The short answer
Price it by volume. Quarter truck $241, three-eighths $338, half $431, five-eighths $513, three-quarters $587, seven-eighths $661, full $732. Disposal included.
A one-car garage in Donelson or Madison that has been a storage room since the kids left is usually a half truck. A two-car in Bellevue, Hermitage or Crieve Hall is usually three-quarters to full.
The $75 minimum is real but irrelevant here. Nobody books a garage cleanout that comes in under $75.
Why Nashville garages hold so much
Most of Middle Tennessee sits on clay over limestone and most houses here were built on a crawlspace, not a basement. That one construction fact explains the garages.
With no basement, everything that would be under a Midwestern house went into the garage instead: the paint, the tools, the bikes, the holiday bins, the second fridge, the exercise equipment, the box of the kids' school papers. Thirty years of that and the car has not been inside since the Clinton administration.
The exception is the older housing in Green Hills, Belmont-Hillsboro and Woodmont, which does have real basements. Those houses have a full garage and a full basement.
What comes out of a Nashville garage
The same list, house after house. Flat per-item prices if you would rather count than estimate volume.
| Item | Flat price |
|---|---|
| Refrigerator (standard, the garage beer fridge) | $164 |
| Freezer (chest) | $146 |
| Treadmill | $115 |
| Weight bench | $69 |
| Weight set / free weights | $93 |
| Lawn mower | $65 |
| Bicycle | $37 |
| Storage cabinet | $74 |
| Charcoal grill | $59 |
| Propane grill | $71 |
| Basketball hoop (portable) | $115 |
| Large junk pile | $208 |
A worked two-car garage
Hermitage, two-car, cleared before listing the house.
Fridge $164 + chest freezer $146 + treadmill $115 + weight bench $69 + lawn mower $65 + propane grill $71 + storage cabinet $74 = $704.
That is $704 by item, against $732 for a full truck. Close enough that you should book by item if that is genuinely everything, and book the full truck if there are also twelve years of boxes on the shelves, which there are.
Humidity is why the garage stuff is ruined
People are often surprised at how little of a Nashville garage is worth saving. Blame the summers.
An unconditioned garage in Middle Tennessee runs high humidity from May through September, and it cycles wet and dry every day. Cardboard boxes sag and split. Particleboard shelving swells at the bottom edge and never recovers. Upholstered furniture parked out there for a winter comes back with a smell it will not lose. Paper, photographs and books stored on a concrete slab wick moisture up from underneath.
If it has been in a Nashville garage for more than a couple of summers and it is not metal, plastic or solid wood, sort it quickly and do not agonize.
Loose material: bags versus piles
Garages are mostly loose contents rather than countable furniture, so two other ladders apply.
Piles: small $82, medium $129, large $208. Bags: 10 bags $132, 15 bags $196, 20 bags $259, 25 bags $322, 30 bags $385, 40 bags $449.
For a full garage the truck bracket is nearly always cheaper than counting bags. Bags are for the tail end, when you have already cleared the bulk and there are eleven contractor bags left on the apron.
Access across the metro
What changes by neighborhood is how long it takes, not what it costs.
- Attached garages in Bellevue, Hermitage, Antioch and Crieve Hall. Flat driveway, roll the door up, the truck backs to the apron. Fastest jobs in the city.
- Detached garages behind older East Nashville and Sylvan Park bungalows. Often reached down a gravel strip beside the house, sometimes off an alley, occasionally too tight for a truck to back in. The carry is longer; the price is not.
- Tandem driveways in The Nations and Salemtown. Two HPR units share one strip of concrete. Tell your neighbor what time the truck is coming.
- Green Hills and Forest Hills. Steep, curving driveways under mature trees. The truck often stages at the bottom.
How to book one
Give us the neighborhood, whether it is one-car or two, attached or detached, and roughly how full it is. If you can, pull anything you are keeping to one wall before the crew arrives, because the slow part of a garage job is you deciding, not us carrying.
You get the total up front. No stair charge, no fuel line, no disposal added after. If the load turns out to be a different truck bracket than you picked, we show you the published ladder before anything goes on the truck.
Frequently asked questions
How much is a typical Nashville garage cleanout?
A one-car garage is usually a half truck at $431. A packed two-car is usually three-quarters at $587 or a full truck at $732, disposal included.
Why do garages here fill up more than in other cities?
Because most Nashville houses sit on a crawlspace rather than a basement. The garage becomes the only real storage the house has, and thirty years of that adds up.
Do you take the old garage refrigerator?
Yes. A standard fridge is $164 and a chest freezer is $146. Empty and defrost it a day or two ahead, especially in summer.
Can you take paint, chemicals or propane tanks?
No. Household hazardous material, fuels and pressurized tanks have to go through the proper channels rather than on a junk truck. Set those aside and check your county's current household hazardous waste guidance.
Do I need to sort first?
Only enough to separate what you are keeping. Push the keepers to one wall. Everything else can be assessed on the day against the published truck brackets.