Dumpster Enclosures: Code, Size, Gate, and Cost

An enclosure has three parts, and different trades build them. A mason lays the block walls. A concrete contractor pours the pad. We build the metal: the gates, a roof or a fence on top of the wall, or the whole enclosure in steel or chain link. Your city sets the height and the screening, and inside those rules the gates run $3,500 to $15,000 an enclosure.

What your city requires

Most cities require an enclosure on a commercial property, and your building department has the final word on the details. What they usually ask for:

• Walls tall enough to hide the bins, often around six feet, and many codes want the screen a foot above the tallest bin.
• A solid gate. The bins should not show through it.
• A concrete or paved pad under the whole thing.
• Gates that do not swing out into the public right-of-way.

The City of Sacramento’s trash enclosure standards show how detailed it gets. Other cities differ, so confirm with yours before anything gets built. The permit is yours or your GC’s to pull; we build to the approved plan.

Sizing it

The enclosure holds the bins, plus room to roll them in and out, room for the lids to open, and clearance for the gate to swing without hitting a bin. Size it for the bins you will have, not the ones you have today: if recycling or organics are coming, widening a block enclosure later means taking a wall down and re-laying it. Tell us how many bins, what size, and what is coming, and we lay it out so the truck can reach it.

The gate

The gate takes the wear. It gets dragged across the concrete and pulled by whoever moves the bins, and a light one sags under that: the drop pin stops lining up and the gate will not latch. Then the bins sit in view and people start putting their own trash in them.

A gate built for it uses a welded steel tube frame with steel or chain-link infill, heavy-duty hinges (Mammoth and Locinox), and a cane bolt or drop rod to hold each leaf open and closed. Self-closing hinges go on where the city wants the gate to shut on its own. Concrete-filled bollards inside the enclosure take the hit when a truck backs in, so the post does not. Powder coat is there if the gate has to match the building. It is the same hardware we hang on our commercial gates.

Roofs, fences on top, and all-steel

A roof keeps rain off the bins, which some cities require, and it stops people dropping their own trash in over the wall. It sits on a steel frame, in chain link or in metal decking, and the frame is easier to set before the block goes up than after. A fence on top of the wall does the same job cheaper: spear-top or flat-top pickets set on the block line.

The whole enclosure can also be built in steel or chain link instead of block. Steel matches an existing fence, and it can be cut and re-welded later if the bin setup changes, which block cannot.

What it costs

The number follows how many bins (which sets the gate width), how many enclosures are on the job, the finish, and what goes on top.

The gates for one enclosure run $3,500 to $15,000 when several enclosures are on the same job, primer only at the bottom of that and painted at the top. One enclosure on its own costs more per unit, because the crew, the truck and the fabrication setup get spread over fewer gates. A repair to an existing enclosure runs $900 to $3,000. A roof, a fence on the wall, or bollards are priced on top. For the whole structure including the block, industry figures put most enclosures around $2,000 to $8,000 per dumpster, with the pad priced separately.

What to send for a quote

How many bins and what size, a photo of the spot, the dimensions or a site plan, if there is a pad already, and what the finish has to match. We build trash and dumpster enclosures across the greater Sacramento area.