Renovation debris removal in Milwaukee

The short answer

By volume, for anything larger: 1/4 truck $241, 3/8 $338, 1/2 $431, 5/8 $513, 3/4 $587, 7/8 $661, full truck $732. Bagged debris runs from 10 bags at $132 to 50 bags at $575. Minimum per visit is $75.

Plaster and lath, which is the Milwaukee difference

If you have renovated in a newer market and are doing it here for the first time, this is the thing that will surprise you.

Most of Milwaukee's residential stock predates drywall. The walls in a 1920s bungalow in Jackson Park, a two-flat in Bay View, a four-square in Washington Heights or a Polish flat in Lincoln Village are wood lath with three coats of plaster over it. Taking one down produces a completely different quantity of material from taking down drywall:

• It is far heavier. Plaster is a cementitious material with sand in it, and it comes off in dense chunks and a great deal of dust. The same room generates several times the weight.
• The lath is nailed timber, thousands of small strips with nails in every one, and it takes up volume awkwardly.
• The dust gets everywhere. Genuinely everywhere. Seal the room.

The practical consequence for disposal: a plaster gut fills a truck by weight long before it looks full. This is exactly why dense material is priced the way it is — concrete and masonry at $219 per quarter truck rather than by the same ladder as household goods.

What else comes out of an old Milwaukee house

• Cast iron. Radiators pulled during a heating conversion, at $123 each. Cast iron bathtubs, at $185. Soil stack sections. All of it recoverable as scrap and all of it extremely heavy.
• Cream city brick. From a chimney breast taken out, or a demolished back-yard structure. This is masonry, priced by the quarter truck.
• Original trim and doors. Oak and fir casings, baseboards, doors with their hardware. Do not bin these without a look — the region has genuine architectural salvage and reuse channels, and a hundred-year-old oak door is not something anyone is manufacturing.
• The kitchen. Cabinets, a laminate countertop at $56 a section or a stone one at $111, a drop-in cooktop at $71, a dishwasher at $109.
• Old flooring. Carpet rolled at $68, or removal at $71 per room if you want us to pull it up. Under it, in these houses, there is frequently hardwood worth keeping.

Two things to sort out before demolition, not after

Both are legal and safety matters rather than disposal ones, and both are common in this housing stock.

Asbestos. Pre-war Milwaukee houses may have it in pipe and duct insulation on the heating runs in the basement, in some older floor tiles and their adhesive, and in certain wall board and siding products. It is not a junk hauler's job and it is not a DIY job. Do not disturb it. If you suspect it, get it assessed and, where necessary, abated by a licensed contractor before any demolition begins. We cannot take asbestos-containing material and neither can a container.

Lead paint. Any house built before 1978 should be assumed to have it, which in Milwaukee's older neighborhoods means effectively all of them. Renovation work that disturbs painted surfaces in those homes is subject to federal lead-safe work practice requirements, and contractors doing that work need to be appropriately certified. Sanding old window sashes in a bungalow without containment is the classic mistake. Check the current requirements before you start.

Neither of these changes what we charge. They change the order in which the work happens.

Getting debris out with no driveway

The access problem again, and for renovation work it is sharper than for furniture.

On most older city blocks there is no driveway. A container in the street generally needs a permit from your municipality and takes a contested parking space; a container in the alley blocks every garage on the block. So a great many Milwaukee renovations end up with debris bagged and staged inside the house or in the garage, waiting for someone to move it.

That is where flat-price removal fits well:

• No container, no permit, no placement problem. The truck parks where it can and the crew carries.
• No long-carry charge for the walk from the house down the gangway to the alley, or up from the basement.
• Staged removals. On a longer project we can come back at each phase rather than you living with a pile — demolition debris now, the kitchen when it comes out, the last of it before the floors go down.
• Bagged debris prices exist for exactly this. 10 bags $132, 15 bags $196, 20 bags $259, 25 bags $322, 30 bags $385, 40 bags $449, 50 bags $575. Contractor bags are $41 each for smaller quantities.

Worked totals

A small bathroom gut in a Tosa bungalow:

• Bathtub (cast iron) — $185
• Toilet (detached) — $64
• Bathroom vanity — $69
• 20 bags of debris (plaster, lath, tile) — $259

$185 + $64 + $69 + $259 = $577.

A kitchen tear-out: countertop sections, 2 laminate at $56 each ($112), a drop-in cooktop $71, a dishwasher $109, and 15 bags of debris $196.

$112 + $71 + $109 + $196 = $488.

A back-yard concrete pad plus a chimney breast, both masonry: concrete and masonry debris at $219 per quarter truck, and a job of that size is commonly two quarters — $219 + $219 = $438.

For a whole-floor gut, compare against the truck ladder: three-quarters is $587 and a full truck is $732. But remember the weight point — a plaster load fills by weight first, so tell us it is plaster and lath rather than drywall when you book, and we will send the right truck.

For contractors

• Written price before the job, at published rates, so it goes into your client's budget accurately rather than as an allowance.
• Staged pickups across a project, each priced for what actually goes.
• We do not need you on site if access is arranged, and we will send photos.
• Tell us the material. Plaster and lath, concrete, tile and cast iron all behave differently from mixed household debris, and knowing in advance is the difference between one trip and two.
• Separate the hazardous and the excluded — paint, solvents, adhesives, propane, batteries — into one corner. We clear around them; they go through your county's household hazardous waste route.

Frequently asked questions