20 Yard Dumpster Rental in Greeley, CO

A 20 yard roll-off runs about twenty-two feet long, eight feet wide and roughly four and a half feet tall — six to eight pickup loads, with sides still low enough to load over on much of it. It is the size we deliver more than any other in Greeley, because the ordinary residential job here is not one room. It is a basement, a garage and a storage level going out in the same fortnight. If you are choosing between this and a 15, describe the house room by room and let the basement decide.

• Capacity20 cubic yards
• Box size22 x 8 x 4.5 feet
• Tonnage included3 to 4 tons
• Holdsaround 6 to 8 pickup loads

Why people choose the 20 yard

The 20 is the Greeley default for a structural reason rather than a commercial one: houses here have a downstairs. Greeley adopted the 2021 International Residential Code at § 22-76, effective 1 January 2023, and its adopted Table R301.2(1) specifies a frost line depth of 30 inches. Where footings, water services and sewer laterals have to go thirty inches down anyway, the marginal cost of a full basement is small — which is the standard reason basements are near-universal on the Colorado Front Range. So the ordinary clear-out in this city is a vertical stack: a finished or half-finished lower level, a garage that has absorbed overflow for decades, and whatever went up into storage above. That is more volume than people estimate from the front door, and the commonest sizing mistake we hear on the phone is a 15 booked for a job that was always a 20.

The second thing making the 20 the default is the age of the housing. The median Greeley home was built in 1985, roughly 46 percent of the stock predates 1980, about 17 percent predates 1960, and nearly 29 percent went up between 1960 and 1979. Older houses with longer tenures accumulate more, and they accumulate it in a lower level rather than in a storage unit. Greeley is also 60.9 percent owner-occupied, which in practice means these jobs are frequently done in stages by the people who live there — a weekend, a pause, another weekend — and a 20 sitting through that pace is a better arrangement than two smaller rentals in a rush.

The 20 is also the container for a roof that is bigger than ordinary. Northeastern Colorado runs seven to nine hail days a year inside what NOAA describes as the nation’s most hail-prone corridor, and tear-off is the single most common reason a Greeley driveway gets a box on it. An ordinary single-layer asphalt tear-off fits a 15. A large roof, a two-layer tear-off, or a job with the decking coming off with the shingle is a 20 — and on Greeley houses from the sixties and seventies second layers are common, because roofing over was normal practice for years. Beyond a 20, the answer is a second pull booked in advance, never a bigger box. Roofing never goes in a 30 or a 40: torn shingle is dense, it does not compress, and a large container a third full of it is a truck that cannot lawfully leave the driveway.

Where the 20 stops being right is at both ends. On the heavy end, anything essentially mineral — broken concrete, block, brick, tile in a mortar bed, sod, rock, trench spoil — belongs in a 10 loaded flat, because a 20 full of masonry reaches lawful road payload while it still looks like it has room. On the bulky end, a house being emptied completely, a yard full of storm debris after a chinook, or a commercial build-out full of packaging and ceiling grid wants a 30 or a 40, where volume runs out last. In between, the 20 suits more Greeley jobs than every other size put together. Wherever it goes, the placement rules do not change: plywood under the wheels and rear rollers, concrete rather than lawn, and five feet clear of any combustible wall.

Good fit for

• A basement, a garage and a storage level cleared in one push
• A whole-house declutter before a listing
• A large roof, a two-layer tear-off, or decking coming off
• A whole-floor remodel, or a kitchen plus two bathrooms
• A basement finish-out with framing and drywall in it
• A rental turnover in a larger unit or a small building
• A small commercial tenant finish or a restaurant reset
• A general spring or fall cleanup on a larger lot

Not the right size for

• Pure concrete, block, brick or trench spoil
• Tile set in a thick mortar bed
• Sod, root balls and turf with soil attached
• A house being emptied completely, which wants a 30
• A yard full of storm fencing and limbs after a wind event
• A commercial build-out full of packaging and ceiling grid

Will it fit?

