Debris from a Chicago rehab doesn't arrive all at once. It comes in waves — and each wave is a different material, at a different weight, on a different rate, with a different right moment to leave the site. Schedule to the wave and the project stays workable.
Construction debris $120/cu yd · truck-fill from $241
Upload Photos & Get Quote →The instinct on a gut rehab is to let it pile up and clear it once. It's tidy thinking and it costs money, for three reasons that have nothing to do with hauling rates.
Debris in the way gets moved twice. Demo waste that sits through rough-in gets shifted so the trades can work, then shifted again. Nobody invoices for that, but somebody pays for it in hours.
Dense material mixed into light loads prices as dense. Plaster stirred through a pile of cabinets and packaging doesn't become lighter by association.
And the last wave always arrives late. The pile that turns up at punch-list time is the one nobody planned for, on the week the schedule has least room.
So: haul by phase. Here are the phases.
The heaviest thing that will leave the building, and the first.
Chicago's pre-war stock — worker cottages, greystones, two-flats across Ukrainian Village, Pilsen, Bridgeport and Bucktown — was built with plaster over wood lath, not drywall. Plaster is dense, it comes off in wet-heavy chunks, and a room of it weighs far more than its volume suggests.
This is why demolition debris is priced by the cubic yard at $120 rather than as truck-fill: dense material reaches a truck's weight limit long before it fills the space. Get this wave out before anything else starts. It is the material you least want underfoot.
Lighter, bulkier, and the wave with the most salvage value in it.
Old kitchen cabinets, built-ins, baseboards and casings, interior doors, a vanity at $93, a toilet at $64. Awkward shapes, not much weight — which means this wave prices as truck-fill, not by the yard.
Pause before this one goes in the truck. Chicago has an active architectural-salvage trade, and pre-war doors, hardware, trim and mantels are exactly what it buys. Careful removal is worth considerably more than fast removal.
The wave people underestimate, because it's small and extremely heavy.
Cast-iron radiators at $123 each when a heating system changes. Cast-iron tubs at $185 — a fibreglass tub, by contrast, is $121, and the entire difference is weight and handling. Old galvanised pipe, a water heater at $131, sometimes a boiler.
Cast iron and copper have genuine scrap value, and a two-flat's worth of radiators is not a trivial quantity of metal. Ask before you discard. What happens to old appliances and metal here.
Its own wave because it's usually layered, and the layers behave differently.
A Chicago rehab commonly finds carpet over linoleum over hardwood, sometimes with tile and thinset in the wet rooms. Rolled carpet is $68. Tile and thinset are dense and price by the yard like demo debris.
The hardwood underneath is frequently worth keeping — old-growth strip flooring is not something you can buy new. If it can be refinished rather than removed, that's a better outcome than any hauling rate.
The quiet wave: drywall offcuts, packaging, cardboard, banding, empty buckets, the endless plastic film that comes off new fixtures and appliances.
Individually trivial, collectively a truck. It's light, so it's truck-fill — a quarter truck at $241 clears most finish phases. Contractor bags run $41 each if the volume is genuinely small.
This is the wave most worth timing to the week before final clean, when the trades are done generating it.
Every rehab produces one, and it's the reason this page exists.
At punch-list time there's a corner of the basement or the garage holding the previous owner's leftovers, a broken appliance, some worn furniture, offcuts too good to throw and too short to use, and a few things whose origin nobody can explain. It belongs to no trade and appears on no schedule.
Budget for it. A medium loose pile is $129, a large one $208, and clearing it is what turns a finished job into a photographable one. Basement clearing · the two-flat basement problem.
The one piece of pricing mechanics worth understanding, because it's where estimates go wrong.
Dense material prices by the cubic yard — plaster, lath, tile, thinset, masonry, concrete. At $162 a cubic yard, because weight, not space, is the binding constraint.
