Junk removal for renovations in Pasadena

Precise Junk Removal clears what a remodel leaves behind, in Pasadena and out through the San Gabriel Valley. The crew answers the phone. The same team that sets the price does the hauling. Text a photo to (626) 590-3118. Homeowners in the middle of a remodel and contractors who need a room cleared are the ones who call. What makes a remodel different from a single pickup is the timing, because the garbage shows up in waves. Demo comes out first, then the packaging and offcuts from everything going back in, then whatever the old room was holding. Most remodels mean more than one load, spread across the project.

The pile grows faster than anybody planned, and it ends up in the room that gets worked on next. The Precise crew comes in between stages and takes what the trades are finished with, so the floor is open again. On a kitchen that is the cabinets and the counter in week one, the cardboard off the new range in week three. A straight tear out with nothing going back in is closer to hauling off construction debris, which has a page of its own.

Precise Junk Removal has been at this since 2009, and the debris leaves in a white Isuzu NPR heavy duty with a 24 cubic yard dump bed. The price comes off a photo of the pile, and the team is the one who sends it back. "Recycling is his love language" is the owner's own line, and it shows on a remodel, because a lot of what comes out is metal and clean wood. Homeowners have Precise at 4.9 stars over 171 reviews on Google.

What goes on the truck

• Demo debris and plaster
• Old cabinets and countertops
• Torn out tile and flooring
• Cast iron tub and vanity
• Lumber offcuts and trim
• Appliance cardboard and packaging
• Old carpet and padding
• Dresser from the hallway

Text a photo of yours to (626) 590-3118.

From the full list of what goes on the truck: remodel and demo debris.

What comes out of a remodel, and when

Demo is the first wave. Plaster and lath, old tile and backer board, a cast iron tub, the cabinets and the countertop that came off the wall in pieces. Then the second wave, which surprises people. Cardboard from the new appliances, foam and shrink wrap off the vanity, cutoffs of trim and flooring and drywall, the empty 5 gallon pails. The third wave is the old contents. Whatever lived in that room before the work started and never made it back. A closet of linens and the dresser that got shoved into the hallway three weeks ago. The crew takes one wave at a time, or all three at the end if the pile has been stacking up.

How the crew loads out of a room the trades are still in

The crew does the loading. A second floor bathroom means the tub and the vanity come down the stairs, which is worth saying in the text, because stairs carry their own add-on. Driveways on a remodel are usually full. Materials on one side and the trades' trucks on the other. Tell the team what is left to back into and they will work with it. They will carry out the back or through a side gate. A driveway that climbs or a steep slope on the way out gets priced with the rest of the job off the photo. Text a photo to (626) 590-3118. Shoot it from the doorway so the carry shows, not just the heap of lath.

Staging the pile so it does not block the trades

On a live job the debris has to sit somewhere for a few days, and where it sits decides whether the trades lose time. The team will say what works for the pickup. One pile, off the path the trades walk and clear of the door the materials come through, and not on the stretch of driveway the truck needs. Wood and metal worth recycling keep better in their own stack than mixed into the plaster. Then the pickup is one stop instead of a hunt through four rooms. On a bigger remodel the Precise crew can deal with the general contractor or the site manager directly, so the homeowner is not relaying messages between the trades and a hauler.

What the pickups cost on a remodel

The minimum is $50, so a small pile of demo scrap will not come back cheaper than that. Past that, what sets the number is how much of the dump bed the debris takes up, which the crew reads off the photo and sends back as one price for the job. Stairs are +$50 each. A steep slope out to the street is +$50 at the low end, and how much it adds depends on how hard that carry turns out, which the team settles off the same photo. Those are the only two add-ons. On a project with several pickups, each load gets its own photo and its own number, so a sweep after demo is not priced like the day the kitchen came out. Precise Junk Removal gets paid in cash, by check or online. The guide to junk removal pricing around Pasadena goes through it in more detail.

Where the demo pile ends up

Donation comes first. Cabinets that came out whole, a vanity, a door, a light fixture, a sink with nothing wrong with it. The crew drops those at a donation center on the way, and only what nobody can use goes any further. Then comes sorting. Clean lumber, metal, old copper pipe, the cardboard off the new appliances. Close to 75 percent of everything on the truck ends up recycled, and a remodel load sorts easily, because so much of it is one material at a time. Broken plaster, glued down flooring, wet carpet and the rest of the real trash ride to the landfill. Keep the wood and metal in their own stack while the work runs and more of the load gets recycled.

What the lot changes about a remodel pickup

Pasadena is home base, and the rest of the valley is on the map too. A gut job in Arcadia, Monrovia, Temple City, San Gabriel or South Pasadena sits inside the usual loop, and Burbank, Glendale and La Cañada Flintridge are in reach as well. What changes the job is the lot. A flat driveway and a property with a run of steps down to the street are two different carries, and that is what the stairs and slope add-ons cover. The crew works 8 AM to 8 PM every day, with a two-hour arrival window, which helps when the pickup has to land around the hours the trades are in the house. If the remodel sits outside Pasadena, check which towns in the valley the crew drives to.

How the price works

Text a photo of what needs to go to (626) 590-3118. Precise looks at how much room it takes on the truck and texts back one number for the whole job. No hourly rate. Jobs start at $50. The only add-ons: stairs +$50, steep slope +$50. More on how pricing works.

Where Precise does this

All of the San Gabriel Valley. See every town Precise covers for renovations.