Yard Waste & Brush Removal in Roanoke

Start with the free service, because for a lot of yard work it is enough. The City of Roanoke collects brush on the same day as your trash, and the limits are specific: limbs smaller than three inches in diameter, a pile no larger than six feet in each direction, which is roughly one pickup load a week, set out after seven in the evening the night before or before seven on the morning of collection. Bulk is capped at three items a week. Roanoke County runs bulk and brush biweekly on an A week and B week schedule and takes a large pile of tree cuttings, shrubbery clippings or other loose yard waste, though not leaves, which have their own seasonal program. Salem and Vinton run their own systems again. Confirm the current rules with your own locality, because these programs change and there are four of them in this valley.

The line where a container starts is drawn by what those programs refuse rather than by volume alone. The City of Roanoke will not take brush cut by a contractor or a utility company, and it will not take railroad ties, landscaping ties, treated lumber, fencing, stumps, or construction materials mixed in with brush. That first exclusion is the one that surprises homeowners: hire someone to cut the hedge and the same pile that would have been collected free is now yours to deal with. Roanoke County will not take bricks, concrete, dirt, sod, rocks or metal. So the container jobs are the predictable ones: anything a contractor cut, anything with a stump in it, anything mixed with fence panels or soil, and anything simply too big for one pickup load a week. See Virginia disposal rules for the detail.

Virginia’s own regulation is unusually helpful here, because it names this material as a category of its own. 9VAC20-81-10 defines debris waste as wastes resulting from land-clearing operations, and lists them: stumps, wood, brush, leaves, soil and road spoils. That is a clean description of a land-clearing container and it is worth knowing that the state thinks about it separately from construction waste and demolition waste. Practically it means a clearing job is its own box rather than the tail end of somebody else’s. Keep soil out of a brush load if you can, because the two behave completely differently once the container is full, and tell us at booking if stumps are coming, since a root ball with dirt still in it is one of the heaviest things a homeowner ever puts in a container.

The weather here writes most of the calendar. Roanoke averages 42.82 inches of precipitation a year and a mean annual temperature of 58.1 degrees Fahrenheit, both from NWS Blacksburg, which keeps the climate record for station ROA. That is a long growing season and vigorous growth on hillside lots that were partly wooded to begin with. The remnants of tropical systems reach the Blue Ridge most seasons and bring the limbs down all at once, which is when the phone rings all day. Snow is a minor factor at 14.8 inches a year, though an ice storm will break more limbs in a night than a whole winter of snow. And the valley remembers water: in November 1985 the Roanoke River crested at 23.35 feet against a ten-foot flood stage after 6.61 inches of rain in 24 hours, with at least ten deaths, which is why the Corps of Engineers built the Roanoke River Flood Reduction Project.

Storm cleanup is the other half of this work and it needs a word of caution about weight. Green wood carries a great deal of water, so a container of fresh limbs is far heavier than the same box of seasoned firewood, and a root ball with soil in it can be heavier again. Load cut ends toward the door end, break the material down enough that it lies rather than bridges, and keep soil, sod and rock in a separate box if there is much of either. If a storm took a fence or a shed roof along with the trees, that goes in the same container quite happily, since neither is something curbside collection would have taken anyway. Our storm cleanup guide covers the order of work, and the phone is the fastest way to get a box moving.

Yard Work That Needs A Container

Sizing A Brush Or Clearing Container

Brush is bulky and light until it is not. A 15 yard suits hedge removal, a small clearing job or one storm’s worth of limbs off a suburban lot. A 20 yard is the usual answer for a fuller clearing job or a property that has not been cut back in several years, and it is where most yard work in this valley lands. A 30 yard covers a large lot cleared, a serious storm event or a job where a contractor is cutting and hauling all day. Weight changes the arithmetic in two places: green wood carries a lot of water, and stumps with soil in the root ball are heavy enough to be their own load. If stumps, soil or sod are coming out, say so at booking so we can size for weight rather than volume. Dimensions are on the container sizes page.

Loading Brush, And Where The Box Sits

Brush loads badly if you throw it in and well if you think for a minute. Cut the material down enough that it lies flat rather than bridging across the box, put the cut ends toward the door end, and work in layers rather than tipping a whole pile in at once. A bridged load leaves half the container empty and costs you a second one. Keep soil, sod and rock separate where you can, because they change the load completely. On placement, yard work usually means the container goes on grass or gravel rather than on a drive, which needs a harder look at the ground: this valley is karst, and soft or saturated ground is a poor bearing surface for several tons on four contact points. We board every set and will pick the firmest ground available. Wherever it goes, the container stays at least five feet from combustible walls, openings and roof eave lines under International Fire Code § 304.3.3.