10 Yard Dumpster Rental in Roanoke, VA

A 10 yard roll-off is roughly twelve feet long, eight feet wide and about three and a half feet tall, which is three or four pickup loads. The short sides mean material goes in over the rim rather than up a ladder, and the short footprint means it fits on a hillside driveway where a twenty-two foot container has nowhere to swing. It is the container for heavy, dense material, and the rule that goes with it is short: load flat, load low, and stop at the fill line rather than the rim.

• Capacity10 cubic yards
• Footprint12 ft x 8 ft x 3.5 ft
• Weight allowance2 – 3 tons
• Holds about~3 pickup truck loads

Why people choose the 10 yard

Start with the material, because in this valley it decides everything else. Masonry rubble is the classic 10 yard load: broken concrete off a driveway or an apron, brick off a chimney or a porch pier, block out of a crawlspace wall, mortar, stone and a section of garage slab. All of it is several times denser than the mixed household debris people picture when they imagine a roll-off, so the container reaches its lawful payload while the sides are still plainly visible. A 10 loaded flat with rubble is the correct tool. The same rubble in a 30 gives you a container that cannot lawfully leave your driveway, which costs everybody a morning and solves nothing. Neither the City of Roanoke nor Roanoke County will take rocks, dirt, brick or concrete at the curb, so there is no free route for this material and no point pretending otherwise. Soil is its own conversation. If you are excavating as well as breaking out, tell us at booking roughly how much is spoil and how much is masonry, because the two are not simply different kinds of rubble and mixing them limits where a load can go.

The second material that belongs in a 10 is the one that makes this a Roanoke page rather than a generic one. Roanoke City, Roanoke County, Vinton and Salem are all designated SEVERE for termite infestation probability in the local design criteria. Put that together with a valley where crawlspaces are common, plenty of older city houses have basements, and summers are long and humid, and you get the signature local repair: sill plate, band joist, joist ends and subfloor cut out and replaced. That debris fools people every time. It is short lengths rather than long ones, it is studded with nails, it is usually damp and often partly rotted, and it weighs far more per cubic yard than the clean lumber going back in. Add the crawlspace spoil, the old vapor barrier and the masonry off a pier repair and you have a load that is heavy, wet and awkward all at once, coming out through a hatch two feet square. A 10 yard loaded flat, collected promptly, is the honest answer to that job.

The third case is water, and here it means crawlspaces and basements rather than the river. Roanoke averages 42.82 inches of precipitation a year according to NWS Blacksburg, which keeps the climate record for station ROA, and the remnants of tropical systems reach the Blue Ridge most seasons. The valley has not forgotten what water can do: in November 1985 the Roanoke River crested at 23.35 feet against a ten-foot flood stage after 6.61 inches of rain in 24 hours, with at least ten deaths, and the answer was the Corps of Engineers Roanoke River Flood Reduction Project. Most of what we haul, though, comes from a failed line, a wet season or a crawlspace that never dried out. Saturated carpet, wet cardboard, swollen furniture and sodden insulation weigh two to three times what the same material weighs dry, and they keep gaining weight for as long as the box stands open. Load wet material flat in a small container, keep it tarped, and call for collection as soon as the space is clear.

The last argument for the 10 is where it can go, and in this valley that is a serious argument. Roanoke sits on a valley floor between Mill Mountain, Read Mountain, the Blue Ridge and the Allegheny ridges, and driveways in South Roanoke, Grandin Court, Deyerle, Crystal Spring, Garden City and Cave Spring are frequently short, curved or cut into a hillside. A roll-off delivery is a gravity operation: the container comes off the rails under its own weight and the cable has to pull it back up loaded. At around twelve feet, the 10 is easier to place, more stable standing still and more predictable on the cable than anything longer. The ground matters too, because the Roanoke Valley lies in Virginia’s karst belt and Virginia Energy notes that subsidence is generally not covered by a standard homeowner’s insurance policy. A loaded box is a point load on soil that may be bridging a void, so keeping the heavy container small is good practice as well as good sizing.

Good fit for

• Broken concrete, brick, block and mortar rubble
• Crawlspace pier and foundation masonry
• Termite-rotted sill plate, band joist and framing
• Crawlspace spoil and old vapor barrier
• Bathroom and kitchen tile set in a mortar bed
• A single chimney or a set of porch piers
• Concrete steps, walks and driveway aprons
• Small strip-outs on a steep or narrow valley drive

Not the right size for

• Whole-house cleanouts full of furniture
• A crawlspace and attic cleared in one weekend
• Multi-room remodels making airy debris
• Deck, fencing and brush clearance
• A full rental unit turnover
• Roof tear-offs above about fifteen squares

Will it fit?

The 10 is the easiest container we place, which is exactly why it suits Roanoke. At around twelve feet long it goes on a hillside or single-width drive where a twenty-two foot box has nowhere to swing, and its low sides mean material goes in over the rim rather than up a ladder. We still want about 60 feet of straight approach for the truck to line up and back, roughly ten and a half feet of working width, and 20 feet or more of overhead clearance for the hoist. Grade is what usually decides a set here rather than width: roll-off delivery works by gravity, so we square the truck to the slope and spot the set from the low side, and a short box gives the hoist more room than a tall one. Plywood goes under the wheels and the rails on every placement, doubled on a heavy load, and we photograph the approach on arrival because freeze and thaw has already worked on most asphalt in this valley. On placement the fire code applies: under International Fire Code § 304.3.3, carried into Virginia by the 2021 Statewide Fire Prevention Code at 13VAC5-51, any container of 1.5 cubic yards or more stays out of buildings and at least five feet clear of combustible walls, openings and combustible roof eave lines. A street set in the City of Roanoke needs the City permit, applied for at least ten calendar days ahead.

Before delivery, move cars and bins, mark irrigation heads and septic lids, and tell us about new concrete, soft or made ground, a steep or hillside-cut drive, or a service drop hanging under the tree canopy. Plywood goes under every wheel and under both rails as standard. Our delivery and driveway protection guide and our steep driveway guide cover the rest.

Compare all five sizes