A skip takes the builder's steady waste as the work goes. A crew takes whole items and roomfuls in one visit and leaves nothing behind. Which one fits depends on your street as much as the job, because a skip on the road needs Northern Beaches Council's approval first.
Neither is better across a whole renovation. They are good at different parts of it.
| Question | A skip | A crew |
|---|---|---|
| Best at | Broken plaster, tile, timber offcuts and packaging, thrown in a bit at a time over weeks. | Whole cabinets, whitegoods, furniture and the contents of a room, taken in one visit. |
| Where it sits | On your drive, or on the verge or road outside for as long as it's hired. | Nowhere. We load from the rooms, the garage or the side path, then go. |
| Council approval | Needed for any container on the road, footpath or grass verge, with at least two working days to process. | No container application, because nothing is left on council land. |
| Who loads it | You and the trades, as you go. | We do, including the carry up a sloping drive or out from under the house. |
| Whole items | A cabinet or a lounge fills a skip fast unless someone breaks it up to fit. | Carried out whole, the way they came out of the room. |
| Neighbours | A 1.5 metre path kept clear past it the whole time it's out. | The truck parks while we load, then leaves with everything on it. |
| The price | Hire by bin size and weeks, plus the council's fees if it goes on the street. | One fixed price for each load, agreed after we've seen it. |
Away from Sir Thomas Mitchell Drive, most Davidson streets are short cul-de-sacs and crescents, and plenty of houses sit on sloping blocks with the garage underneath. Once a renovation starts, the drive is often where the trades park.
A skip that sits wholly on your drive is on your own land, so the council's container application doesn't apply to it. Check with the builder that it won't block their vans or deliveries.
A skip on the drive, and a crew for the whole items.
A skip on the verge or road can work if there's a clear stretch of kerb away from the neighbours' driveways. It needs the council's approval before it's delivered, and a 1.5 metre path kept open past it.
A skip on the street with approval, or a crew each time a load is ready.
The kerb curves, the driveways sit close together and every car turns round in front of you. A six-metre container may not have anywhere clean to go, and the neighbours share whatever space there is.
A crew that loads and leaves.
Davidson is in the Northern Beaches Council area. The council calls a skip a building waste container, and any container placed on its land, including the road, the footpath and the grass verge, needs an approved application first.
Put it out first and apply later? The council charges a late fee on an application lodged after the skip is already out, and it may not accept the application at all. Changing the dates means telling the council at least one working day before, and the new dates have to fall within two weeks of the approved ones.
Processing takes at least two working days, and weekends and public holidays don't count. Skips can't be delivered before 7am on a weekday or 8am on a Saturday, or at all on a Sunday or public holiday. For a skip on a Monday morning, the application goes in by the Wednesday before.
On a kitchen, a bathroom or a whole level, the builder's skip and our loads usually split the work between them.
The skip often hasn't arrived yet, and furniture and boxed contents don't belong in one anyway.
Plaster, tile and offcuts go in the skip as they're made. The cabinets, vanity, bath and old appliances come to us whole, so they don't eat the skip's space.
The skip usually leaves with the builder. What turns up after that has nowhere to go.
Skip hire is usually priced by the size of the bin and how long you keep it, and heavy material can change that. On the street, the council's application fee covers the first seven days and a weekly placement fee applies after that, so a skip that stays out while the job runs late costs more each week.
We price each load once we've looked at it, and that price doesn't move unless you add to the load. There's no clock running while we carry, no tip fee added at the end and no council fee, because nothing of ours stays on the street.
The NSW EPA counts any house built before 1990 as likely to contain asbestos. Eaves linings, the sheeting behind old bathroom tiles and old vinyl with its backing are the places a renovation tends to disturb, so get them tested before anything is pulled off.
Bonded asbestos over 10 square metres, and friable asbestos in any amount, is a job for a licensed asbestos contractor, and asbestos.nsw.gov.au sets out how to find one. The skip and our loads both wait until they are done. What to test first
Yes. The council's application covers the road, the footpath and the grass verge alike. Only a skip sitting wholly on your own drive falls outside it.
Ask the skip company when you book whether they lodge it for you. Either way the application needs the supplier's details, a site plan and photo, and a public liability certificate naming the council.
If there's room, yes. Whole cabinets take up a lot of a skip, though, and breaking them up to fit is time the trades bill you for. We can take them in one piece on the day they come out.
We can take what's piled beside it, so the drive or garage is clear again. Tell us roughly what's there and we'll price it before we load.
On a Saturday from 8am, if the approval is through. The council's conditions don't allow a skip to be delivered on a Sunday or a public holiday.
Not the renovation part. The collection leaves out building material, and takes only one built-in item, so a kitchen or bathroom needs a skip, a crew or both.
It changes how long the carry takes, and that's in the price we give you before we start. Tell us if the load is under the house or the drive is shared.
A few lines is plenty. We ring you back, come and look at it, and agree one fixed price before anything is lifted.
No hourly rate, no tip fees on top. The price covers loading, sweeping up and taking it to a licensed facility. If the job changes on the day, we agree the change before we carry on.
