Whether you are thinking about doing some DIY renovations to your house to make it look aesthetically pleasing or some gardening, it goes without saying that there will be waste left over in the form of concrete, brick, wood, soil, paper, metal and plastic. This is the best time to call in skip hire companies to take care of that waste for you. Skips could also be useful when trying to get rid of household waste that has been piling up, as it is your lawful Duty of Care to handle your own household rubbish, knowing who is collecting and how they are disposing it off. Here are some factors to help you decide when you need skip hire.
1. Reliability and service quality of the skip hire company
There are many skip hire companies listed in your phone book which may sound the same but are worlds apart in terms of reliability, promptness and quality of service. You need to make sure that the companies you hire from are at least accredited by waste management institutions so you know they are up to date with the ways to handle waste properly and follow the standards set by the institutions they are accredited by.
There are many men with vans that most people knowingly or unknowingly opt for that just collect the trash and dispose of it without much thought to the consequences of improper disposal. Councils have to deal with the improper disposal and you, as a taxpayer to the council, end up being taxed extra for that proper cleanup by the council. So you end up spending double the money.
This just goes to show, the cheapest options are not always the best ones.
Had you opted for a reliable skip hire service, they would have taken the rubbish to a proper landfill site and dispose it over there, even use some of that waste material for recycling into green fuels and other useful materials. If the landfill site had reached capacity and there was no other option, the company would even pay a tax to dispose the waste on that site.
Reliable companies understand the consequences of fast depleting landfill space in the UK, which will ultimately harm the future generations and the country, thus the move towards recycling.
2. Do I really need skip hire or will house clearance do
Skip hire is usually done for cleanup and picking up non hazardous-substances (further discussed in point 4). If you just found some artwork or artifacts or household items which are of no use to you while you were spring cleaning, don’t call in a skip hire just yet! It may even cost you more to dispose of these items of you do so. Instead, you can ask for house clearance specialists, who pick up these items which you no longer need, entirely free of cost. They can sell the items in clearance sales, etc. You won’t have to go through the trouble of finding the right skip hire company and pay them unnecessarily when you are getting your unnecessary furniture and material disposed of or practically no extra charge.
3. Will unlimited skip hire be better or…?
Skips are limited in number and skip hire firms have a business to run. It is not surprising, then, that skip hire for an unlimited time can cost loads more than if you pay for a week and a few extra pounds per day. It is also worthwhile to know that the cost you saved on hiring weekly Skip hire can be used to ease your troubles further. You can use the money that you saved and apply for a permit to place the skip on a roadside so the rubbish is kept away from your home, avoiding any damage to your garage and home in general. These permits vary by area and can range anywhere from £15-70.
4. Can you dispose all items on a skip?
There are some items like cans of paints and oils, asbestos, canisters of gas or flammable liquids, aerosol sprays and other hazardous materials, even electrical appliances and raw meat, that cannot be carried on that skips. When you call a skip hire company, be sure to ask what items they can and cannot carry on their skips and which items they can, to avoid paying additional heavy fines if and when you try to sneak in items that are not allowed on the skips.
5. Size of your cleanup job
Last but certainly not least, the size of your cleanup job. What is the size of the mess that you need cleaned up? Is there just wood and soil left over from gardening that you need cleaned up? Or do you need to have brick or concrete, plastic, metal and/or cardboard cleaned up after renovation? Maybe the mess has been piling up for quite some time and you are waiting for it to be cleaned up in bulk. All these questions need to be kept in careful consideration for the skip size.
There are three common sizes for skip hire: the mini, midi(medium) and large skip. The Mini skips are usually four yard in length and hold about 43 bags of rubbish on average, and skip hire costs around £90 – £130 per week. Midi and large skips are generally 8 and 12 yards in size respectively and have a capacity of 85 and 130 average sized rubbish bags that they can hold respectively. The midi skip hire costs around £200-250/week while the large costs around £250-340/week. There are a few sizes in between and beyond, which can also be selected.
Bonus tip: One way to utilize the maximum capacity of the skip is to appropriately pack the waste material in such a way to minimize the air pockets in between so you are not overpaying for a skip and carrying it over a certain height as it may be unsafe for the lorries to carry the skips such that debris may fall out and cause road accidents. That is why you may be fined for doing so. If you wish to have a list of registered companies that are trusted locally and nationally offering reliable services of skip hire, head over to Skip Hire Comparison to find out the rates and skip sizes that best suit your cleanup needs, without having to worry about any hassles in delivery and disposal.
