Renovation debris removal in Houston

The short answer

Renovation debris prices by material and by volume. Household furniture goes one way; construction material and masonry go another, because they end up at different facilities.

Truck volume: quarter $241, half $431, three-quarters $587, full $732. Minimum $75 per visit.

The Houston renovation that is really a flood repair

A large share of remodelling in this metro is not discretionary. It starts with water on a ground floor and a horizontal line on the wall, and the scope is decided by how high that line is.

The work is predictable: carpet and pad out, baseboards off, drywall cut above the line, insulation pulled, cabinets out if the water reached the toe kick. It needs to happen quickly, because in this climate mold gets established in days rather than weeks and every day of delay adds to the remediation bill.

Carpet removal is $71 per room. Drywall is $37 a sheet or small bundle. A full kitchen cabinet rip-out is $293. None of those carry an emergency rate in a storm week, because there is no emergency rate.

Keep the masonry separate

Concrete, brick and tile are heavy and go to a different facility from wood and drywall, which is why they are priced apart at $219 per quarter truck. A mixed load of slab pieces and cabinets is the most expensive way to buy this service.

If you are breaking up a patio slab, a driveway apron or a section of pier footing on an older pier-and-beam house, stage the masonry in its own pile. It takes ten minutes and it changes what the load costs.

The bungalow remodel problem

Montrose, the Heights, Woodland Heights, Norhill, the older parts of the East End: pier-and-beam houses from the twenties and thirties on narrow lots, often with a raised front porch, a narrow side drive, and a neighbor's house six feet away.

There is usually nowhere to stage a large container, which is why these jobs run on scheduled crew visits instead — debris out to the front on a Tuesday, gone on a Wednesday, repeat. Original longleaf pine flooring, plaster and lath, and old cast iron all come out of these houses, and cast iron is worth separating for the scrap value.

The subdivision remodel problem

Out past the Grand Parkway the constraint is not space, it is the association. Master-planned communities in Katy, Cypress, Fulshear and the newer Sugar Land sections commonly restrict how long debris or a container may sit in a driveway and where materials may be staged.

The workable pattern is the same as the inner loop for a different reason: keep the pile out of sight until the day, then have it collected. A three-quarter truck at $587 clears a kitchen gut in one visit and leaves nothing for the association to write to you about.

Worked examples

• Kitchen gut — cabinet set, two stone countertop sections, a dishwasher: $293 + $111 + $111 + $109 = $624. That is above the five-eighths truck at $513, so we quote the truck tier.
• Bathroom strip — vanity, detached toilet, fiberglass bathtub, shower door: $69 + $64 + $90 + $71 = $294
• Ground-floor flood cut — carpet out of three rooms: $71 + $71 + $71 = $213
• Flooring swap — four bundles of laminate and two boxes of tile: $41 + $41 + $41 + $41 + $33 + $33 = $230

Scheduling around the weather

Debris left at the front of a Houston property does not stay put. Rain soaks drywall and makes it twice as heavy to handle, and a forecast storm turns a loose pile of lumber and shingles into a wind hazard.

So the rhythm that works here is short cycles: produce debris, book a collection, clear it, repeat. Contractors working this metro through hurricane season plan around that as a matter of course, and it costs no more than letting it accumulate.

Frequently asked questions