Full-service junk removal and hauling
Two people, a truck, and the carrying. Almost every complaint in this trade comes from not understanding the unit being charged for, so that is where this page starts.
The unit
You are buying truck space
Junk removal is priced by volume: the fraction of the truck bed your load occupies, measured from the cab end. Not by weight, not by the hour, and not per item. Once you know that, most of the rest of this trade makes sense.
It also explains two things people find odd. A phone quote is always provisional, because nobody can see the volume down a phone line. And a heavy load is not necessarily an expensive one — a pallet of tile weighs far more than a sofa and takes up far less room.
What that means for lowering the price
Because the charge is volume, the lever you control is volume. Breaking down anything that can be broken down, flattening cardboard, and removing the categories that have free routes all directly reduce what is being measured. An hour of sorting before the truck arrives is usually worth more than any negotiating on the day.
Access
Stairs, gates and the distance to the curb
Volume sets the base price and access modifies it, sometimes sharply. This is the part most worth being honest about when you ask for a quote, because a crew that arrives expecting a driveway pile and finds a third-floor walk-up will either re-price on the spot or leave.
- Where the load is now. Driveway and curbside are the cheap cases. Inside the house, upstairs, or down into a basement each add labor that has nothing to do with volume.
- How far it has to travel to the truck. A long carry from a back yard, through a side gate, or across a shared parking area is real time.
- Whether the truck can get close. Narrow lanes, low branches, permit parking and apartment loading bays all decide where the vehicle can stop.
- Whether anything has to come apart. A sofa that came in before a doorway was narrowed, or a bed frame assembled in the room, is a dismantling job with a hauling job attached.
- Whether there is an elevator, and whether it can be booked. In a Bellevue mid-rise this is frequently the difference between a one-hour job and a half-day one.
What a fair quote looks like
Legible, and separated
The disposal side of a junk removal job is a published number. King County charges a minimum of $40.25 for garbage covering up to 320 pounds, and $243.38 a ton above that. Anything you are charged over the disposal cost is labor, vehicle and margin, which is entirely legitimate and worth being able to see.
- Ask what fraction of the truck they are quoting. If the answer is a price with no volume attached to it, there's nothing to hold them to when the truck turns out to be half empty.
- Ask what is excluded. Refrigerant appliances, hazardous material and anything requiring special handling usually price separately, and finding that out on the day is the classic bad afternoon.
- Ask where it goes. A company that intends to take the free categories to their free routes will say so without being prompted.
- Ask for the certificate number. Hauling solid waste for compensation in Washington requires one, and it takes a minute to check on the state register.
Straight answers
Hauling questions
Can you give me a price over the phone?
A range, honestly given, is reasonable. A firm number is not, because the thing being priced is a volume nobody has seen. The useful version is a company that gives you a range on the phone, tells you what would push it to the top of that range, and then confirms on arrival before anything is loaded.
What if the load is smaller than we thought?
Then the price should come down, and it's worth establishing that before the crew starts. Volume pricing cuts both ways, and a company quoting a fraction of a truck rather than a flat fee has already agreed to that in principle.
Is there a minimum?
Effectively yes, everywhere. Sending two people and a vehicle across Bellevue has a floor cost regardless of whether they collect one chair. That is why a single item is often the worst value in this trade and the case where the alternatives on this site are most worth checking.
Do I need to be home?
For a clearly separated pile outside, usually not, as long as someone can approve the price remotely. For anything inside, yes. The most common way these jobs go wrong is something being taken that was not meant to go, and no amount of care by a crew substitutes for the person who knows which box matters.
What about recycling claims?
Treat a headline percentage as marketing until it is attached to something specific. The question that gets a real answer is which facility the load goes to and what gets separated before it does. Washington's own tax rules turn on that distinction: material taken to a disposal facility counts as solid waste no matter how recyclable it was, and only material genuinely taken for recycling or salvage sits outside.
Start with a survey, not a sales visit
Ask about a truckload
Describe the objects rather than the category, say roughly how much of a truck you think it would fill, and say whether it is at ground level or up a flight. That last detail moves the price more than anything else.
Related work we arrange
Related hauling we arrange
Furniture and mattress removal
The category with the most alternatives worth checking first, and the one where a sofa that will not fit back down the stairwell decides the whole job.
Appliance and electronics removal
Televisions, monitors and computers recycle free in Washington under a state program. Refrigerators and freezers do not, because the refrigerant has to be recovered with EPA-certified equipment first.
Garage, attic and estate cleanouts
A whole-space job rather than a pile. The sorting is most of the work and almost none of the quote, which is why the sequence you do it in matters more than the truck size.
Construction and remodel debris
The category Washington regulators actually pursue. Dropping a box at a residential site for a contractor to fill counts as solid waste collection, and in a 2024 case regulators recommended an $80,000 penalty against a company for doing it without a certificate.