Renovating a building from 1890 produces materials a building from 1990 simply doesn't. Some of it is heavier than you expect, some of it is worth money, and some of it needs testing before anyone touches it. Here's what actually comes out of an old Boston wall, material by material.
$162 a cubic yard, or truck-fill $325–$985 — loading and disposal included
Upload Photos & Get Quote →Before any of the material sections: older buildings can contain lead paint and asbestos-containing materials, and neither can be assessed by eye.
Paint in buildings of a certain age may contain lead. Various older building materials — some insulation, some flooring and adhesives, some pipe and duct wrapping — can contain asbestos. The correct step is testing by a qualified professional before anything is disturbed, and licensed abatement where it's found.
What we do: haul ordinary construction debris. What we don't: test, abate, or haul material identified or suspected as containing either. We'll say so before booking rather than on site.
That isn't caution for its own sake. Disturbing these materials is how exposure happens — so the sequence is test first, abate if needed, then demolish, then haul. Not the other way round.
What it is: wet plaster applied in coats over closely spaced wooden strips, which is how walls were built here before drywall.
Why it matters: a room that would produce a few sheets of gypsum in newer construction produces a dense pile of rubble plus a heap of splintered wood. The same room, several times the weight. This is the single biggest surprise for anyone renovating pre-war Boston housing for the first time.
How it prices: $162 per cubic yard as construction debris, or by truck. And because it's dense, volume and weight diverge — a quarter truck of plaster is a genuinely heavy quarter truck.
The handling note: lath comes out as long nail-studded strips, which is awkward and worth containing rather than piling loose.
What it is: the structural timber in these buildings, cut from slow-grown trees, denser and more dimensionally honest than modern framing.
Why it matters: it has a genuine resale and salvage market. Beams, joists and floorboards from a pre-war building are sought after, and material removed carefully is worth considerably more than the same material removed with a sledgehammer.
What to do: ask a salvage outlet before demolition starts, not after. This is the category where a phone call ahead of the demo genuinely changes the outcome — and it's the opposite of the usual advice, because here the valuable thing is inside the wall rather than in the room.
What it is: the drain stacks, the bathtubs, and the radiators that heat most older Boston housing.
Why it matters: extremely heavy for its size, and genuinely recyclable — cast iron routes to scrap metal recovery, one of the better-recovered streams in this whole business.
How it prices: cast iron tub $249 against a fibreglass tub at $121 — that gap is the weight and the fact that a cast iron tub usually has to be broken up in the bathroom before it can leave it. Radiators $99 each.
The salvage note: intact clawfoot tubs and decorative radiators have a real market. Worth a look before the sledgehammer.
What it is: the supply piping in older systems, often galvanised steel, sometimes with lead used at joints in the oldest work.
Why it matters for handling: steel pipe is heavy, sharp at cut ends, and awkward in long lengths. It recycles well as scrap.
The boundary: anything involving lead in the plumbing is a question for a licensed plumber and, where drinking water is involved, for the relevant authorities — not something to evaluate yourself mid-demolition.
What it is: early electrical systems still present in the walls of plenty of older buildings, often abandoned in place rather than removed when the building was rewired.
Why it matters: discovering it mid-demolition is common, and the important question is whether any of it is live. That is a licensed electrician's determination, not a guess.
Once it's confirmed dead and removed: copper is valuable and routes to scrap recovery. But the order matters — electrician first, demolition second.
What it is: old buildings accumulate floors. Hardwood, then linoleum, then vinyl, then carpet, then a laminate someone installed over all of it.
Why it matters for volume: a floor removal in a pre-war building is frequently three or four floors removed, which is three or four times the debris estimated.
Why it matters for safety: older resilient flooring and the adhesives beneath it are among the materials that may contain asbestos — which puts this squarely in the test-before-you-disturb category above.
How it prices: rolled carpet $92, hardwood and other flooring by volume at $162 per cubic yard.
What it is: solid doors, deep baseboards, window casings, mantels, and the hardware on all of it.
Why it matters: the most reliably salvageable category in an old Boston building. Solid doors, period trim and mantels are wanted by architectural salvage and by other owners renovating similar buildings.
The caution: painted trim in older buildings sits inside the lead question above. Removal method matters, and it's a reason to get the testing done before deciding how to take it off.
What it is: interior chimney breasts, brick backing, mortar.
Why it matters: the heaviest material in the building by a distance. A small volume is a large weight, and this is the clearest case for a container if one can legally be placed.
How it prices: by volume at $162 per cubic yard — but volume badly understates the effort here, and it's worth flagging masonry specifically when you send photos.
The rest of a gut, priced individually when the list is short.
Toilet $86, vanity $93, fibreglass tub $121, cast iron tub $249, radiator $99, water heater $176, metal shelving $95.
Past a handful of these the truck rate takes over — a quarter truck at $325 holds a bathroom's worth of fixtures plus the debris around them, which is usually cheaper than pricing each piece. We quote both ways. Full price list.
| Measure | Flat price |
|---|---|
| Construction debris, per cubic yard | $162 |
| Clean untreated wood / brush, per cubic yard | $119 |
| Quarter truck | $325 |
| Three-eighths truck | $455 |
| Half truck — a typical bathroom gut | $580 |
| Three-quarter truck | $790 |
| Full 16-cu-yd truck | $985 |
| Every additional truck | Same flat rate |
| Order minimum | $75 |
Loading, the carry and disposal are inside those numbers. The carry matters here as much as anywhere — debris from an upper-floor gut in a rowhouse comes down the same staircase everything else does. What that carry involves.
Honestly: on weight alone, a container usually wins for plaster demolition. You're paying for tonnage, and loading it yourself is the cheaper trade.
The Boston complication is that the buildings producing the most plaster are frequently the ones with nowhere legal to put a container — no driveway, resident permit parking, narrow streets, sometimes a historic district.
Where both are true, the practical resolution is staged hauls timed to the demolition rather than one container for the duration. That's more bookings and slightly more money, but it's the option that actually exists. The full placement question.
1. Test. A qualified professional assesses for lead and asbestos-containing materials before anything is disturbed.
2. Abate if needed. Licensed abatement, by people equipped for it.
3. Salvage. Call about old-growth lumber, doors, trim, mantels, tubs and radiators before demolition, while careful removal is still possible.
4. Demolish.
5. Haul. Which is where we come in, and it's the simplest step.
The expensive mistakes in old-building renovation nearly all come from running these out of order — most commonly demolishing first and testing after, or skipping the salvage call and putting a mantel in a skip.
$162 a cubic yard. Heavy, dusty, and more of it than you think. Container if you can place one.
Call salvage before demo. Genuine market; careful removal is worth more.
$249, broken up in place. Intact clawfoots may sell.
$99 each, to scrap recovery. Decorative ones have a market.
Scrap. Heavy, sharp, recycles well. Lead joints are a plumber's question.
Electrician confirms it's dead first. Then copper to scrap.
Three or four floors, not one. Older resilient flooring and adhesives are in the test-first category.
Most salvageable category. Painted trim sits inside the lead question.
Heaviest thing in the building. Flag it when you send photos.
Not our truck, and not your sledgehammer. Test, then licensed abatement.
Find out what's in the wall before you open it. In a pre-war Boston building that single step decides everything downstream — whether a professional needs to handle it, whether something inside is worth money, and how much weight you're about to create. Renovation debris is the easy part of this job and the last part of it; the sequence in front of it is what protects the people doing the work and the value of what's coming out. Test, abate if needed, call salvage, then demolish. The hauling takes care of itself.
Free quote — $162 a cubic yard or by the truck, loading included
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