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You book a standard sized skip for a strip-out, and it’s full by day three. Maybe the job looked smaller standing next to an empty skip than it turned out to be once the flooring started coming up. Maybe the scope grew halfway through, and the waste just keeps accumulating. Either way, you order another skip. Then a third, because the job’s bigger than the plan allowed for.
Each one means a lorry back on site, a gap in the access while it’s swapped, and another delivery charge added to a job that was already tight on margin. None of that shows up on the original quote. It’s the cost that creeps in once the work’s underway, and on a big enough job, it adds up to more than most people expect.
It’s rarely bad planning. The real problem is that it’s not easy to know exactly how much waste a job will produce, or how heavy it’ll be, until walls, floors and old fixtures come out and the true scale of the job becomes obvious. You start out assuming a standard sized skip will cover it, because on paper it usually does, then the job overruns or the next trade’s booked in and waiting. At that point there’s no time left to think it through properly. You just need it gone, so you order another skip whatever it costs. Ordering a RoRo can avoid that scramble entirely, and keep the job running without the hold-ups.
Getting the size right
We offer roll on roll off skips in two sizes, 20 yard and 40 yard. The right one comes down to how much is coming out and the duration of the job.
Our X-Large skip, at 12 yards, is fixed price of £408 inc. VAT, regardless of weight. That makes it simple to budget for, but it does mean you’re working within a fixed capacity no matter how much waste the job produces. A RoRo works differently. It’s priced on haulage and tonnage rather than a flat fee, but gives you far more room to work with. For jobs where the amount of waste is hard to predict, or where you can already see you’ll need more than a standard skip size, that extra capacity is often worth paying for on a per-tonne basis, rather than booking multiple fixed price skips.
20 yard
The 20 yard holds around 220 bin bags worth of waste and suits most strip-outs and clearances. It’s big enough to take a whole job in one container without paying for space you won’t use. It’s the size we’d point most renovation and house clearance jobs towards, such as a full kitchen and bathroom strip out, or clearing a three bed property before it goes back to market.
40 yard
40 yards is for the larger end of the scale. It’s built for full commercial fit-outs, demolition work, or a project where a large amount of material needs to shift in one go. If a job is likely to fill three or four extra large skips on its own, this is the size that replaces all of them in a single container.
How much does a RoRo cost?
To put it into real terms, an XL Skip is £408 inc. VAT for a 10 day hire, at a fixed price no matter how much you put in it. This is all well and good until the job runs over and needs a second hire, then a third, and a fourth. Four X-Large Skips for one job comes to £1632, and that’s before factoring in the time lost each time a skip is swapped, or the plant and tools you might end up hiring for longer while you wait.
A RoRo is priced differently, on haulage and tonnage. It starts from £706 + VAT for a minimum 3 tonne load, with £182 VAT added for each tonne over that. For a job that would otherwise need 4 X-Large Skips, a single 40 yard RoRo is worth comparing directly, once you weigh it against four separate hires, deliveries, and any time lost waiting on swaps.
| 4 x Large Skips | 1 x 40 yard Roro | |
| Skip hire cost | £1,632 (4x £408, fixed price) | From £706 + VAT (min 3 tonne load), plus £182 + VAT per tonne over 3t |
| Volume | 12 yards | 40 yards |
| Delivery and collection costs | 4 separate visits | Only 1 delivery, 1 collection |
| Site downtime waiting on a swap | Roughly half a day lost each time, so up to 2 days across the job. | None |
| Plant or tool hire, extended while waiting | Possible extra day(s) if the site is waiting clearance | Not an issue |
What this looks like in practice
A full house clearance is a standout example. Furniture, flooring and old fixtures are both bulky and heavy, an X-Large skip’s 12 yard capacity can run out of room well before the clearance is finished, with no way to add more space once it’s full. A 20 yard RoRo can take the entire contents of a three or four bed property in one collection, without hitting that same limit.
A renovation tends to run differently. The waste comes out in stages as walls, floors and fittings are removed over several weeks, so it’s hard to know upfront how much room the job’s really going to need. That unpredictability is exactly the situation where sizing up front pays off, rather than paying full price for an X-Large skip and still needing a swap once it’s full.
On a longer build, the same principle plays out over a longer timeline. Waste keeps accumulating as work progresses, and every swap is a trade standing around waiting for access to be cleared again. One container with enough room for the whole job removes that entirely.
What this means for planning the job
A RoRo is priced by weight, so it’s worth having a rough idea of what’s coming out before you book one. Haulage and the first three tonnes are included in the starting price, with £182 + VAT for each tonne after that, so it suits bulky, lightweight waste, things like furniture, fixtures, timber and packaging, better than dense materials like soil or rubble, which push the tonnage up fast. An X-Large skip works the other way. Since it’s a fixed price regardless of weight, a heavier load that still fits within 12 yards can actually work out better value in an X-Large than in a RoRo.
Access is the other thing to plan for early. The width needed is the same as for a standard skip lorry, but a RoRo lorry is longer, so you’ll need around 40ft of clear, level space for it to get in and reverse out. If your site’s already running diggers or a loading shovel, that’s not a problem as most RoRo containers can be loaded from above with machinery as well as by hand, which suits a lot of construction and demolition sites that are already set up that way.
Booking’s straightforward too. We can normally get a RoRo out to you within 48 hours, and the hire period is 10 days as standard, the same as our other skips, with a flat £50 a week if the job runs on longer.
Book the right container for the job
If you’re staring down a job where the waste is bulky, the timeline’s uncertain, or you can already see a 12 yard skip won’t quite cover it, a RoRo’s likely your best option. Give us a call to book one in.
We keep our pricing competitive and work around your schedule rather than the other way round, with delivery and collection timed to suit the job. Call us on 01328 862659 or send an enquiry to book your Roro.
