Saving Money With Construction Debris Disposal

[This post was comprehensively revise and update from an earlier post of March 2016]

Construction runs on contracted resources. But hiring a junk hauling firm for debris removal isn't always considered by most contractors. It should be.

In fact, the option of hiring a professional junk hauling company to clean up and remove your construction debris can be strategically beneficial. 

Outsourcing as a Management Strategy

Good contractors realize that they are managers, first and foremost, and will always be looking for ways to reduce their overhead by lowering labor and material costs. All of this while striving to speed up the construction process whenever possible, but without sacrificing quality. Achieving this is an ongoing challenge.

Being a very profit-margin driven business, it is acutely obvious to contractors that labor or other expenditure that does not directly contribute the actual construction and completion of a project is simply an expense that takes from the bottom line.

For most contractors, one of these expenditures is trash and debris removal. Trash and construction debris are unavoidable by-products of any project. Regardless of whether it's the mounds of debris and rubble from the demolition phase of a project, or just the accumulation of packaging, cut-offs, and assorted trash from the construction work, it all has to be cleaned up and properly disposed of.

And it's not uncommon for this process to be repeated throughout the life of the project.

3 Great Reasons for Outsourcing Construction Debris Removal

It's often said that time is money and this is certainly true, especially in construction.

For example, let's say you pay a laborer $20 an hour. His actual cost to you is closer to $27 an hour. Now, imagine you are paying this laborer to clean up your job site, put it all in a company truck, then take it to a landfill – if possible – to dump it, clean out the truck, and return to the job site.

That process can take a great deal of time. In fact, depending on the size of the job and the amount of debris, it can as long as a half-day or more.

This means that five-hour clean up job not only costs you over $135 in labor costs – plus gas, mileage, and dumping fees – but it also cost you five hours of productivity lost from your construction job.

Or, put another way, cleaning your job site just cost you over $300. And all that just to get rid of the trash!

While it might seem counterintuitive at first, outsourcing or contracting out the debris removal work is actually a better approach.

So, what are the three great reasons for outsourcing your construction debris removal task?

1. You avoid losing production time to debris removal and “dump runs”

Better to have your laborers on-site working on productivity and revenue-generating tasks  than to have them burning up time going off-site to a landfill dump or recycling center.

2. You can accurately budget your clean up and disposal costs

Remember: every hour you pay your crew for job site clean up and debris disposal adds up. It can be surprisingly cost-effective to outsource that work to a professional firm that specializes in construction debris removal.

3. You eliminate the time spent managing disposal and recycling logistics

Recycling is not only a good practice, but in many instances can be required. With landfills filling up, determining acceptable options for proper disposal and recycling of construction site debris can be problematic. And you really don’t have time for that!

Saving Money and Being Strategic With Construction Debris Disposal

There are several good business strategies that can be implemented by smart contractors to improve their bottom line. And one of those is outsourcing the disposal of construction debris.

It's a sobering truth for too many contractors that despite all the effort, planning, forecasting and estimating of costs that goes into a construction project, this often doesn't take into account the need for construction debris removal.

But, as we've described here, this, too, can be taken care of with a cost-effectiveness business strategy using the right approach.

One main part of this strategy planning involves determining the actual costs associated with clean-up, hauling and disposing of construction site waste. Remember: there's more to it than the cost of a debris removal firm.

Below are a few of the more apparent costs:

• Labor hours spent in clean-up and hauling
• Landfill fees and other associated costs (gas, wear on vehicles, etc.)
• Opportunity costs - loss of production by crew members cleaning, hauling, etc.
• Loss of vehicle use while hauling and dumping debris
• Any additional costs for properly disposing of hazardous wastes

While this is not an exhaustive list, it does represent the typical costs, both tangible and otherwise, that are generated by the simple task of removing construction debris from a job site.

Bonus Benefit: Debris Removal Efficiency and Peace of Mind

One of the common mistakes contractors often make is to simply hire the cheapest local guy with a big truck willing to do the job. More often than not, this approach will not save you money but may end up costing you far more.

Again, properly removing and disposing of construction debris is not a simple matter of just dumping it somewhere. The added risks of liability with a non-professional are more reasons to contract with an established company that specializes in what you need.

Junk King provides an efficient, safe and eco-friendly construction debris disposal service so you don’t need to worry about the pick up or disposal of the debris after your project is complete. Whether you need our services several times during a construction project or just once after it is complete, our hauling professionals will ensure that the construction debris is out of your way so that you can get on with the job.

Our team specializes in construction debris removal. We can be at your facility in mere minutes, so call us today! Our crew is fully insured and well-trained, so you can trust them to get rid of your unwanted items in a professional and courteous fashion.

One of the best things about hiring Junk King is that we recycle a much of the material we pick up. This is proof of our commitment to being an eco-friendly removal service. If you have questions about what we do or what we believe, give us a call at 1-888-8888 (5865).