After almost a year of DIY projects, finally hit one we wish we had paid to have done. When we installed the lawn, moved a ton of small rocks in 50% soil off to one side of the house to “deal with another day.” That day came. Had a handyman do a removal estimate, he wanted $250 for the job, which sounded way high. Decided to do it ourselves. Rented an F-250 and banged some planks out of the side fence to create yard access. Spent the entire day shoveling densely rocky soil into and out of buckets, into and out of the bed of the truck. Hot. Sore. Sweated buckets. Hard work is generally satisfying, but we all have our thresholds. Met mine today.
Wake-up: The city dump is expensive! I remember going as a kid with dad, it was $5 per pickup bed, flat fee. Now there’s a long menu of fees at the entrance, all kinds of prices / cubic yard per material. Interestingly, they now charge $30 just do dump a single computer monitor (that’s a good thing). Anyway, spent $65 on the truck + gas and $80 on dumping fees. Next time we pay to have stuff hauled.
Tips: A) Don’t mix dirt/rocks with yard waste – not only do you get charged more to dump, but it’s a bear to get out of the truck bed. B) If you can rent a dump truck rather than a pickup, DO IT. Spent hours getting intermingled dirt, rocks, and yard waste out of the truck, when one pull of a handle could have emptied the bed.
But was it worth $250?
Well, we paid $140 for truck, gas, and fees, and the estimate was $250 for the whole job, so the question is, “was it worth that much back-breaking labor to save $110” and the answer to that is a categorical “NO!”