Concrete, brick, dirt, and asphalt are dense — far heavier per cubic yard than wood or household junk. Fill a standard 20 or 40-yard roll-off with concrete and it would be too heavy to lift onto the truck or haul legally. So haulers use a lowboy: a shorter, reinforced container (typically 6 to 12 yards) built to carry weight in a smaller footprint.
The rule of thumb: if the material came from the ground or a slab, it's a lowboy job.
Lowboys are sized by weight capacity, not just volume, so you don't need a big box for a heavy load. Here's what our LA County haulers typically run:
| Material | Container | Real local price (from) |
|---|---|---|
| Concrete, brick, asphalt chunks | 6–10 yd lowboy | from $520 |
| Clean dirt / soil haul-off | 10–12 yd lowboy | from $520 |
| Mixed heavy + light (ask first) | Hauler will advise | varies |
Lowboys work best — and stay cheapest — when the material is clean and single-type. Clean concrete or clean dirt can often be recycled as fill, which is why haulers ask you to keep wood, trash, roots, and metal out of it.
Mixing debris types can bump the load out of clean-fill recycling and add sorting or overweight charges. If your project genuinely produces both heavy rubble and general debris, the usual move is two containers: a lowboy for the heavy stuff and a standard roll-off for the rest.
Always tell the hauler exactly what the material is when you book — 'clean concrete,' 'dirt with some roots,' 'mixed demo' — so they bring the right container and price it correctly.
Same rule as any container: on your driveway or private property, no permit is needed. Street or right-of-way placement requires a city permit in most of LA County. Lowboys are compact, which makes driveway placement easy even on tight lots.
If you do need the street, our LA County permit guide has the public-works contact and cost for every city we serve.
A lowboy container (typically 6–12 yards), not a standard roll-off, because heavy material is limited by weight.
Real local prices for a lowboy start around $520 with a 7-day rental. Heavy material is often flat-rated, which keeps pricing simple.
Weight — a full roll-off of concrete is too heavy to haul legally, and even partial loads blow past the tonnage limit and trigger fees.
No — keep heavy material clean and single-type. Mixing can disqualify clean-fill recycling and add charges. Use two containers if needed.
Yes — a specialized one. General trash bins take mixed debris; a lowboy is the heavy-duty container for dense material only.
Roll-off sizes for demo waste, real prices, weight limits, and what belongs in a lowboy instead.
Read the guideThe 30-second size picker, what fits in each container, and real LA County prices.
Read the guideWhen street placement needs a permit, what it costs, and the right contact in every city we serve.
Read the guide