sizes, so whether you’re moving house, doing an outdoor bbq kitchen remodel or running a construction site, we can provide you with a legal, convenient and responsible way to dispose of your rubbish and waste.

The most frequent question our customers ask us is what size skip bin to get. With containers ranging in size from three cubic metres to twelve cubic metres, we have a right-sized skip bin for every project.

Because the price of a skip bin rises as the size gets larger, our customers want to make sure they don’t end up with a bin that’s too big.

However, if they underestimate how the size and volume of what they’re disposing of, they may end up calling for a new bin in the middle of their project.

Going up in size costs about $100 while needing to request a new bin can cost triple that or more. That’s why we work with our customers to make sure they select the right bin size to avoid any costly missteps.

When determining the right bin size for your project, evaluate the following:

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What Do You Need to Dispose Of?

Consider what items you need to dispose of. Are they compact like bricks, soil, and stones, or will you have bulky branches, furniture or building materials?

If your items can be compacted before you put them in the bin, you won’t need quite as much space as you would if your things are large or can’t be broken down.

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The Size of Your Project

Generally speaking, the larger the project, the larger the bin size needed. A helpful frame of reference for smaller projects is to think about how many wheelie bins you would need for all your materials.

For example, a 3-cubic metre bin fits the contents of 8 wheelie bins, while a 7-cubic metre option can accommodate approximately 24 wheelie bins.

If you’ve got large items, it can be difficult to estimate how many wheelie bins you might need. There’s no one-size fits all rule that applies to every situation, but we’ve been doing this for enough years to give you some guidelines:

Bathroom Renovation

The most common for these projects is three cubic metres. This tends to be large enough to hold your old bathroom fixtures, including a small bathtub, and the packaging from your new materials.

Kitchen Renovation

The sizing requirements for these projects are similar to bathroom renovations, but could be slightly larger, especially if there are appliances involved, like stoves or dishwashers. Our typical recommendation is 3 to 5 cubic metres.

Moving House

There is a lot of variation here, depending on how large your home is and how much you’re getting rid of. If you’re ditching unused items and a couple of pieces of small furniture, then a 3 cubic metre skip would typically suffice.

Larger moving and cleanup projects could require something twice that size, especially if you’re disposing of several items of furniture, exercise equipment and years of accumulating stuff.

Deceased Estate

Often, the entire house is cleared out in these situations. In cases like these, we typically recommend a skip that’s 12 metres, though you can get something much smaller if you don’t plan of disposing of all the furniture.

Demolition

Our size recommendations will vary based on the volume of your demolished debris. We suggest calculating the volume of your waste (length x width x depth) and then multiplying that figure by 1.5 to get an estimate.

Excavation

The calculation for the size of a skip for an excavation project is similar to that of a demolition project. However, because soil compacts more efficiently than brick or concrete, multiply the volume of your debris by 1.3 to determine your sizing needs.

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What Fits in a Cubic Metre?

If you didn’t memorise the formulas from your geometry class, no worries. We’ll give you a brief refresher. A cubic metre is a space that is one metre high, one metre wide, and one metre deep. To give you some context, one cubic metre could fit any one of the following items:

• Eight standard moving boxes
• A washer and dryer
• A 2-seat sofa
• Ten flower pots (with flowers)

Now that you can visualise how large that space is, take a mental or physical inventory of what you need to get rid of, and that should give you a general idea of how much space you need.

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Waste Removal

Don’t forget that you need a place to keep your skip during your project. If it’s going to be in your driveway, that might influence the size you get. Another factor to keep in mind is whether you need a permit to place it on the street.

Some municipalities have restrictions on the sizes of skips allowed, so this is also something to figure out before committing to a size.

At Allmetro Bins, we do have our own sorting facility, which means you can put mixed waste in our bins. For convenience, we ask that you sort the items according to our specifications.

If you need asbestos removal, we have safety precautions that must be followed. These include lining the bin with 200mm polyurethane sheeting, sealing the contents and labelling it appropriately with letters that are 50 mm high.

There are limitations to the amount of asbestos an unlicensed person can remove, and the health issues from a misstep are dangerous. We do have licensed professionals available to help if you need asbestos removal.

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Contact the Waste Disposal Experts

This overview of choosing the right bin size should hopefully give you some guidance when it comes time for you to rent a skip bin. We do also suggest that if you’re wavering between two sizes, size up!

It’s much more economical to get a bin that’s slightly bigger than what you need than it is to have to rent another one altogether.

You can also get in touch with us, and we’ll be happy to help you select the best size for your needs.