Light and mixed material prices as truck-fill — cabinets, trim, doors, packaging, furniture, general rehab clutter. From $241 for a quarter truck up to $732 for a full 16-cubic-yard load.
A mixed load prices as what's in it. Which is the practical argument for hauling the demo wave separately: keeping plaster out of the cabinet load is worth real money, and it costs nothing but sequencing.
Send photographs and we'll tell you which rate applies before anyone travels. Full Chicago price list.
This section sits here rather than at the end because it comes before the work, not after it.
Chicago's older housing stock can contain both lead paint and asbestos, and neither can be assessed by eye. Not by us, not by a contractor, not from a photograph. Asbestos turned up in more materials than most people expect — pipe insulation, floor tile, mastic, some plasters and joint compounds.
Testing by a qualified professional comes before demolition, and where either is found the work belongs to a licensed abatement contractor working to its own requirements and timeline.
We do not test, we do not abate, and we will not haul material identified or suspected as containing either. If that's your situation, the demo schedule moves — and moving a schedule is dramatically cheaper than the alternative. Where material actually goes after it leaves.
Clean loads get sorted, and the recoverable streams go to recycling rather than landfill. Metal, clean wood and clean masonry are the ones that most reliably divert; mixed and contaminated loads divert less, which is another argument for keeping the waves separate.
What we won't tell you is that this satisfies a requirement attached to your project. Chicago has recycling rules covering construction and demolition work — but what applies to your specific job, what has to be recorded, and who is responsible for recording it are questions for your permit and for the city.
A hauler who guarantees your rehab is compliant is a hauler making a promise about a process they aren't party to. Ask the city and ask whoever pulled the permit. We'll tell you accurately what we did with your material; the compliance question is upstream of us.
For a genuine whole-gut running weeks, a container on site is frequently the better tool, and we'd rather say so than sell around it. It's there at seven in the morning when the demo crew is, and it doesn't need booking per load.
On-demand hauling wins where the project is phased, where there's nowhere legal or practical to leave a container, where the alley can't lose a spot for weeks, or where you want the dense wave taken separately from the light one.
Plenty of Chicago rehabs use both — container through demo, on-demand for the later waves. The full comparison.
Chicago's grid gave most of the city something Boston and San Francisco would envy: a rear alley. On a rehab it's the obvious route — the front of the building and the sidewalk stay clear, and loading happens away from the street.
What to tell us when you book: whether there's a gate, a garage pad or a working apron, and whether the alley is shared with an active garage. Where the alley is blocked or too tight, we work from the street instead — it's just slower, and it's better known in advance.
More on how the alley works · what may and may not be left there.
| Material or scope | Flat price |
|---|---|
| Minimum | $75 |
| Construction & demo debris (dense) | $120 / cu yd |
| Contractor bag | $41 |
| Truck-fill — quarter | $241 |
| Truck-fill — three-eighths | $338 |
| Truck-fill — half | $431 |
| Truck-fill — three-quarter | $587 |
| Truck-fill — full 16 cu yd | $732 |
| Radiator | $123 |
| Bathtub — fibreglass / cast iron | $90 / $185 |
| Toilet / vanity | $64 / $93 |
| Water heater | $131 |
| Rolled carpet | $68 |
| Loose pile — medium / large | $129 / $208 |
| Every additional truck | Same flat rate |
Quoted from photographs before anyone travels; no Illinois sales tax on the service. Full price list · itemised real jobs.
A two-flat unit going to the studs, hauled in two waves rather than one.
Demo wave: plaster and lath off the walls and ceilings. Dense, so it prices by the yard at $162 a cubic yard, and it leaves before rough-in starts.
Strip-out wave: cabinets, trim, doors, a vanity and a toilet. Bulky and light, so it prices as truck-fill — around a half truck at $431.
Run as one combined haul instead, and the cabinets travel at the dense-material rate because the plaster is mixed through them. The sequencing is free; mixing the waves isn't.
