Shingles are the heaviest thing homeowners ever put in our dumpsters, and roofing is where dumpster sizing goes wrong most often. The mistake is always the same: people size by how big the pile looks instead of what it weighs. Here's the math we use on the phone, so you can run it yourself.
Squares to Tons
Roofers measure in squares, and one square is 100 square feet of roof. Architectural shingles run about 250 to 300 pounds per square once they're torn off. That works out to roughly 7 or 8 squares per ton, and the ton is what matters, because a roofing load hits the weight limit long before it fills the dumpster.
Run your roof through it. A 20-square roof, which is a modest ranch around Greenwood, weighs about two and a half to three tons torn off. That sits right at the 3 tons included with our 20-yard dumpster, which is why the 20 is the standard roofing dumpster. A garage or a porch roof fits the 10-yard and its 2 tons. A big roof, past the mid-20s of squares, wants the 30-yard with 4 tons included, or a mid-job swap.
The Double-Layer Trap
Here's the one that catches people. A roof with two layers of shingles weighs double, but it doesn't look double when it comes off. The pile in the dumpster looks about the same, dense and flat. If your house has been reroofed before without a tear-off, count both layers in the math or the scale ticket will do the counting for you at $70 per additional ton.
Not sure how many layers you have? Look at a roof edge from a ladder, or just tell us the house's age and roofing history when you call (864) 871-4290 and we'll reason it out together.
Placement and the Overnight Tarp
For a tear-off, the dumpster belongs tight to the eave so the crew tosses straight in off the roof instead of relaying wheelbarrows across the yard. Tell us which side of the house the work starts on. Keep the overhead clear of service drops and limbs, and if the dumpster sits on concrete you care about, ask for boards under the rails when you order.
One habit worth stealing from the roofing crews we serve: tarp the open dumpster at night. A March storm can drop a lot of water into an open dumpster of shingles, and wet debris weighs more on the scale ticket. Felt, flashing, and drip edge ride along fine with the shingles, so don't sort those out.
If the roof runs bigger than the dumpster mid-job, that's what swaps are for. Crews get them fast, usually the day they call. Run your squares, pick your dumpster, and if the math lands between two sizes, take the bigger one. On roofs, it's always the weight.