At about twenty-two feet the 20 is still a driveway container rather than a lot container, and on most Greeley properties it sits in front of a two-car garage without blocking the walk. The truck wants roughly sixty feet of straight approach, about eleven feet of working width and twenty feet of overhead clearance for the hoist. On the older grid, alley access is often available and is frequently the tidier answer — worth mentioning when you book. On a sloped drive we look for somewhere the box can sit level and still face the opening you are carrying out of, because setting the tailgate near the lower-level door turns the second half of the job into a flat carry rather than a stair carry. Plywood goes under the wheels and rear rollers as standard, and we would rather use concrete or compacted base than a lawn or a graded shoulder: ruts and soft ground after rain or a spring thaw are the damage that actually happens in this market. Overhead is what we check before anything else, because service drops and mature limbs over the drop point are the usual obstacle rather than the space itself. And the container sits five feet clear of any combustible wall under Section 304.3 of the 2021 International Fire Code, adopted by Greeley at § 22-454 with Section 304 unamended — the code is published at library.municode.com. One more thing worth settling before delivery, because it decides how hard the job feels. Work out the carry route first — from the basement stair, through the garage, or out of a walkout door — and place the tailgate at the end of it. A 20 set thoughtfully turns a stair carry into a flat carry for the second half of the load, which on a lower-level clear-out is worth more than any amount of extra volume. And if the property has an alley, say so: on the older Greeley grid that is often the shortest route from the back door to the box.

Ahead of the truck: shift the cars and the carts, and where the property runs on its own system, mark the septic lid, the drain field and the well head. Then tell us about anything the driver cannot see from the street — concrete poured recently, made or filled ground, an irrigation line run shallow beside the drive, a street still on base course waiting for its top lift, a low service drop or a shade tree standing over the only flat spot. A loaded box puts several tons onto four small pads. Dry, this ground carries that without complaint; ground that has just taken an irrigation set, a cloudburst or a thaw will press and hold the impression — which is why it is concrete rather than turf, with mats under every wheel and both rails as standard. And the box comes to rest five feet off any combustible wall, opening or combustible eave line. That is Section 304.3 of the 2021 International Fire Code, adopted by the City of Greeley at § 22-454 with effect from 1 January 2023 and left unamended at Section 304. The section carries a capacity threshold that has never once mattered to us, because every roll-off is many times over it — so the answer is five feet on all five boxes, measured off the nearest combustible surface rather than the plane of the wall. On private property — a driveway, a yard, a parking lot — no Public Space permit is engaged at all, which covers close to everything we set. Where any part of the box has to stand in a Greeley street, alley or sidewalk, the City names dumpsters directly in its own permitting guidance: “placement of dumpsters within the Public Space and roadways requires Public Space Traffic permits and proper signage.” That desk is Greeley Public Works Permits, 970-350-9881, at 2835 W. 10th Street. Do not lean on § 12-269(a), which lets a trash container sit on the right-of-way for one 24-hour period in seven — that is the weekly curbside rule for a household cart and not a pass for a roll-off. Fire clearance questions belong to Greeley Fire Prevention, (970) 350-9510, and everything else city-side to Greeley 311, (970) 351-5311. Past the city limits the answers change and we will not pretend they do not: in one of the separate Weld County municipalities, ask that town, because no town’s container or right-of-way rules were established by the research behind this site; on unincorporated ground it is Weld County, 1150 O Street in Greeley, (970) 400-4000, whose right-of-way language reaches the occupation of a county right-of-way without ever naming a dumpster, which warrants a call rather than an assumption. And where your own project involves digging — a footing, a stump, fence posts, a sewer lateral — Colorado 811 comes first on 811 or 800-922-1987: notice is two business days under C.R.S. § 9-1.5-103 excluding the day it is given, Colorado 811 itself asks for three, and the dig area gets marked in white beforehand. Our delivery and driveway protection guide and the Greeley placement and permit guide cover the rest.

Compare all five sizes