Dumpster Enclosure Installation in Anderson, SC

Dumpster enclosure installation is one of the few fence jobs where somebody else writes the specification for you. A city screening ordinance, a landlord's lease or a shopping center's standards usually set the height, the material and sometimes the color before you have an opinion about any of it. The part left to judgment is everything that takes abuse: the gates, the corners the container hits, and the concrete the truck sits on.

We build trash and recycling enclosures across Anderson County and Greenville County, plus Easley and Clemson. Retail centers, restaurants, apartment communities, churches, medical offices, self storage and industrial sites. We read the ordinance or the lease clause during the site walk so the enclosure passes the first time it is looked at.

What our dumpster enclosure installation includes

An enclosure is a small job with a lot of ways to get it wrong. Here is what we cover before anything is ordered.

• Reading the actual requirement, the city screening standard, the lease clause or the center's design guidelines
• Confirming container size and count with your hauler, because a four yard and an eight yard container need very different footprints
• Checking the truck approach, the straight run in, the swing out and the overhead clearance above the container
• Screening built to the required height and opacity in the material the rule allows
• Posts set in concrete and sized for gate leaves that are heavier than any residential gate
• Gates framed and braced against sag, with drop pins to hold them closed and catches to hold them open
• Gate leaves that swing far enough back to sit flat against the walls, out of the truck path
• Bollards set in concrete at the gate posts and inside corners to take the container hit instead of the wall
• A rub rail or kick plate on the inside faces where the container contacts the screening
• Tear out and disposal of a failed enclosure, including old footings and bent hardware

The concrete pad and approach apron are normally a concrete contractor's scope rather than ours. We coordinate with whoever is pouring, set our post locations off the finished slab and tell you what the pad needs to do before it is poured, which is the cheapest time to hear it.

Signs you need a dumpster enclosure or a replacement

Enclosure work reaches us in two shapes: a new requirement, or an old one that has stopped holding up.

• A code enforcement notice or a zoning condition requiring the container to be screened
• A lease clause or a shopping center standard naming a material, height and finish
• A new build or a tenant fit out where the plan already shows an enclosure
• Gates that have sagged, will not latch and are propped open permanently
• Screening panels punched out where the container is dragged past them
• Posts snapped or leaning at the gate bay, which is where haulers make contact
• An enclosure sitting in the low spot of the lot with standing water in it
• Complaints from neighboring property or a tenant about the view and the smell

The propped open gate is the most common one we get called about, and it is worth understanding why it happens. Gate leaves get hit, the frame racks out of square, the drop pin no longer lines up with its sleeve, and staff give up. Fixing the frame without fixing the reason it got hit just buys you the same call in a year.

Dumpster enclosure materials compared

Three builds cover almost every enclosure we quote. The ordinance often narrows the choice for you before cost does.

Chain link with privacy slats is the cheapest version of this and it deserves an honest mention. It is fine for a construction site, an industrial yard or a back of house area nobody sees. It usually fails the ordinance wording, because most screening standards ask for a solid or opaque screen and slats give partial coverage. If your rule uses either of those words, slats are a gamble that costs more to lose than to avoid.

The gates are not the same material question

Even on a masonry enclosure the gates are framed steel with an infill, because nobody hangs a block wall on a hinge. That is why an enclosure with beautiful walls and weak gates is such a common sight. The gate frame, the hinges and the gate posts are the items worth spending on, and they should be specified for a leaf that is wide, heavy and going to be hit.

How we build a dumpster enclosure

The order matters here more than on a fence line, because a concrete pad is usually involved and it cannot be moved afterward.

1. Get the requirement in writing, the ordinance section, the lease clause or the center standard
2. Confirm container size and count with the hauler, and the clear opening they need to pull straight out
3. Walk the truck approach on site, including the turn in and where the front axle will sit during the lift
4. Set the footprint and the opening width, then coordinate with whoever pours the pad and approach apron
5. Set posts in concrete after the slab is in, sized for the gate leaves rather than for the screening
6. Set bollards at the gate posts and inside corners, filled and set in concrete
7. Build the screening to the required height and opacity, with a rub rail on the inside faces
8. Frame, brace and hang the gates, fit drop pins and sleeves, and fit hold open catches on both leaves
9. Open and close everything with the container in place, then walk it with you and the hauler if they will come

That last step catches more problems than any other. An enclosure that works on paper and does not work with an actual container sitting in it is a common outcome, and it is far easier to adjust a catch or widen an opening before the job is closed out.

