Big Jobs & Projects Calculators

What the big jobs and projects shelf answers

Some jobs don't start with a single material, they start with logistics: how big a skip do I actually need, how much will a house move fill, how do I size a project that touches half the other shelves in this category at once. This is the shelf for sizing before pricing, working out the scale of a job before you start asking anyone for a quote on it. No calculators have launched here yet; a skip size calculator is first in the queue, and it will be followed by tools for house moves and larger multi-trade projects. In the meantime, this page sets out the rules of thumb that normally sit behind those calculators, so the sizing can start now even before the tool does.

Skip hire and clearances

Skips, dumpsters once you're renting one in the US, come in a fairly standard spread of sizes measured in cubic yards. A mini skip at around 2 to 3 cubic yards suits a small garden clearance or a single room strip-out; a midi at roughly 4 cubic yards covers a bathroom refit; a builders skip at about 6 cubic yards is the default for a kitchen renovation or a moderate garden landscaping job; and a maxi skip at 8 cubic yards or a roro (roll-on roll-off) container from around 12 up to 40 cubic yards handles a full house clearance, an extension or a large-scale strip-out. The trap with heavy waste, soil, rubble, tiles, is that it has a separate weight limit regardless of the skip's volume, because the lorry collecting it has an axle weight limit long before the skip itself is physically full, so a skip that looks half empty can still be turned away as overweight if it's loaded with heavy material. If the skip is going to sit on a public road rather than a driveway, check with the local council about a permit before it's delivered; skips placed on the highway without one can be removed or fined.

When you're between two sizes, it is almost always cheaper to go a size up than to under-order. A second skip collection and delivery, or the cost of a man-and-van run to shift the overflow, comfortably outweighs the difference in hire price between a builders skip and a maxi.

House moves and clearances

Sizing a house move is the same volume problem as sizing a skip, just applied to what's staying rather than what's going. Removal firms typically quote van size by rough house size, a one or two bedroom flat generally fills a Luton van, a three bedroom house usually needs a large van or two trips, and a four bedroom-plus house is often a full-day job with a bigger vehicle. Working room by room and being honest about what's actually being kept, rather than what might get kept, is the single biggest lever on getting that estimate right; garages, lofts and sheds are where volume estimates go wrong most often, because they're easy to forget until the day itself.

Self-storage follows the same logic in reverse: units are sized in square feet of floor space, and a small unit around 25 square feet holds the contents of a single room, while a unit around 100 square feet typically holds a two-bedroom flat's worth of boxed and stacked furniture. Because storage is charged by the month rather than the job, it pays to size it tightly, an oversized unit costs more for months on end for the sake of a slightly easier packing day, where a tightly packed smaller unit with furniture stacked and boxes labelled by room is usually cheaper over the length of a typical house sale or renovation.

Multi-trade projects

The biggest jobs on this shelf are the ones that don't belong to a single material at all. A loft conversion draws on insulation and plasterboard from the Building Materials shelf, flooring and possibly a new staircase from Inside the Home, and very possibly a skip for the strip-out first. An extension pulls in concrete for the foundations, brick for the walls, roofing for the top, and decorating once the shell is weathertight. The practical approach is to size each material need on its own shelf separately, rather than trying to estimate the whole project as one number, and only add the figures together once each part has its own honest total. A rough contingency of 10 to 15% on top of the combined material total is standard practice for a project with more than two trades involved, because the areas where trades meet, where a new floor meets an old wall, where a new roof meets an existing one, are where quantities tend to creep. It is also worth sizing a skip for a multi-trade project in stages rather than booking one skip for the whole job: a strip-out skip full of old plasterboard and timber is a different size and weight class from the packaging waste a first-fix and second-fix generate weeks later, and combining both into one estimate usually undersizes the first and oversizes the second.

Getting the quantities right

Size the job before you price it, not the other way round: a rough skip size, van size or material total worked out from measurements gives you something solid to take to a supplier or a tradesperson, while a budget worked out first and a size fitted to it afterwards tends to produce disappointment on one side or the other. Keep whatever measurements and estimates you generate, room dimensions, waste volumes, material totals, in one place, because a big project usually needs to revisit them more than once as quotes come in and the scope shifts. And when a figure sits right on the boundary between two sizes, whether that's a skip, a van or a bulk delivery, the larger option is almost always the cheaper choice once you account for the cost of a second visit.

Where to go next

For the outdoor half of a big project, turf, fencing, decking, beds, see Garden & Landscaping. For the structural materials, concrete, brick, roofing, plaster, see Building Materials. For the finishing stage, flooring, tiling, paint, heating, see Inside the Home. The Home & Garden hub lays out how the four shelves fit together if the project spans more than one.

Frequently asked questions

What size skip do I need for a kitchen renovation?

A builders skip at around 6 cubic yards is the usual default for a full kitchen strip-out and refit. A smaller midi skip at roughly 4 cubic yards can cover a lighter refresh that isn't stripping out cabinetry and flooring.

Why does heavy waste have its own limit separate from skip size?

The lorry collecting the skip has an axle weight limit that heavy material like soil, rubble or tiles can hit well before the skip is visually full. Always check with the hire company about weight limits for heavy or dense waste before you load it.

Do I need a permit to put a skip on the road?

If the skip sits anywhere on a public highway rather than entirely on private land such as a driveway, most UK councils require a permit, arranged either by you or the skip company. A skip placed without one risks a fine or removal.