What an estate cleanout costs in Columbus

The short answer

A house being cleared is priced by volume, because nobody is itemizing forty years of a Upper Arlington basement. The ladder: quarter $241, three-eighths $338, half $431, five-eighths $513, three-quarters $587, seven-eighths $661, full $732.

A typical mid-century Columbus three-bedroom, cleared after the family has taken what it wants and a sale or an auction has taken the rest, runs one to two full loads. Heavier houses, the ones with a full basement and an attached garage that were both used for storage since 1974, run more.

Big single pieces price on their own: upright piano $290, china hutch $160, large armoire $197, refrigerator $164.

Why Columbus houses hold more than you expect

Two features of the local housing stock drive the number.

Everything has a basement. Full, dry-ish, and used. In a Clintonville foursquare or a Beechwold colonial that is an extra story of storage that never got sorted: canning jars, Christmas decorations, the kids' school projects, a chest freezer, a workbench, and a rolled carpet from a living room that was redone in the nineties.

Everything has a garage, and winter fills it. Six months a year of Ohio weather means the garage becomes the overflow room. In the post-war neighborhoods, Clintonville, Northland, the older parts of Whitehall and Reynoldsburg, the detached garage off the alley is often the densest part of the job.

The living room is never the problem. The basement and the garage are.

A worked example

A 1950s ranch in Northland, one owner since 1968, family has taken the photographs and the good china.

Six dining chairs at $45 each comes to $270. So piano, hutch, dining table and six chairs is $290 + $160 + $163 + $270 = $883. Add the sofa, recliner, fridge and chest freezer and that is $883 + $126 + $98 + $164 + $146 = $1,417. Then the basement and the garage, which are loose volume, typically a full load at $732.

Note what happens once the list gets that long: the truck ladder becomes the better buy for the bulk, and you itemize only the pieces that are genuinely heavy or awkward.

The order that saves money

Executors who do this in the right sequence spend less.

• Family first. One weekend, labeled, everyone takes what they are taking. Then the door closes on that phase.
• Appraisal or estate sale second. Central Ohio has an active estate-sale trade and a real auction scene; mid-century furniture, tools and anything Ohio-made tends to move.
• Donation third. The Furniture Bank of Central Ohio takes household furniture and there are ReStore locations around the metro. Call for current conditions and calendars; nothing damp gets accepted.
• Haul last. By the time you book, the house is at its lightest, and you pay for one truckload instead of two.

Booking the haul before the estate sale is the most expensive order of operations available.

The pieces that need a plan

Pianos. Central Ohio houses are full of uprights from the fifties that nobody wants and everyone feels guilty about. An upright is $290, a baby grand is $438. In a German Village or Victorian Village house with a landing turn on the stairs, say so in the notes so the right crew comes.

Cast iron radiators. Any pre-war house here that has been converted off steam has them stacked somewhere. $123 each.

Chest freezers. $146, and very often full. Empty it before the pickup day, not on it.

Books. A box of books is $45. A Clintonville professor's study is not a box of books, it is thirty of them, and at that point you are on the truck ladder.

Selling the house afterward

If the house is going on the market, the cleanout is also staging. Buyers in Columbus walk basements, and a full basement that reads as storage reads as a basement with a problem. Clearing it to the floor lets someone see the block walls, the sump crock and the floor drain, which is exactly what your inspector is going to look at anyway.

The garage is the same. An empty two-car garage in Worthington sells. A two-car garage with a path through it does not.

What is included

• Two people, loading, and the truck.
• Carry-out from any floor, including a full basement with a turn in the stairs.
• Disposal, transfer and recycling.
• Broom sweep of what we clear.
• Photos on request, which is standard for out-of-state executors.

Not included: hazardous material and items that legally go to a specialist stream. Old paint, solvents and chemicals in a basement workbench are common in houses of this age; flag them and you get a straight answer before the truck is dispatched.

If you live out of state

A lot of Columbus estates are handled by children who live somewhere else. Book online, leave a lockbox code, get photos before and after. Franklin and Delaware County addresses, Worthington, Westerville, Dublin, Upper Arlington, Bexley, Grove City and out to Powell and Pickerington, are all on the standard route at the same published prices.

The price is set before dispatch, so you are not approving a number over the phone from another time zone while a crew waits in the driveway.

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