November is when the gardens across Cheshire finally get cut back. Hedges come down to size, overgrown conifers get taken out, fruit trees are pruned and a summer’s growth ends up in a heap on the lawn. What nobody plans for is how much room it all takes up once it is off the plant. Arranging van hire in Warrington for a weekend deals with it in one go, but tree surgery waste behaves unlike anything else you will ever load.
Why Green Waste Fills A Van So Quickly
Cut material is mostly air. A hedge that looked like a modest job produces a pile two or three times the size of the hedge itself, because branches hold each other apart and refuse to settle. Conifer and leylandii are the worst offenders, springing back the moment you stop pressing them down. On top of that the material is wet at this time of year, so it weighs considerably more than it looks, and it is dirty in a way that a carpeted load area does not forgive. The practical consequence is that most people badly underestimate both the number of trips and the type of vehicle they need. A rough rule that serves better than guessing is to look at the standing hedge, imagine it three times larger, and plan from there. Cutting material down to shorter lengths as you go rather than stacking whole branches makes a bigger difference to how much fits than anything else you can do.
Why An Open Deck Is The Only Sensible Choice
The flatbed dropside van is the right tool here and it is not a close call. Loading green waste over a dropped side is far quicker than carrying armfuls of springy branches through back doors, and it lets two people work from opposite sides at once. An open deck also means you can compress the load properly by climbing on it, which is how you fit a hedge into one trip rather than three. Just as importantly, it hoses out. Sap, leaf mould, wet bark and soil are difficult to get out of an enclosed load area and impossible to ignore, whereas a flat deck is back to clean in a few minutes. If the material genuinely has to be covered on the road, take a net or a tarpaulin and strap it down properly rather than switching to a panel van.
Loading Branches So They Stay Put
Green waste is the load most likely to end up on the carriageway, because springy material works itself loose and light material lifts in the wind. Lay the longest branches along the deck first with the butt ends towards the headboard, then build up with shorter material on top, pressing down as you go. Anything cut into short lengths should go in the middle where it cannot escape from the sides. Strap over the top in at least two places and cover the whole load with a net, which is the only reliable way of holding leaves and small twigs. Check it again before you pull out onto a main road, because the load will settle in the first mile. Chainsaws, fuel and hand tools ride in the cab rather than loose on the deck.
Who Is Responsible For The Waste You Are Carrying
This is the question that separates a householder clearing their own garden from everyone else, and it has real consequences. Waste from your own property is household waste and you can take it to a recycling centre yourself, subject to whatever van permit scheme the relevant council operates. Waste from work you have paid a gardener or a tree surgeon to do is trade waste, and it is legally their responsibility to remove and dispose of it through a licensed route, not yours. Agreeing at the quote stage who is taking the arisings away avoids the very common situation where a crew leaves a mountain of chip and brash on the drive and the householder discovers a household site will not accept it. If you are doing the work yourself but for somebody else, even unpaid, check where you stand before you load. Getting this wrong is how people end up prosecuted for fly-tipping they did not intend.
Composting Or Chipping Rather Than Tipping
Not everything needs to leave. Larger limbs cut to length season well and are worth keeping if there is anywhere to stack them, and a hired chipper turns the brushwood into mulch that goes straight back onto beds, which removes most of the volume problem at source. Where a garden is big enough, a corner heap dealt with over the winter costs nothing and saves the trips entirely. Where it does have to go, splitting the load between what can be composted at home and what genuinely needs tipping usually turns two trips into one. Our advice on garden centre van hire for compost and turf covers the material coming the other way in spring.
Planning The Weekend Around Our Hours
We are open Monday to Saturday from 8am to 4pm and closed on Sunday, and most recycling centres shut earlier in the winter than people remember. Collecting the van at eight on a Saturday gives you a full morning of cutting and an afternoon to clear, with the vehicle back before we close. Where a garden is going to take a full weekend, take the van from the Saturday and return it on the Monday rather than trying to compress the job. Short and long term hire are both available with no deposit required on most vehicles, and there is free secure parking on site. Gardens out towards Croft van hire and Winwick van hire tend to be the ones that need the extra day.
Working Safely Through A Cutting Day
Green waste days produce more minor injuries than almost any other kind of hire, mostly because the work and the loading happen at the same time and everyone is tired by the afternoon. Wear gloves and eye protection for handling as well as for cutting, since a whipping branch end finds an eye with no warning at all. Wet leaves on a lawn or a driveway are genuinely slippery, and carrying an armful of brushwood you cannot see past across them is how people go over. Keep the load area of the vehicle clear of tools rather than working around them, and do not climb on a load that has already been strapped. Where the work involves a ladder or anything above head height, that is a job for two people at minimum and frequently a job for a professional with the right access equipment. Our advice on scaffold tower van hire for access work covers the equipment side of working at height.
Tell us roughly how much hedge is coming down and where you plan to take it, and we will tell you honestly whether that is one load or two. Call the depot on 01925 396 222 before the weekend you have earmarked.