$120 / cu yd. Heaviest wave, first out, never mixed into a light load.
Truck-fill from $241. Light, bulky, time it to the week before final clean.
Truck-fill. Check salvage value on anything pre-war before it goes.
Salvage first. This is what Chicago's architectural-salvage trade buys.
$123 each, and real scrap value in quantity.
$185 — versus $121 fibreglass. Pure weight difference.
$86 / $93 / $131. The bathroom-and-utility wave.
Carpet $68 rolled; tile and thinset price as dense debris.
Refinish if you can. You cannot buy this new.
Fridge $164, washer $133, dryer $128. Refrigerant units need certified recovery. Appliance removal.
Sofa $126, or cleared with the pile. Furniture removal.
Stop. Test first. We will not haul it.
Most of the rehab volume we move in Chicago is repeat work for the same handful of people, and what they're buying isn't a rate — it's not having to think about disposal.
What makes that work: photographs the evening before rather than a call at seven in the morning, a standing sense of which waves are coming, alley access confirmed once rather than every visit, and a flat price agreed before the truck moves so it can go on the job costing without an asterisk.
If you run several rehabs at once, tell us — scheduling is easier when we already know your sites. Same-day availability · how this compares with the national operators.
Never let the heavy wave meet the light one. Everything else on this page follows from it. Plaster hauled on its own is dense material priced honestly by the yard; the same plaster stirred through a load of cabinets and packaging turns that whole load into dense material. Sequencing costs nothing — it's a phone call and a date — and it's the single largest saving available on a Chicago rehab that isn't a negotiation. Get the demo wave out before rough-in, keep the mechanicals separate because the metal is worth something, salvage the trim before it becomes debris, and budget for the pile in the basement that nobody will admit to owning.
Photos in, flat price back — alley loading, repeat scheduling for trades
Upload Photos & Get Quote →Dense demolition debris is priced by volume at $120 per cubic yard, because plaster, masonry and tile reach a truck's weight limit long before they fill it by space. Mixed and lighter rehab debris — cabinets, trim, doors, packaging — is priced as truck-fill, from $241 for a quarter truck to $732 for a full 16-cubic-yard load. Which rate applies depends on what is actually in the load, so send photographs and we will tell you before anyone travels rather than after.
Several, and scheduled to the phase rather than the calendar. Rehab debris arrives in distinct waves — demo, strip-out, mechanicals, flooring, finish scrap — and each wave is a different material at a different weight. Hauling each wave as it finishes keeps the site workable, keeps dense material from being mixed into light loads, and means you are never paying to move the same pile twice because it had to be shifted out of the trades' way.
Yes — clean loads are sorted and the recoverable streams go to recycling rather than landfill, with metal, clean wood and clean masonry being the ones that most reliably divert. What we will not do is tell you that this satisfies any particular requirement attached to your project. Chicago has recycling rules for construction and demolition work, and what applies to your job, what has to be documented and by whom are questions for your permit and the city — not for your hauler.
Chicago's older housing stock can contain both, and neither can be assessed by eye. Testing by a qualified professional comes before anything is disturbed, and where either is found the work belongs to a licensed abatement contractor on its own timeline. We do not test, we do not abate, and we will not haul material identified or suspected as containing either. If that is your situation, the demo schedule moves — which is far cheaper than the alternative.
For a genuine whole-gut running for weeks, a container on site is often the better tool and we will say so — it is there when the trades need it, at any hour. On-demand hauling wins where the project is phased, where there is nowhere legal or practical to leave a container, where the alley cannot lose a spot for weeks, or where you want the dense material taken separately from the light. Many Chicago rehabs end up using both.
Usually, and on most Chicago blocks the alley is the sensible route — it is what the city's grid was built around and it keeps the front of the building and the sidewalk clear. Tell us the alley access and whether there is a gate, a garage pad or a working apron when you book. Where the alley is blocked, too tight or shared with an active garage, we work from the street instead.