How Much Does a Garage Cleanout Cost in Boise? (2026)

A guy in Meridian called us last spring and opened with, "I just need a number." Fair enough. He'd been putting this off for four years and didn't want a pitch, he wanted to know if a garage cleanout was a $300 problem or a $1,500 problem.

So let's do that here. What it costs in 2026, why the range is so wide, and how to land on the cheap end of it.

Short version: most single-car garages run $300 to $600. Two-car garages usually land between $500 and $900. A packed three-car where the door won't open all the way can climb past $1,200.

That's from actual jobs around the Treasure Valley, not a teaser rate we walk back later.

What actually sets the price of a garage cleanout

Almost nobody charges by the hour for this. We price by volume, meaning how much space your stuff takes up in the truck.

That's the honest way to do it. Two garages that look identical from the driveway can be completely different once the door goes up.

One has a lawn mower, six bins, and a broken treadmill. The other has all that plus 30 years of lumber scraps, four bald tires, a chest freezer, and a wall of paint cans. Same square footage, very different truck.

So the number comes down to three things: how much volume, how heavy it is, and whether anything in the pile costs extra to dispose of.

That last one catches people off guard. Tires, mattresses, appliances with refrigerant, and hazardous material all carry their own fees at the Ada County landfill or the recycler, and those get passed along. It's not a markup. It's what it costs to get rid of that stuff legally.

Those prices include labor, loading, the drive, and disposal. You're not paying separately for us to carry it out.

Why two quotes for the same garage can be $400 apart

Because somebody's guessing and somebody isn't.

Phone quotes are estimates. Always. If a company gives you a firm price over the phone without seeing a single photo, they're either padding it heavily or planning to raise it in your driveway.

Here's how we handle it. Send a couple of pictures, or we look when we get there, and you get the price before anyone touches anything. Say no and we leave. No charge for showing up.

Access matters too. A detached garage at the end of a long driveway in Nampa costs more to empty than an attached one where we back right up to the door. Every extra 40 feet of carrying is time.

How to spend less on your garage cleanout

This is the part where we admit some of your stuff shouldn't go in our truck at all.

• Run the donatable things to Idaho Youth Ranch yourself: furniture in decent shape, working tools, unopened supplies
• Pull clean metal for a scrap yard, or ask us to separate it, since it lowers our disposal cost and yours
• Break down cardboard for Western Recycling instead of paying us to haul air
• Decide what stays before pickup day instead of during it

That last one matters more than people expect. We've watched two-hour jobs turn into four because the homeowner started opening boxes. If you want to go through things, do it the weekend before.

Chemicals are their own category. We can't take paint, gas, pesticides, or motor oil in the truck, so those go through Ada County's household hazardous waste program, and it's free for residents. We walked through the whole process in Garage Cleanout in Boise: Paint, Gas, and Chemicals if you've got a shelf of half-empty cans staring at you.

Is doing it yourself cheaper?

Sometimes. Depends what you're counting.

A trailer rental runs $60 to $100 a day, and dump fees at the Ada County landfill land somewhere around $40 to $70 per load for household junk. More if there are tires or appliances in there.

Got a truck, a free Saturday, and a friend who owes you? You can clear a light garage for under $200, no question.

But most garages aren't one load. They're two or three, plus a hazardous waste trip and a donation run. That's a whole weekend, and you're the one wrestling the chest freezer down the driveway.

If you're leaning that direction, our post on how to tackle a garage cleanout without losing your weekend lays out the order that actually works. And yes, we'd love the job, but a light garage really is a reasonable Saturday project.

Hiring out makes obvious sense when the stuff is heavy, the timeline is short, your back is shot, or the garage has been filling up since the Bush administration. That's most of what we see on the garage cleanout side.

When we do handle it, the day goes about like this. We show up in a two-hour window, walk the garage with you, and hand you the price. Most two-car garages take 90 minutes to three hours with two guys.

You don't have to help or drag anything to the curb first. We sweep on the way out, and you pay once you've seen the empty floor.

The bottom line

Budget $500 to $900 for a normal two-car garage cleanout in Boise, Meridian, or Nampa. Pull the donations and scrap metal first and you'll probably come in under that. Add tires, appliances, or a rafter full of lumber and you'll go over.

The only way to know your number is for someone to actually see the pile. Send us a few photos or call (208) 593-2877 and we'll tell you straight. If the answer is "you could knock that out yourself in an afternoon," we'll say that too.