Dumpster Rental in Bridgeport
Workers' cottages and raised cottages on 25-foot lots, many of them balloon-framed and older than almost anything else standing in the city.
(619) 658-9555South Side · 60608Workers' cottages on twenty-five foot lots
Bridgeport has some of the oldest housing stock standing in the city, and it is a particular type: the workers' cottage. Small, frame, built close to the ground on a narrow lot, frequently raised later over a new masonry basement when the family needed more room.
Those raised cottages are the characteristic job here and they behave unlike anything else we work on. You have an original frame building, usually balloon-framed, sitting on a basement that was added decades after it was built, with the join between the two being where most of the interesting problems live. Opening one up produces old framing, multiple generations of flooring, plaster and lath upstairs and sometimes nothing at all downstairs.
Volume is modest because the buildings are small. Weight is not, because of the plaster and because these cottages have usually been worked on several times. A 15 yard covers most single-cottage interior jobs; a full gut is a 15 with swaps rather than a 20, for alley reasons below.
Narrow lots mean narrow everything
A twenty-five foot lot does not leave a gangway you can put anything in. There is no driveway in the bungalow sense, frequently no side access worth the name, and the space between two cottages is a passage rather than a strip.
So in Bridgeport the container goes in the alley, essentially always. That is a public way placement and the permit is ours to hold under the city code, which removes one job from your list.
What it does not remove is the width problem. Bridgeport alleys are tight, and a good number of them have garages opening directly onto them on both sides. A 20 yard along one side can block the alley for practical purposes, which means a conversation with neighbours about when they need to get their cars out. A 15 is very often the better container here, and swapping it is quick.
Some of these alleys are also in poor condition — broken asphalt over the original brick, settled in places, with drainage that does not. We will tell you what we can see from the street and what we cannot, and if an alley is genuinely not workable we will say so rather than find out with a truck in it.
Balloon framing, and what that means when you open a wall
Most of these cottages are balloon-framed: the studs run unbroken from the sill to the roof plate, with no fire blocking between floors. It is a construction method that was normal here when these were built and is not used now, and it has two consequences for a job.
The first is that opening a wall gets you more than you planned for. There is a clear cavity running the height of the building, which is where a century of debris, old insulation, wiring runs and occasionally a good deal of nesting material has collected. It all comes out, and it is rarely in anybody's reckoning.
The second is structural and it is a matter for your contractor rather than for us, but it affects sequencing: you cannot take a balloon-framed wall apart in the order you would a platform-framed one, which changes when the debris appears and therefore when the container needs to be there.
The other Bridgeport constant is age-related. These are pre-1940 buildings almost without exception, so assume lead paint throughout and assume asbestos until tested — floor tile and mastic, pipe wrap in the basement, some skim coats. Neither can go in a container, and asbestos needs licensed abatement. The full banned list →
Where the container goes in Bridgeport
In Bridgeport it is usually the alley, carefully. The alleys here are tight enough that container size is a placement decision as much as a volume one, and a neighbour conversation about garage access is usually part of it. We will often recommend a size down. The permit, where one is needed, is ours. More on permits and placement →
What we deliver to Bridgeport
What can go in
Illinois bans a specific list from landfill. Electronics are on it.
Illinois has no bottle deposit but it does ban electronics — the opposite of some neighbouring states.
Read more →
Home cleanouts
Whole-unit, estate and move-out clearances across the city.
Chicago basements and bungalow attics hold far more than the floor plan suggests.
Read more →
Construction debris
Remodels, interior demolition and site clear-down.
Pre-war Chicago interiors are plaster over lath — size for weight, not volume.
Read more →What people in Bridgeport ask us
There is no gangway at all on my lot. Where does it go?
The alley, essentially always. A 25-foot lot does not leave usable side access, so alley placement is the norm here — and that is a public way placement, so the permit is ours rather than yours.
What size for a raised cottage gut?
A 15 yard with swaps rather than a 20. The buildings are small so volume is modest, but the plaster is heavy and the alleys are tight. Both point the same way.
Why did opening one wall produce so much debris?
Balloon framing. The studs run unbroken from sill to roof plate with no fire blocking, so there is a clear cavity the height of the building where a century of debris, old insulation and wiring has collected. It is rarely in anyone's reckoning.
My alley is broken asphalt over brick and it ponds.
Tell us before the day. Some of these alleys are perfectly workable and some are not, and a truck that cannot get back out of an alley is a much larger problem than a delayed delivery.
Other neighborhoods we cover
Container delivery in Bridgeport
Tell us the cross streets, what is coming out and where it should sit. Size, placement and the permit answer in one call.
(619) 658-9555Serving Bridgeport · 60608