Screening standards and ground conditions in Anderson County

There is no statewide answer to what your enclosure has to look like. South Carolina sets no fence permit requirement and no state height limit, so screening standards come from the city or county at your address. Anderson County has one city and eight incorporated towns, Belton, Honea Path, Iva, Pelzer, Pendleton, Starr, West Pelzer and Williamston, plus census designated places including Powdersville, Piedmont and Sandy Springs. They do not all write the same rule, and a landlord's standard can sit on top of whatever the city says.

Water decides how long the enclosure lasts once it is built. Anderson takes about 48 inches of rain a year against a national average of 38, and Cecil series red clay drains slowly across the whole Piedmont. An enclosure placed in the low corner of a parking lot, which is exactly where site plans like to put them, collects water that has nowhere to go. That standing water sits against posts, against the bottom of wood screening and against the container, and it is the reason so many three year old enclosures look ten.

The truck is the other local load. Clay subgrade holds its shape well when dry and softens when saturated, and a loaded front load truck putting its weight on the apron during a lift is a serious point load. That is why the approach slab in front of an enclosure cracks and settles before anything else on the lot does, and why it is worth getting the concrete right before the screening goes up around it.

One city and eight townsAnderson County contains one city and eight incorporated towns, each writing its own screening standard. There is no statewide rule to fall back on, so the ordinance at your address is the one that decides height and material.

What drives the price of a dumpster enclosure

• Material, with masonry at the top of the range and wood at the bottom
• Enclosure size, driven by container count and by the clear opening the hauler needs
• Required height and opacity from the ordinance or the lease
• Gate width, which is the single biggest driver of gate cost and post size
• Gate hardware, drop pins, sleeves, hold open catches and hinges rated for the leaf
• Bollard count, diameter and depth
• Rub rail or kick plate protection on the inside faces
• Whether a pad and approach apron already exist and are sound
• Demolition and disposal of a failed enclosure, including bent posts and old footings
• Access, since a tight parking lot corner is slower to work in than open ground

The cheapest enclosure and the most expensive enclosure are often the same job three years apart. Gates that sag, posts with no bollard in front of them and screening with no rub rail all fail on a schedule, and the second build costs more than the difference would have.

The pad, the approach and the bollards

Everything that goes wrong with an enclosure after year one traces back to one of these three.

The pad under the container

The slab inside the enclosure carries a loaded container and takes the drag every time it is pulled out and pushed back. It wants to be a proper reinforced pour rather than parking lot thickness, and it should slope so water runs out of the enclosure instead of standing in it. Check the local rule on where that water is allowed to go, because some jurisdictions are specific about wash water near a storm inlet.

The approach apron in front of it

This is the part most people never think about and the part that fails first. When a front load truck lifts a full container, the truck's weight concentrates on the pavement directly in front of the enclosure. Asphalt shoves, a thin slab cracks, and once the approach settles the truck no longer sits level and the gates start taking hits they were not taking before. Getting an apron poured to the right thickness is cheaper than repaving that corner twice.

Bollards, and where they actually go

Bollards are steel pipe, filled and set in concrete, and they exist so that the container and the truck hit steel instead of your wall. The positions that matter are the gate posts, which take the most abuse of anything on the enclosure, and the inside corners where a container gets pushed back at an angle. Bollards scattered along the walls look protective and do far less than two placed correctly at the gate bay.

Gates built for a hauler, not for a yard

Enclosure gates are wide, heavy and swung by people in a hurry. They need a braced frame that resists racking, hinges sized to the leaf, a drop pin into a sleeve set in concrete so the closed gate cannot be pushed, and a hold open catch on each leaf so the gates are not left swinging into the truck path. The hold open catch is the cheapest item on the list and the one that most often is not there, which is precisely why so many enclosure gates get hit.