How to Sort a Backyard Shed Before Hauling

Open the door, prop it, and stand back for a full minute before reaching in, because a shed in Redding that has been shut through a summer holds heat, dust and sometimes a nest. Sorting a shed into four piles is the first step, and the breakdown sitting on junk removal redding acronym official lists them in order. Junk gets hauled from Redding, CA sheds every week, but only some of what comes out of them is junk.

What are the four piles?

Keep, donate, recycle and haul. Keep is anything that still works and will be used this year. Donate is clean, working tools and usable furniture. Recycle is scrap metal, cardboard and batteries. Haul is everything left, and it should be the smallest pile if the sorting is honest.

What do you check for before touching the shelves?

Look for droppings, chewed insulation on the walls and webbing in the corners. Wear gloves, and wet down dusty surfaces before sweeping so the dust stays on the floor. A shed that sits low near the Sacramento River floodplain may also have a damp corner with rotted floor boards, and rotted lumber cannot be donated or reused.

What do you do with old fuel, paint and chemicals?

Old fuel cans, half-used paint, weed killer and oil are household hazardous waste. They do not go in the load, and they do not go in the trash. Set them in a plastic bin in the shade and take them to the proper drop-off in Shasta County. A transfer station will not accept them with a general load, and a loose lid in the back of a box truck is a fire risk in July.

What about brush and yard waste?

Piles of cut branches, dead shrubs and old fence boards stacked against the shed are yard waste, and the shed itself often sits in the middle of a brush pile. Green waste is hauled separately from construction debris because the landfill routes them differently, and after the Carr Fire a lot of homeowners are strict about clearing dry brush near any outbuilding.

How do you finish?

Sweep, check the roof for daylight and look at the floor. A shed with a rotted floor or a leaning wall may be the next project, not just the next cleanout. The hauling is the easy part. The keep pile, put back on clean shelves, is the part that makes the shed useful again.