House clearance, skip or man and van
The short answer
The three options, plainly
| You load it | Sorted and resold | Best for | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Skip | yes | no | Heavy, bulky, no rush, off-street space |
| Man and van | usually they do | sometimes | One to five items, quickly |
| Full clearance | no | usually | A whole property, or nobody to lift |
All three end at the same weighbridge, and all three are governed by the same duty of care. What differs is who carries the wardrobe down the stairs and what happens to it afterwards.
Where a skip wins
A skip is the cheapest way to move a large volume of heavy, low-value material. Rubble, soil, broken concrete, a stripped-out bathroom, a garden’s worth of hardcore. Inert waste is charged at the lower rate of Landfill Tax, £8.65 a tonne against £130.75 for the standard rate, and a skip lets you keep it separate from everything else.
It also wins when the job runs over days rather than hours. A skip sits there. You fill it when you have an hour.
It loses when you cannot lift things, when there is nowhere to put it, or when the contents are worth something. A skip is a hole; nothing that goes in comes back out to be sold or donated.
Where a man and van wins
Speed and small volumes. A sofa, a fridge, the contents of one room, a garage clear-out.
You usually pay by the fraction of the van filled, which is a fair way to charge for a small job and an expensive one for a big job. Two or three van loads will normally cost more than a clearance firm quoting for the same house.
They generally do the lifting, which is the point. For one heavy item and no way to move it, this is almost always the right call.
Where a full clearance wins
A whole property, and any situation where nobody is available to do the carrying.
The cost per hour is highest and the cost in your own time is nothing. Two or three people, one or two days, and the house is empty. For a probate clearance, a house sale with a deadline, or a relative living two hundred miles away, that is the whole value.
The second thing a clearance firm does that neither of the others reliably does is sort. Furniture in reasonable condition is resold or donated, metals and electricals are separated, and only the residue goes over the weighbridge. That is why a clearance quote can come in lower than three van loads for the same house, and occasionally why it can be very low indeed. See what a clearance costs.
The permit nobody mentions
If a skip cannot stand entirely on your own driveway or land, it goes on the highway, and that needs a permit from the council. The permit normally requires the skip to be lit at night and marked.
Most skip companies arrange this as a matter of course and include it in the price. Not all do, and the responsibility sits with the person who hired the skip rather than the company that delivered it. Ask directly whether the permit is included, and if you are not sure whether you need one, the test is simple: can the skip sit wholly on your property with nothing overhanging?
Two other things that catch people out. Skips have prohibited items of their own, usually fridges, mattresses, tyres, paint, plasterboard and anything hazardous. And a skip left unattended on a street will acquire other people’s rubbish, which you are then paying by the tonne to dispose of.
What is the same in all three
The duty of care.
Whichever route you take, if the waste came from your home you have a duty under section 34(2A) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 to make sure it goes to somebody authorised to take it. A skip company, a man with a van and a clearance firm all need to be registered waste carriers, and all three should give you the number without being pressed.
The only exception is the one you do yourself. Taking your own waste to your council’s recycling centre needs no registration at all, and since the abolition of DIY waste charges it is free within the allowance: two 50-litre bags or one bath-sized item, up to four visits in four weeks.
For everything else, check the number before the vehicle arrives.
Where this comes from
Every figure and rule on this page is from the source beside it. Where the law is quoted, it is quoted from the statute rather than summarised from somebody else's summary.
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