TrashCanBossPro Blog — HOAs & Commercial

Dumpster Pad Cleaning and Grease: Adding Pad Work to a Bin Cleaning Route

Once you start working commercial accounts, you will be asked about the pad. The cans are clean, but the concrete under the dumpster is black, sticky and smells worse than the cans ever did. Pad cleaning is a natural add-on for a bin cleaning company with a trailer and a pressure washer. It is also easy to underprice.

Where Pads Fit

In Scheduling Commercial Bin Cleaning Stops Around Business Hours we covered fitting commercial stops into the day. Pads are the longest of those stops. A row of residential carts might take minutes; a greasy restaurant pad can take much longer. Plan for it.

Walk the Pad Before You Quote

Pads vary wildly. Before you price one, look at:

• Size: one dumpster, or two dumpsters plus a compactor and carts
• Grease: is there a used-oil container nearby, and has it leaked
• Stain depth: a light film or years of baked-in black
• Enclosure: walls and gates that also need washing
• Drainage: where the water goes
• Access: whether the dumpster can be rolled out of the way

Ask the customer and check your local rules about wash water from commercial pads before you start. Rules differ from place to place, and greasy runoff is exactly what they are written for.

Price the Pad as Its Own Line

Do not fold pad work into a per-can price. Put pad cleaning on your service list as its own service, and consider separate lines for:

• Recurring pad cleaning (weekly, every other week or monthly)
• Initial deep clean or degrease, priced higher, done once at the start
• Enclosure walls and gates

The first cleaning on a pad that has never been washed is a different job from the twelfth. Charging a one-time initial clean protects you from doing the hardest work at the recurring price. On the estimate the customer approves online, these show as separate lines, so nobody is surprised.

Set Up Pads as Addresses

If an account has several pads, add each one as its own address under the client, for example "North pad" and "Kitchen pad." Each keeps its own notes, its own plan and its own line on the monthly statement. The crew sees exactly which pad they are at, and the customer sees exactly what was cleaned.

Use the notes for the details that matter on a pad: "Roll dumpster forward to wash behind it. Grease bin on the left, do not move without the kitchen manager. Spigot on the back wall, OK to use."

Timing Pads Around the Hauler

Clean the pad right after the dumpster is emptied, when there is less trash on and around it and the dumpster is light enough to roll. Record the hauler's pickup days on the address so whoever builds the route can see them. For restaurants, also respect the time window; more on that in Restaurant Dumpster Pad and Bin Cleaning: Grease, Smell and Early Mornings.

Set the recurring plan by minimum days between visits. Weekly pads in summer at busy restaurants, monthly at an apartment complex in winter. The pad comes due on the Waiting List on its own.

Photos Sell the Next Pad

Nothing shows the value of your work like a pad photo. The before shot of black, stained concrete next to the after shot of clean gray is dramatic. Have the crew take both in the tech app on every pad, every time. They are saved with the job.

Those photos do three jobs. They prove to the manager the work was done. They justify a pad price that is higher than a cart price. And with the customer's permission, they make the best sales material you can bring to the next restaurant or apartment complex.

When the Pad Is Blocked

Pads get blocked: a delivery truck, pallets, a contractor's roll-off. The crew taps Skip with the reason and a photo. The office sees it and texts the site contact about a new time. Do not let a blocked pad sit until the next scheduled cleaning; a pad that goes two cycles without washing is where the smell complaints start.

Billing Pad Work

On accounts set to Monthly billing, pad cleanings appear on the one statement with every other address, each line labeled. On single-location accounts, the card on file can be charged when the pad is completed. Either way, the line item name should say what it is: "Dumpster pad cleaning — North pad."

Next Steps

Pads are harder work and worth more money. Walk them, price them separately and photograph everything. For the commercial tools behind pad work, see the commercial bin cleaning software page.