What a garage cleanout costs in San Diego

The short answer

Garage cleanouts price off the truck ladder: quarter $241, three-eighths $338, half $431, five-eighths $513, three-quarters $587, seven-eighths $661, full $732. Minimum for any visit is $75.

Or per item, if what you have is a short list rather than a wall: chest freezer $146, upright freezer $149, washer $133, dryer $128, treadmill $115, home gym $241, lawn mower $65, storage cabinet $74, bicycle $37, large junk pile $208.

Most one-car garages in the older neighborhoods land between a quarter and a half truck. Most two-car garages in Clairemont, Allied Gardens, San Carlos, Serra Mesa and the North County tracts land at three-quarters or a full load, because the garage has been doing the job a basement would do somewhere else.

Why San Diego garages are worse than you think

This city does not build basements. Between the soil, the seismic code and the fact that nobody needs a furnace room, houses here go up on a slab or a short crawlspace and the storage problem gets pushed sideways into the garage, the side yard and a half-height attic over the hallway.

Then the climate keeps everything. A cardboard box in a Midwest basement rots in five years. A cardboard box in a Clairemont garage is structurally fine in 1994 condition two decades later, which means nothing ever forces a decision. That is why San Diego garage cleanouts skew big - there was never a flood, a freeze or a mold event to make you throw anything away.

The result is a predictable inventory: a second fridge, a chest freezer, a workbench, paint, camping gear, surfboards, a treadmill used for nine months in 2016, four bins of holiday decorations, and the boxes from every appliance anybody has ever bought.

What the garage usually contains, priced

Three real garage jobs

Clairemont two-car, 1960s ranch house. Refrigerator $164 + chest freezer $146 + treadmill $115 + lawn mower $65 + large junk pile $208 = $698. At that total the full-truck tier at $732 is close enough that it comes down to which fits.

Allied Gardens one-car, downsizing. Washer $133 + dryer $128 + weight bench $69 + weight set $93 + medium junk pile $129 = $552. Compare against three-quarters of a truck at $587 and five-eighths at $513.

Carmel Valley three-car, HOA community. Home gym $241 + elliptical $97 + two bicycles ($37 + $37 = $74) + storage cabinet $74 + large junk pile $208 = $694.

All three are literal sums of published prices. Price the ladder against your item list and take whichever is lower.

The ADU conversion case

A large share of San Diego garage cleanouts now happen because the garage is becoming a unit. Detached garages on the alley-loaded blocks in North Park, Golden Hill, Normal Heights and City Heights are being converted, and so are attached garages across Clairemont and the South Bay.

That job is stricter than a normal cleanout. The garage has to be completely empty - walls, rafters, the loft over the door, the hooks holding the surfboards - before framing starts, and your contractor's schedule does not flex. A half-full garage on day one is a delay on day one.

Budget it as a full truck at $732 if the garage is packed, and book it for the week before the crew mobilizes, not the morning of.

What we cannot take, and what to do with it

Garages are where the household hazardous material lives, and none of it can go on a general load:

• Paint, stain, solvents and thinner - the single most common find in a San Diego garage, usually eight cans, usually half full, usually from a color no longer on the house.
• Motor oil, gasoline, propane cylinders and pool chemicals.
• Car batteries and loose lead-acid batteries.
• Pesticides and fertilizer.

The county runs household hazardous waste collection for residents - look up the current locations, hours and appointment rules for your address, because they vary and they change. Set that material aside in one corner before the visit so nobody has to sort it under time pressure.

Dried-out latex paint is sometimes handled differently from liquid paint. Check the current guidance rather than assuming.

Access: the one place San Diego makes it easy

For once, the geography helps. Garages are at street or alley level by definition, so a garage cleanout is usually the flattest job in the county - no canyon staircase, no third-floor walk-up.

Two exceptions worth flagging when you book:

• Alley-loaded detached garages. In North Park, Golden Hill and Normal Heights the truck has to fit down an alley built for a Model T, between everyone's bins, on a day when nobody has parked badly.
• Canyon-lot garages. In Mission Hills, Bay Park and Del Cerro the garage is at street level and the house is below it, which means anything you carried up from the house is already at the truck. That is the good version.

Either way there is no access charge. No stair fee, no long-carry fee, no alley fee.

How to make it cheaper

Three things genuinely reduce the number:

• Pull the hazardous material out first. It is not on our truck anyway, and separating it yourself keeps the visit short.
• Sell the one good thing. Tools, bikes and surfboards move fast on local listings here. Everything else in a garage is worth less than the hour it takes to list it.
• Do one honest pass, not three tentative ones. If it has been in a box since you moved in, the box is the answer.

Then measure the pile against the ladder and book the tier it fits.

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