Is my junk removal quote fair? How to sanity-check any quote in five minutes

A homeowner on a contractor forum recently asked whether $2,650 to demolish and haul away an 8x10 shed was a fair price. Fifty people weighed in. Half said run, half said prices are up everywhere, and the homeowner left more confused than when they started.

Here is the problem with asking the internet: nobody answering can see the shed. But you can still sanity-check a quote yourself, because every junk removal job is really two numbers wearing one price tag. Split them apart and the quote either holds up or it doesn't.

Number one: what does the hauling cost?

Junk removal is priced by volume. The pile goes in a truck, the truck has a known size, and you pay for the fraction you fill. Our truck is 12 by 8 by 5 feet, which works out to 18 cubic yards, or about nine pickup truck loads.

Our full price ladder is published on the pricing page, and it runs from a $175 minimum to $725 for a completely full truck. The middle looks like this: a quarter load is $370, a half load is $520, three quarters is $650.

So price your own pile. An 8x10 shed, flattened, is a big stack of lumber, roofing, and siding. Call it somewhere between half a truck and a full one depending on how it was built. On our ladder that is $520 to $725 for the haul. Now you have a real number for the hauling half of the job, from a printed table, before anyone visits your driveway.

Number two: what does the labor cost?

Demolition, disassembly, and carrying time get billed as labor. Ours runs $150 per hour, and a full load already includes the first hour. A small shed with a hammer-and-prybar frame comes down in a few hours. A shed someone overbuilt with lag bolts and a second layer of shingles takes longer. Either way, the labor half of the quote should be an hourly rate times an hour estimate, and the company should be able to tell you both numbers when you ask.

Ask. A fair quote survives the question "how did you get this number?" A padded quote gets vague.

The add-ons that are legitimate

Some items genuinely cost more to dispose of, and honest companies charge for them by the line, in writing. On our list: mattresses are $20, tires are $20, paint is $10 per gallon, and stairs add $50 per flight because carrying a sleeper sofa down three flights is a different job than rolling it out of a garage. Concrete and other heavy material is different again. Density breaks volume pricing, so we quote concrete on site, before any work starts, and heavy materials cost more.

Add-ons like these are not red flags. Add-ons that appear after the work is done are.

What the shed math says

Run the split on that $2,650 shed quote. Haul: $520 to $725 at our published rates. Demo labor: even a slow day of swinging at $150 per hour leaves you far short of the remaining $2,000. Unless that shed hid a concrete pad, a wasp civilization, or asbestos siding, the quote does not survive the math. The forum could have settled it in one comment.

Yours might survive it. Plenty of quotes do, and a quote that holds up is worth taking, because the cheap alternative is usually an unmarked truck and a pile of your stuff in a ditch off Tara Boulevard.

The quickest check of all

Compare the quote against a company that publishes its prices. Ours have been on the pricing page since we opened, the same ladder for every caller, no quote form required. If a competitor's number for the same pile lands close to ours, they are probably straight. If it lands at double, you have your answer.

And if you would rather skip the homework, book online or call (404) 558-6493 and describe the job. We will give you the load fraction, the labor estimate, and the add-ons over the phone, itemized, so the number you say yes to is a number you understand.