Winter

Renting a Dumpster Through a Michigan Winter

Winter is one of our busiest seasons, because interior work is winter work here. Here is how to rent a container through it without problems.

Yes, we deliver all winter

People ask, so: yes, we run all year. Winter is one of our busiest stretches, and not despite the weather but because of it. When it is dark at five and the yard is under snow, people finish basements, gut bathrooms, clear out garages and empty houses. Interior work is winter work here.

What changes in winter is not whether we come but how the job has to be set up. Almost every winter problem we see is avoidable with a five-minute conversation at booking.

Why the city cannot help with yard waste until April

One genuinely seasonal gap worth planning around.

So from December through March there is no curbside route for brush, trimmings or storm-downed limbs. And because Michigan bans yard waste from landfills entirely, it cannot simply go in with general refuse either.

If a winter storm brings down a limb, or you are clearing overgrowth in a mild spell, that material needs either a container or a trip to a site that takes vegetation. It is a four-month window every year and it catches people out.

The rest of the service keeps running. Bulk pickup stays at one item weekly, the construction allowance stays at one small item under 60 lbs, and Christmas trees are collected 26 December to 15 January.

The frozen load, and how to avoid it

The single most common winter problem, and completely preventable.

If wet material goes into a container and then freezes, it bonds to the walls and the floor. When the truck lifts the container, the load does not slide out — it sits there, frozen in place. The container comes back to the yard still full and has to be thawed before it can be emptied.

How to avoid it:

• Cover the container. A tarp over the top through a storm is the whole solution. Snow that never gets in cannot melt and refreeze.
• Do not shovel snow into it. It is heavy, you pay for it by weight, and it is the main source of the water that freezes the load.
• Avoid loading soaked material — carpet, panelling, drywall from a basement leak — on top of a hard freeze, or get it collected before the next cold snap.
• Do not let it sit part-filled for weeks in January. Shorter rentals work better in deep winter.

Placement and the plow

In summer, placement is about surfaces and overhead clearance. In winter it is about two more things: whether the spot stays reachable, and whether it is in the plow's way.

Think about where the snow is going to be pushed. A container placed at the top of a driveway on a clear December day can be behind a three-foot bank by mid-January if that is where the plow throws it. Then neither you nor our truck can get to it.

The good placement is usually further down the drive than people expect, on the side away from the plow throw, with a clear approach for the truck. Tell us how your driveway gets cleared and we will work it out with you.

One more thing: keep the approach shovelled for collection day. A truck that cannot back in is a wasted movement, and we would rather reschedule than charge you a dry run.

Frozen ground is actually an advantage

Worth saying, because people assume winter is the risky season for their driveway. It is not.

Deeply frozen ground carries weight extremely well. A lawn placement that would rut badly in April will often take a loaded container in January without leaving a mark, and gravel drives are at their strongest when frozen solid.

The dangerous season here is the spring thaw, when the frost comes out and the base turns soft under a surface that still looks fine. If you have a gravel drive or a lawn placement in mind, mid-winter is often a better bet than early April. More on that here.

Ice dams and the work they cause

Ice dams are the classic Michigan winter failure. Heat escaping through the roof melts the underside of the snowpack; the water runs to the cold eave and refreezes into a ridge; the ridge backs water up under the shingles and into the house.

The visible damage is a ceiling stain. The actual damage is usually much larger — soaked insulation, wet decking, ruined drywall, and sometimes mould by the time anyone opens it up.

The repair work is a winter and early spring staple for us, and it needs sizing carefully because saturated material is far heavier than its dry equivalent. A container that looks half full can already be at its weight allowance. Tell us it is water damage and we will size for weight.

What not to put in a winter container

• Snow and ice. Heavy, expensive and the cause of frozen loads.
• Ash that is not completely cold. Days cold, not hours. Embers stay live far longer than people expect and a container fire is a serious event.
• Anything liquid that will freeze and split its container.
• Standing water in the bottom — if a container has taken rain before a freeze, say so and we will deal with it.

Booking through the season

• Shorter rentals work better. A container that sits for three weeks in January accumulates snow and freezes. Book tighter and swap if you need to.
• Watch the forecast. If a significant storm is coming, it is often better to take collection a day early than to have the container buried.
• Tell us if the property is unheated or empty. Rentals between tenants and estate properties behave differently in winter and we will plan the timing around it.
• Be realistic about our schedule during a storm. If the roads are bad, nobody is delivering. We will tell you honestly rather than promise a slot we cannot hold.
• Remember holiday weeks shift. City collection is delayed one day when a holiday falls on a weekday, and our schedule moves with the traffic too.

Call and describe the job. Winter here is a solved problem as long as it is planned rather than improvised.