What Size Dumpster for a Roof Shingle or Tile Matters

Start with squares and material

Roofers measure in squares, and one square is 100 square feet of roof surface. Ask your roofer for the count, because it is the most useful single number for sizing the container. Then give the material, the number of layers, and whether any plywood sheathing is being replaced. A Wellington roof can be shingle, metal, concrete tile or clay tile, and those four produce very different loads.

What the weight looks like

A trade reference used by builders puts standard-weight concrete roof tile at roughly 9.5 to 12 pounds per square foot, lightweight concrete tile at 5.5 to 7, and asphalt shingles at 2.5 to 4. Run those figures for a 30-square roof and the gap is plain:

• Asphalt shingles, one layer: about 7,500 to 12,000 pounds, or roughly four to six tons.
• Standard concrete tile: about 28,500 to 36,000 pounds, or roughly fourteen to eighteen tons, before underlayment, battens and any mortar or foam.

Published price lists for Palm Beach County include about one to three tons per container. A shingle roof usually runs a few tons past it. A tile roof will pass it many times over, and it may weigh more than one truck should carry in a single haul.

Sizes that usually work

• Shingle roof, up to about 20 squares: a 15-yard container.
• Shingle roof, 20 to 35 squares, or two layers: a 20-yard container.
• Large or complex shingle roof with decking replacement: a 20-yard with a planned swap, or a 30-yard where the driveway allows.
• Tile roof: a small container, often a 10-yard, swapped as each load reaches the weight line, with the number of hauls planned from the square count.

These are starting points. The roofer's estimate of the tear-off, and the hauler's stated allowance, settle it.

Where roofing debris is allowed to go

The Solid Waste Authority's tipping fee schedule lists roofing material among the items its transfer stations cannot accept, and that includes the station on Weisman Way in Royal Palm Beach. Roofing loads from Wellington go to the North County Landfill Complex on Jog Road or to an SWA-permitted recycler, at the county's construction debris rate of $95 a ton. The schedule also excludes roofing and ceramic tile from its lower trash rate, so tossing old furniture into a roofing container never makes the load cheaper. Keep the roof container to roofing.

Permits, the HOA and the season

The village's construction debris page tells residents to check with the Wellington Building Department about permits for their work, and a full re-roof is building work, so the roofer will normally pull the permit. The container is a separate matter. Many Wellington associations want notice before a truck that size comes through a gate, and some limit how long a container may stay. Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to November 30, and after a storm, demand for roofers and containers can climb across the county at the same moment, so book early. If storm damage is what forced the new roof, the storm debris dumpster rental page covers the rest of the cleanup.

Placing it for a tear-off

Roofers want the container as close to the eave as the truck can set it, so shingles and tile can drop straight in from the roof. On a paver driveway, ask for boards under the rails, since a loaded tile container is heavy enough to shift pavers. Keep it clear of the septic drain field and sprinkler heads on lots that have them, and leave a straight path for the truck to back in and winch it out.

Checking the price

On a roof, the included tons and the per-ton rate past them matter more than the box price. Both are on the pricing page, and the how much weight can a dumpster hold page explains how the county scale turns weight into the bill. The remodel and roofing dumpster rental page covers how tile and shingle jobs are usually scheduled.