DumpsterBossPro Blog — Running a Dumpster Business

Buying More Cans: How a Dumpster Business Decides When to Grow the Fleet

Cans are the cheapest way to grow a roll-off company and the easiest way to waste money. A can that is out on rent most of the month pays for itself quickly. A can that sits in the yard for most of the season is just steel you bought before you needed it. The trick is knowing which situation you are in before you write the check.

This guide follows Running Two Roll-Off Trucks Without Losing Track of the Day. Here is how to decide when to add cans, how many, and which sizes.

Read How Often Your Cans Are Out

The core question is how much of the time your cans are actually out working. If you have a dozen cans and nearly all of them are out most weeks, you are probably turning away work or making customers wait. If half of them sit in the yard most weeks, more cans will not help — more customers will.

Your jobs tell you this. Every delivery in DumpsterBossPro carries the can size and the unit number, and rental days count from delivery. Looking back over a season of deliveries and pickups shows you roughly how many cans of each size you had out on a typical day. You do not need perfect math to spot the difference between a fleet that is stretched and one that is idle.

Look at Sizes, Not Just Totals

Most owners find that one or two sizes are always gone and the others are easy to find. The 20 yard might be out constantly while the 40 yard sits for weeks. That tells you exactly where to spend. Buying more of the size that is always gone is almost always smarter than adding a size nobody is asking for.

Also look at the requests you could not fill. If you keep telling homeowners you have no small cans until next week, that is demand you are leaving on the table. Note those lost requests somewhere so they count when you make the decision.

Turn Your Cans Faster Before You Buy

Sometimes the fleet is not too small; it is just turning too slowly. Cans that stay out long past their included days, pickups that lag days behind the request, and empties that sit in the yard waiting for a truck all reduce how much work your existing cans can do.

Fix that first. Rental days with a daily rate after the included days encourage customers to call for pickup sooner, and extra days are invoiced automatically so you are paid while they keep it. The customer app lets customers request a pickup themselves when they are done loading. Faster pickups from the Waiting List map free up cans you already own.

Time Purchases Ahead of the Season

In most areas, roll-off demand follows construction and remodeling seasons. Buying cans in the middle of the busy season means waiting on delivery while the work goes to someone else. Buying in the slow months gives you time to number them, paint them and have them ready when the phone gets busy.

Look at last year's busy season. When did your cans first start running out? Plan to have new cans in the yard a few weeks before that point. If you are new and have no history, talk to local contractors about when their busy months start.

Number Every Can and Use It

Every can you own should have a unit number painted on it, and that number should be on every job it goes out on. That one habit pays off in a lot of ways. A customer calls about damage, and the job shows the can number and the driver who placed it. A can comes back with a bent door, and you can see which jobs it went on. Looking back over the jobs, you can see whether the new units are actually going out on rent.

In DumpsterBossPro, the unit number is part of the dumpster details on each job, along with the size and debris type. Drivers see it on their phones, so the can that goes out is the can on the job.

Add Cans in Steps

Grow the fleet in small, deliberate steps rather than one big purchase. Add a few cans of the size that is always gone, run a season, and look at the numbers again. If the new cans are out as much as the old ones, buy more. If they sit, you found the edge of your market for now.

The next guide covers which sizes to stock in the first place, from 10 yard to 40 yard. For an overview of how DumpsterBossPro tracks jobs, rentals and billing, see the dumpster rental business software page.