The short answer
Renting a truck to haul junk yourself in Columbus is cheap in dollars and expensive in everything else. You are buying a rental, fuel, a gate charge at the county landfill, and most of a weekend day, and you are still the person carrying a dresser up from a Clintonville basement.
The flat-price version: $75 minimum per visit, $126 for a sofa, $241 for a quarter truckload, $431 for a half. Price on screen before anyone drives out, disposal included, carry-out from whatever floor it is on.
DIY genuinely wins in one situation, described at the bottom. Everywhere else the math is closer than it looks.
What the DIY day actually contains in Columbus
Walk through it start to finish, because the rental counter quote is only the first line.
- Getting the truck. The counters are out on the arterials, Morse, Sinclair, West Broad, Hamilton Road. That is a round trip before you have loaded anything.
- Loading. This is the part people under-price. Everything you are getting rid of is upstairs or downstairs, because that is where junk lives.
- Driving it. The county landfill is on the south side, out past Grove City. From Westerville or New Albany that is the full length of 270, twice.
- The gate. You queue, you weigh, you pay whatever the current rate is, you tip, you weigh out.
- Returning it. Fuel to the same level, back to the counter, home.
Realistically that is five to seven hours for one load, longer if you hit the gate near closing and have to come back. Weekday hours at disposal sites are generous; Saturday hours are not, and Sunday often is not an option at all.
The Columbus geography problem
The outerbelt is the whole argument. Junk is generated all over Franklin County and disposed of in a small number of places, and almost none of them are convenient to where you live.
From a Short North condo you are dragging furniture out to a rented truck you had to park on a numbered side street, then running down 315 to 70 to 71 with a load. From Dublin or Powell you are on 270 the whole way around the west and south of the city. From Gahanna or Reynoldsburg you are coming across the east side. Nobody in this metro has a short trip to a landfill, and freeze-thaw season means the stretch of 270 you take is also the stretch with the lane closures.
What breaks the DIY plan
Three things, over and over.
Stairs. Columbus's older housing was not built for moving furniture. Century doubles in Old North and Weinland Park have a landing turn that eats a sofa. Real full basements, which almost every pre-war house here has, mean the washer, the dryer, the old freezer and the sagging rec-room couch are all a flight down and out a narrow door. A rented truck does not solve that. Two people do.
Weight. A chest freezer that has been in a Hilliard garage since 2009 is a two-person lift on a good day and a hospital visit on ice. Cast iron radiators pulled out of a Victorian Village rehab are worse.
Refused loads. Refrigerators and freezers have refrigerant that must be recovered by someone certified before disposal. Tires, certain electronics and a short list of other items are handled separately in Ohio. Show up with the wrong thing on the truck and you drive it home again.
Flat prices, so you can compare like for like
| What you are moving | Flat price |
|---|---|
| Minimum per visit | $75 |
| Sofa / couch | $126 |
| Mattress and box spring set | $143 |
| Refrigerator (standard) | $164 |
| Washer | $133 |
| Dryer | $128 |
| Medium junk pile | $129 |
| Large junk pile | $208 |
| 1/4 truckload | $241 |
| 1/2 truckload | $431 |
| Full truckload | $732 |
A washer and dryer out of a Grandview basement is $133 + $128 = $261. A sofa plus a queen mattress set is $126 + $103 + $92 = $321, or $126 + $143 = $269 if you book the set price. A basement rec room's worth of loose stuff is usually a half load at $431.
When the rental truck is genuinely the right call
Rent the truck when you are keeping the stuff. If you are moving from a Clintonville double to a house in Westerville and half of what you are loading is coming with you, you need a truck anyway. Throwing the dead items on the same load and swinging by the landfill on the way is sensible.
It is also reasonable if you already own a pickup, live somewhere with a driveway you can back into, and are getting rid of two or three light items that are already on the ground floor. A ranch in Reynoldsburg with a wide drive and a garage full of cardboard is a DIY job.
What does not work is renting a truck specifically to throw things away, from a second floor, in February.
The dumpster in between
Some people split the difference with a driveway dumpster. That suits a long renovation, a Bexley kitchen gut that runs three weeks, where you are producing debris daily and want somewhere to put it.
It suits a one-day cleanout badly. You are paying for the container to sit there, you still load every piece yourself, and in the older neighborhoods there is often nowhere to put it. German Village brick streets, permit parking, and a historic district do not welcome a 20-yard box out front for a week. Alley placement behind a Schumacher Place double is tight enough that many drivers will not attempt it.
How to decide in thirty seconds
Answer two questions. Is any of it upstairs or downstairs? Are you keeping any of it?
If the answer is upstairs-or-downstairs and keeping none of it, book the flat price and get your Saturday back. If you are keeping some of it and it is all on one level, rent the truck. Everything else is a coin flip that usually lands on whichever one you will actually do, rather than the one you will mean to do for six weekends.
Frequently asked questions
Is renting a truck cheaper than a flat-price pickup in Columbus?
On the rental line alone, usually. Once you add fuel for a run out to the south-side landfill, the gate charge, and a day of your own labor carrying things up from a basement, the gap is small. And the flat price includes the carry-out, which is the part that hurts.
Can I take a refrigerator to the landfill myself?
Not straight in. Refrigerant has to be recovered by someone certified first. It is simpler to book the fridge at $164 and let it be handled correctly.
What if I only have one thing?
The minimum per visit is $75. A single item priced above that just costs its own flat price, so a sofa on its own is $126, not $126 plus a trip charge.
Do you serve the suburbs or just inside 270?
Dublin, Westerville, Worthington, Gahanna, Hilliard, Grove City, Bexley, Upper Arlington, Reynoldsburg, Pickerington, Powell and New Albany are all on the normal route at the same flat prices.
How much is a truckload?
The ladder runs $241 for a quarter, $338 for three-eighths, $431 for a half, $513 for five-eighths, $587 for three-quarters, $661 for seven-eighths and $732 for a full load.