Dumpster Sizes in Rochester, NY — 10, 15, 20, 30 & 40 Yard

The 20 yard, by a wide margin. It handles a kitchen gut, a multi-room remodel, or a full basement and attic emptied in one go, and it still sits on a normal Rochester driveway. The 15 yard is next most common because it is the sweet spot for a single room, one unit of a two-family turnover or a shingle tear-off on an average house. Anything with concrete, brick, plaster and lath or foundation spoil in it goes the other way, down to a 10 yard.

For a Rochester house on asphalt or dimensional shingle, a 15 or 20 yard. Roofing is weight-driven rather than volume-driven, so squares and layers decide it, not roof area — and it is common to find a second course still sitting on the deck, which doubles the tonnage. What fills the roofing calendar here is ice. Ice dams put water through a roof and into the ceiling and insulation below, and the tear-out underneath is often the bigger half of the job. Asphalt shingles are not on any New York ban list — the state has no waste ban list at all — but they are still worth keeping as their own load. Remember what the City says about renovation debris in its own code: “Contractors performing work must make arrangements for the proper and legal collection and disposal of waste generated during the construction process and such waste shall not be collected by the City” (City Code § 20-15F). A tear-off is on the contractor or on you. Pre-1974 roofing felt, mastic and cement-asbestos shingle can contain asbestos, which stops the job until it is tested, and New York’s rule is a Department of Labor rule rather than an environmental one: 12 NYCRR Part 56, Industrial Code Rule 56. The survey exemption is narrow, and NYSDOL is blunt about what an exemption actually buys you: “Buildings qualifying for exemptions must still be assumed to contain asbestos and demolished as an asbestos project unless there is a survey that appropriately documents that there is no asbestos.” Our tear-off sizing guide has the full math.

No, and treating it that way is an expensive mistake. The 40 yard is a volume container for bulky light debris — framing, cabinetry, porch lumber, packaging and whole-house cleanouts. Put anything dense in it and you will exceed legal transport weight long before it is full. It is also the size a Rochester winter punishes hardest: a big open box of light material has to be loaded below the rails and covered, or it empties itself down the street and fills up with snow you then pay to haul. And it needs the most approach room and overhead clearance, which rules it out on the shared drives of the 19th Ward and the older streets off Dewey Avenue, and on long gravel or dirt lanes out toward Mendon and Rush.

Yes, as long as the truck has not been dispatched. If you describe the job and we think you have ordered wrong, we will say so before delivery rather than after. Changing on the phone costs nothing; discovering it at the scale house costs a great deal.

Roughly the container footprint plus working room: about 60 feet of straight approach for the truck, around 10 and a half feet of width, and 20 feet or more of overhead clearance while the hoist operates. There is also a placement rule that most national guides get wrong for New York. The state’s fire code is the Fire Code of New York State, adopted at 19 NYCRR Part 1225, and it carries the International Fire Code rule that a container over the size threshold may not be placed inside a building or within five feet of combustible walls, openings or combustible roof eave lines. Five feet is the number to plan around. The capacity threshold itself tightened in the 2025 code cycle, so check with your local code enforcement officer rather than a national chart. Keep hydrants, exits and fire-apparatus access clear as well. Look up before you decide — a maple, oak or white pine limb, a porch roof, a low gutter or the service drop into the house will stop the arm cold. Winter dictates placement more than summer does: snowbanks and the plow windrow decide whether a drive that took a 30 in October still takes one in February. Tell us what the approach looks like and we will bring the right box.