Practical

How to Stop a Dumpster Wrecking Your Driveway

A loaded roll-off puts several tons on four small steel contact points. Around here the driveway is only half the problem — the other half is what is underneath it.

Why this matters here

Three things make East Texas harder on driveways than people expect.

Clay. The soil across Gregg, Harrison, Rusk and Upshur Counties holds water and drains slowly. That means the ground under a driveway behaves very differently in a wet week than a dry one, regardless of how solid the surface looks.

Rain. We get a lot of it, and it comes properly rather than in drizzle. A single heavy week changes what the ground will carry.

Pines. They are the nicest thing about living here and they are hard on concrete. More on that below.

How the damage actually happens

People picture the container's weight spread across its footprint. It is not. A roll-off sits on two steel rails and concentrates load at a small number of contact points — typically the rear wheels and the front of the rails.

A 20 yard loaded to four tons, plus the container's own weight, puts something in the order of several thousand pounds onto each of those points. Three mechanisms follow:

• Static load. The container sitting there over days, gradually pressing in.
• Dynamic load during delivery. The moment the container rolls off and the rear wheels touch down is the highest instantaneous load of the whole rental.
• Dragging. Winching the container back on drags the rails across the surface. On decorative concrete this is what causes scoring.

What protection boards do

Plywood under the rails spreads a point load across a much larger area. It is unglamorous and extremely effective — the difference between several thousand pounds on four small contacts and the same weight distributed across several square feet.

Our drivers carry plywood on every truck as standard equipment. Boards go down before the container touches the surface, not afterwards, and they go down again on collection because the drag-on is as damaging as the drop-off. On stamped, decorative and paver surfaces we double up.

East Texas clay and wet weather

This is the part people underestimate, because the surface gives you no warning.

After a sustained wet spell, clay subsoil holds water and softens. A concrete drive over saturated clay can crack because the support beneath it has gone. A gravel drive will rut deeply. A lawn placement will leave marks you are repairing for months, and in bad cases the truck itself gets stuck — which turns a routine delivery into a recovery operation and does far more damage than the container ever would.

Pine roots and what they do to a slab

Worth its own section because it is specific to here and people rarely think about it.

Pines are shallow-rooted relative to their height, and the root plate spreads well beyond the canopy. Over decades those roots lift and crack driveway slabs from underneath — which is why so many older Longview drives have a heave or a crack line running across them near a mature tree.

A slab that has already been lifted has a void or a fracture under it, and a point load will find it. If you have a visible heave or crack near a pine, point it out and we will place away from it.

The other side of the same fact: parking several tons over a pine's root plate for a fortnight compacts the soil around roots that sit close to the surface. If you are fond of the tree, we will site away from it.

Surface by surface

Concrete driveway

Generally fine with boards down. Watch for existing cracks and root heave. A slab that is already cracked will preferentially fail along that line.

Asphalt

Vulnerable in an East Texas summer. Asphalt softens in heat and a container will press into it; a week on hot asphalt in July can leave permanent depressions. Boards are essential, and in high summer we may suggest a different spot.

Gravel and chip-and-seal

Very common on rural property here and generally the most forgiving surface. Some displacement, easily raked back. The caveat is what is underneath — a thin gravel layer over clay is really a clay driveway with a dusting on top.

Pavers and stamped concrete

The units are strong; the bedding sand is not. Doubled boards as standard, and we lift rather than drag where possible.

Grass and bare ground

Workable when firm and dry, and often the best option on acreage. Not after heavy rain.

What is underneath

Septic systems. Very common across rural Gregg, Harrison, Rusk and Upshur Counties. Never place a container over a tank or lateral field — the weight can crush a tank lid or compact the field, and the repair runs into thousands.

Water wells. Also common on rural property. Keep clear of the wellhead.

Irrigation and utility laterals. Shallow-buried and easily crushed, particularly in a lawn placement.

If something does go wrong

It is uncommon, but it happens. Tell us straight away rather than after the container is gone. Photograph it. We are licensed and insured, and where damage results from our placement we deal with it rather than arguing about it. Having before-and-after photographs makes that conversation short and civil.

What we cannot take responsibility for is damage from a hazard nobody told us about — a septic tank we did not know was there, or a driveway already lifted by roots that we were not shown.

The short version

• Boards go under the rails on every delivery. If a hauler does not do this as standard, use a different hauler.
• Tell us about existing cracks, spalling and root heave.
• Tell us if the ground has been wet, and be open to placing nearer the road.
• Mention low branches — we need about twenty-two feet of clear height.
• Photograph existing damage before delivery.
• Know where your septic, well and irrigation lines run, and say so.