Roofing Debris in Boise

Roofing debris looks different depending on where your house sits in Boise. A single-layer asphalt tear-off on a newer West Boise home isn't the same job as a re-roof on a North End bungalow that's had shingles layered over shingles for decades.

Roofing material is also some of the heaviest stuff that comes off a job site. That weight drives a lot of what happens next: how it's loaded, sorted, and hauled out of the valley.

What comes off older vs. newer Boise roofs

Boise's roofing debris varies a lot by neighborhood and age. North End and East End homes from the early 1900s often have more than one layer of roofing material, sometimes with wood shake buried under later asphalt layers nobody stripped off first. Mid-century brick ranches across the Bench and West Bench usually have simpler, single-layer roofs. Newer builds in West Boise, Southeast Boise, and Barber Valley tend to come off clean, in one layer.

• Asphalt shingles and tar paper — the bulk of most loads
• Flashing, valley metal, and gutters — scrap metal, worth pulling out and recycling instead of landfilling
• Wood or cedar shake remnants on some older North End and East End homes
• Old plywood or board decking, when it's replaced along with the shingles
• Nails and fasteners mixed throughout the pile

Where it goes once it leaves your property

Most roofing debris from a Boise job ends up at the Ada County Landfill, also known as Hidden Hollow, off Seamans Gulch Road in the north Boise foothills. It takes construction and demolition debris, which covers torn-off shingles and felt paper. Metal flashing and valleys usually get pulled aside for scrap rather than landfilled with everything else.

Because shingle fragments and torn felt paper are light and loose, the county requires every load headed to the landfill to be tarped or secured before it leaves the property. Roofing debris blows around more than most other debris types, and an unsecured load can scatter across a road before it ever reaches the scale house.

What moves the price and the timeline

Weight is the biggest factor with roofing debris, more than with almost any other material haulers deal with. Asphalt shingles are dense, and a tear-off with stacked layers weighs a lot more than a clean single-layer job, which changes how many loads it takes and what it costs to drop off.

Access matters too. A steep or multi-story roof where debris has to be carried down by hand, or chuted off the edge, takes longer than a single-story roof where material can drop straight into a trailer below. Whether the decking comes off along with the shingles adds weight and mixes in a different material stream.

Timing plays a role as well. Most re-roofing in the Treasure Valley happens during the drier, milder months, since crews avoid tearing off a roof onto wet or icy decking. That bunches a lot of roofing debris removal into spring through fall, which is worth factoring in when you're scheduling.

What comes off your roof, and what it costs to haul away, comes down to your home's age, how many layers are up there, and how easy the roof is to get to.

Boise Construction Debris Removal offers free estimates if you've got a tear-off or roofing cleanup coming up.