How to choose the right skip size.

Run the numbers and the range looks like this: a 2-yard mini holds about 20 bags (from £130 inc. VAT), a 4-yard midi about 40 (from £170), an 8-yard builder’s skip about 80 (from £270), and the 16-yard maxi around 160 bags (from £510). Full dimensions and live prices for the whole range are on the skip sizes page.

The method: look at your pile — or the rooms it’s still hiding in — and count it in bags. Then add a third, because in nine years of deliveries we have never once heard “we had loads of room left, actually.” Bulky items make the maths lie in one direction only: a sofa is technically about a yard of material, but it takes up two yards of skip because it refuses to squash. Furniture, wardrobes and anything with legs — count them generously, or better still, break them down before loading.

A skip has to travel with a level load — nothing mounded above the sides, nothing balanced on top, no doors or fence panels standing proud like sails. Anything higher than the rim can shed onto the road, which is why an overfilled skip can’t legally be carried. The driver isn’t being awkward when he asks you to level it off; he’s the one whose licence rides on it.

In practice this means the last week of a project is when size mistakes surface. People load the easy bulky stuff first, run out of room, and start building upwards. If you can see the load creeping above the sides with waste still to go, ring us beforecollection day — extending the hire or swapping to a bigger plan costs far less than a lorry arriving for a skip it can’t take. Load flat things first, break furniture down, and pack the voids: a tidily loaded skip genuinely holds a third more than a thrown-in one.

At our from-prices, two 4-yard skips cost £340. One 8-yarder — the same capacity — costs £270. That’s £70for the privilege of waiting in twice for deliveries and twice for collections. Doubling the size never doubles the price, so when you’re torn between two sizes, go up. The gap between sizes is always smaller than the cost of a second skip.

That said, two small skips genuinely win in three situations. First, access: if the only spot is a short drive or a permit bay where an 8-yarder won’t sit, two 4-yarders in sequence solve it. Second, heavy waste in bulk: since heavy waste stops at 8 yards, a big muck job sometimes has to move as two loads whatever the spreadsheet says. Third, phased jobs: a strip-out in March and a garden in June are two hires, not one long expensive one. Everything else — take the bigger skip.