Once the ground thaws and the driveway dries out, the cleanout calls start. Garage doors that haven't been open all winter, basement corners that smelled funny in February, yards full of branches that came down in the March wind. Southern NH spring cleanouts have a pretty predictable order to them.
Here's how to think through the sequence.
Start with the garage
The garage is usually the easiest win for a spring cleanout, and it's a good warm-up for bigger projects. You can do it on a Saturday. You can do it without lifting anything down a flight of stairs. The pile builds fast and you can see progress.
What usually comes out of a spring garage cleanout:
- Bikes that the kids outgrew last summer
- Lawn gear from two summers ago that didn't survive
- Half-empty bags of ice melt and dried-out fertilizer
- Cardboard from holiday packages that never made it to the curb
- That one piece of furniture that's been "going to the dump" since the move
If the garage is the only thing on the list, a single-item pickup for the big stuff plus your normal trash service can handle it. If you're stacking the garage with the basement and the yard, that's a dumpster job.
Then the basement
The basement is the second hit. Once the garage is clear, you have somewhere to stage the basement stuff before it goes in the can. Most people don't think about staging until they start hauling boxes up the bulkhead, and by then the garage is in the way.
Basement cleanouts in spring have a specific flavor:
- Cardboard boxes that got soft from winter humidity
- Old electronics nobody's used since 2018
- Holiday decorations that didn't survive being damp
- Carpet remnants, paint cans, leftover tile from a project
- Sometimes, an old water heater or dehumidifier that needs to go
Watch for water damage. If your basement took on water during a thaw, things that look fine might be moldy on the underside. When in doubt, throw it in.
The yard last
Yard waste season runs a little later. The town transfer stations typically open their brush piles in mid-April or later, and most homeowners wait until the snow is fully gone before they start raking. If you're doing all three (garage, basement, yard), the yard can wait while you handle the indoor stuff.
Yard waste is its own category at most disposal sites: brush, branches, leaves, grass. Things stop being yard waste when they include pressure-treated lumber, fence posts with concrete attached, or building materials. A spring fence repair that produces both yard debris and old fence pickets ends up as a mixed load.
When to combine into one cleanout
If you're doing two of the three categories above, it usually makes sense to combine into a single dumpster rental. A 15-yard handles a garage plus a yard cleanup. A 20-yard handles all three for a smaller home.
The reason to combine: each dumpster delivery includes a drop and a pickup. Two separate rentals means two of each. One bigger dumpster, used over a week, is cheaper than two smaller ones used twice.
The reason not to combine: if the timing doesn't line up. A garage cleanout in early April plus a yard cleanout in mid-May doesn't combine well. Two visits make more sense.
Things that need their own channel
Spring cleanouts produce a few items that don't go in a regular dumpster:
- Liquid paint and stain (dry it out first, then it goes in)
- Old gasoline from the lawnmower (hazmat day)
- Pesticides and herbicides (hazmat day)
- Tires from the snow swap (tire fee at the transfer station, or include them in a dumpster with the added per-tire fee)
- Car batteries from the snowblower (small fee, but they go in)
Most NH towns run a hazardous waste day in late spring, usually May. Worth checking your town's schedule before you start the cleanout, so you can stage the hazmat pile separately and bring it on the day.
A reasonable spring cleanout timeline
For a homeowner doing the whole stack:
- Week 1: Walk the property. Make piles in the garage of "go," "stay," "donate." No hauling yet.
- Week 2: Book the dumpster for a date roughly a week out. Call early to lock in a date.
- Week 3: Dumpster lands. Spend the weekend filling the garage half. Move basement stuff to the garage pile. Finish loading.
- Week 4: Yard waste day (if you're including it). Dumpster pickup.
That's a four-week cadence for a top-to-bottom spring cleanout. Most jobs are shorter.
The booking call
When you call to book, three things speed up the conversation: what you're cleaning out (rooms, areas, types of stuff), the address (some southern NH driveways have access constraints), and the rough timing of when you want it delivered.
Call 603-634-9947 when you're ready to talk through the project.