Sensible alternatives to skips?

[David]

Back in the day if you were doing building or demolition you just hired a skip.

Then along came skip bags.

Then along came lorries with a grab and you just piled up your rubbish for the grab to collect.

Any views, and/or personal experience?

I think skip bags are mainly for small amounts, but grab lorries seem to handle bulk well.

Cheers

Dave R

[Chris J Dixon]

The contractors who block paved my drive used a grab wagon to dispose of the excavated material. Using skips would have been an issue because they would have had to go on the road.

I have no idea what the relative costs were. The only problem might have been if the wagons had not turned up when required.

I'm also interested in skip bags, as I may need one for my wildlife pond project, which is still on the drawing board.

Chris

[John Rumm]

Still often the way to go if you need somewhere to dump stuff over a period of days or weeks.

Never tried those... I suppose if you have not got the car space to go to the tip they might be handy.

Good for bulk building spoil - probably not so good for an ongoing building job.

Yup.

[Steve Walker]

When we had our drive done, we had the same problem with a skip. The stupid thing is that we are on a residential street, that is not short of space and putting a skip in place of my wife's car for the day would not have been a problem for anyone - but to do so would have required a (paid for) permit from the council. It was cheaper for the contractor to arrange to have the skip placed on our drive, dig half of it, have the wagon come back and move the skip to the dug up bit and dig up the rest and return again to take it away!

The daft thing is that is was delivered after 8am and was gone by 5pm. I've no idea how long it was actually there for, but that's when I went out and returned.

Similarly, for the past week, a neighbour has had a skip on her drive, so her car has been outside on the road. It would have made no difference to us all if it was the other way around, but would have required council permission.

[Tricky Dicky]

The problem with grab lorries is depends where the spoil is, if on a drive you could end up with gouge marks. When I had a new garage base done along with a number of support walls and quite a bit of paving. All the spoil was put on the front lawn and the lawn went with the spoil. As it happened we wanted it removing as we needed to extend the lawned area anyway. The drivers do quite a good job manoeuvring the grabs but some damage is inevitable.

Richard

[David]

Now wondering if putting down old shuttering as a base would solve that problem.

This could be gouged by the grab but protect the underlying drive.

Anyway, thanks to all so far. :-)

Cheers

Dave R

[Tricky Dicky]

Richard

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

I think it all boils down to how well you have access to the work site. Brian