In the other articles I have written about managing your home improvement build projects, the key point of advice always comes back to planning ahead. This may seem an obvious thing to do, but it actually translates into making a few simple decisions, which some people just find hard to do. Skip hire is a prime example where going ahead without a plan will certainly involve you spending more money. The main planning considerations for skip hire involve, where you are going to site the skip, how long you need to keep it for, what you are going to dispose of in the skip and how easily the skip company vehicle is going to access your site.

Let's look at the costs. You will pay the skip company a basic fee to hire the skip for their standard period of hire - this is normally based on the size of the skip. The thinking being that smaller skips are quicker to fill than larger ones. You will then pay extra charges if you need to keep the skip longer than the standard period, if you overfill the skip, if the skip is sited on a public highway ( because you will probably need a local authority licence) and additional charges if you dispose of certain non-inert waste. In the UK, landfill tax applies for non-inert waste and is currently charged at around £24 per tonne. More hazardous waste types, like asbestos, need special handling and will cost even more.

So how do you keep the costs down? Don't hire the skip until you really need it and until you have enough waste to fill it. Don't mix non-inert waste with other waste - otherwise you'll pay additional charges on every load. Don't hire a skip so big that the vehicle cannot access your site easily. If the vehicle is damaged whilst delivering to your location you may be liable. Also be careful where you site the skip - delivery vehicles are very heavy and can easily damage weak driveways. No point in hiring a £200 skip and then getting a £2000 driveway repair bill!