Tag: Trash Removal

Using The Bagster for Renovation Work

Using The Bagster for Renovation WorkThe Bagster is a really practical solution for those home owners who do not want to have a large steel bin parked on their driveway to handle all of the trash from a construction or renovation project. Consumers can purchase the bagster from one of many home renovation stores for a relatively small fee. It comes in a plastic bag that is about 18 inches by 24 inches and about 4 inches thick. Once unfolded it is 4 feet by 8 feet and approximately 30 inches deep. Consumers are urged to check the instructions. However you can place just about any material that is non liquid in nature into the bag for later removal.

In this picture the home owner has placed some renovation trash in the bag. They can be filled up completely as long as you do not exceed weight limitations. The limitations are advertised on the bagster package. For example lumber is pretty light. You can fill up the bag to overflowing and there will not be an issue. On the other hand if you place concrete or asphalt in the bagster, you should check with the company. Confirm how much material you can actually place in the bagster.

The Bagster – Removal Cost

Once you buy the bag and then fill it with trash, there is a fee for the company to come and remove it. The cost will depend on the area that you live in. In our case was going to be $200. They come with a truck that has a hoist on it and grab the straps and lift it onto the truck. It is easy and painless other than the cost of the removal.

If you have an alternate means of trash removal, that is less expensive, you may want to consider this. At a total of $250, if you have access to a trailer even with dumping fees, it will be cheaper to haul the trash away yourself. Whatever you do don’t be one of these idiots that just dumps the trash in a ditch somewhere. This is not helping anyone. It actually increases our taxes since someone eventually will need to clean out the ditch and haul it away.

The Bagster – Weight Limitations

If you are placing wood and drywall into the bagster, you are pretty safe relative to the weight limitation. If you are disposing of concrete or asphalt for example, there is a limitation of how much you can place in the bagster. The guideline we received was that there should be no more than 10 inches of material in the bagster covering the full 4 by 8 area of the bag. This rule is in place to manage the total weight of the material and to avoid any potential accidents when the bagster is lifted onto the truck.

We suggest that you call the 1-800 number on the package to verify the contents and the weight limitation that you have to adhere to before you purchase the bagster.

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Disposing of Asphalt From Your Driveway

Disposing of Asphalt From Your DrivewayIf you are planning a do it yourself driveway repair such as the one shown in this picture, one of the things that must be considered as part of the job is disposing of asphalt from your driveway that has been cut out of the driveway. In this case two strips, one on either side along with a half-moon near the garage entrance. This is a lot of asphalt and in our particular case we cut out about 40 cubic feet of asphalt. Cutting the asphalt was relatively easy. We used a skill saw with the proper blade for cutting asphalt. Consumers can rent a larger gas-powered machine that will do the job faster, however, this has a rental cost of approximately $100 vs. a couple of blades for less than $10.

Getting Rid of Asphalt – The Bagster

The original plan was to purchase a product called the bagster,  for a price of $40, fill it and have the company come and pick it up when ready. There were two problems with this approach. First of all the cost for pick up was going to be $200 in addition to the cost of the bag which was $50 including tax. The second problem was that for heavy material, the company requires that only the bottom 10 inches of the bag be filled. As you can see this bag is very full and has about 2 feet of material in it.  This was going to cost much more than planned since I might have to purchase a second bag and the total cost was going to come to around $500!

Disposing of Asphalt – the Solution

Fortunately there was a landscaping contractor working around the block on a neighbors property. He already had the truck and the bobcat and was willing to pick up the material and dispose of it for $150, a net savings of $50, and would also take all of it in one load which saved even more money.

He came over with his team one evening just as they were finishing up with the other property and in the space of 10 minutes it was all gone with the driveway swept up and clean of any sign of the asphalt originally in the bag. Now I am trying to sell the bag at a discount to get some of my $40 back. Either way whether I sell it or not, I have already saved money on this deal.

We wrote about this particular issue to show readers that there is always more than one way to deal with items that might be problematic for do it yourself people. If I had my own truck or a trailer, I would have disposed of the material myself and probably had to pay a dumping fee.

This contractor was already going to the dump and had factored that cost into his current project, so the $150 was pure profit for him and it saved me money as well, definitely a win-win for both of us. This is something else to consider when doing your own work on big projects.

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