Fitted wardrobes date a room faster than almost anything else in a house, and the ones installed twenty five years ago are coming out across the area at a steady rate. Fitted bedroom removal is not a difficult job, but the waste is bulkier than people plan for and the material itself needs a bit of respect. Our Shevington skip hire service handles a lot of these alongside general refurbishment work.
What these units are actually made of
Almost none of it is timber in the sense people mean. Carcasses are chipboard, usually melamine faced. Doors and end panels are frequently MDF, either painted or foil wrapped. Backs are thin hardboard. There is often a mirrored door, sometimes a glass shelf, and always a great deal of screw and cam fixing.
That matters for two reasons. The first is that none of these boards behave like timber when you cut them or when you dispose of them. The second is that they are heavier than they look, because board products are dense compared with softwood.
The plinths and cornices are usually solid enough to be worth taking off first, and any solid timber elements are worth separating from the board.
Cutting board indoors and why to think twice
The obvious approach is to take a circular saw to the units in the bedroom and carry the pieces out. It is quick and it fills the house with dust that you do not want to be breathing.
MDF dust in particular is fine, it stays airborne a long time, and it is not something to be creating in an unventilated bedroom without proper protection. Chipboard is no better. If you are going to cut, do it outside, wear a proper fitted mask rather than a paper one, and keep the doors of other rooms shut.
The better approach for most fitted units is to dismantle rather than cut. These things were assembled from flat pack components in the room, and they generally come apart the same way. It is slower than a saw and it produces flat panels that stack neatly in a skip rather than an enormous pile of splinters and dust.
Never burn it
This needs saying because people still do. MDF and chipboard are bonded with resins, and burning them in a garden or a wood burner releases what is in those binders. It is not the same as burning a bit of clean offcut timber and it should not be treated as though it is.
The same applies to melamine facing and any painted or foil finish. All of it goes in the skip and comes back to us, and our environmental and recycling page explains what happens to board waste once it reaches our site. Our guide to what you can put in a skip covers the wider list.
Mirrors and glass
Mirrored wardrobe doors are heavy, and they are usually a single large pane bonded to a backing. Take them off first, before anything else in the run, and get them out of the room while there is still space to manoeuvre.
Mirror glass is not toughened in most fitted units, so it breaks into long sharp pieces. If a door is going in the skip, it is safer to break it deliberately inside a covered container than to carry it whole down a staircase and risk it going on the way. Contain the pieces rather than letting them loose in a mixed load, because somebody has to handle that load at the other end.
Mirror and glass do not go to a bottle bank. That is a separate recycling stream entirely.
Sizing for bulk rather than weight
A full wall of fitted wardrobes produces a surprising volume. Panels are large, awkward and do not nest together unless you stack them deliberately.
Stack flat and stack in one direction. Panels thrown in at angles create voids that hold the rest of the load apart, and a skip loaded that way is half air. Done properly, a bedroom’s worth of units takes up considerably less room than people expect.
For a single room a 4 tonne midi skip is usually adequate. Where the job is part of a wider refurbishment with carpets, plaster or a bathroom coming out at the same time, our guide to choosing the right skip size is the place to start and an 8 tonne builders skip is the next size up.
What is worth not skipping
If the units are sound and simply not to your taste, they are worth offering locally before they come out. Fitted furniture in good condition finds a home more often than people assume, particularly if you are prepared to let someone take it apart themselves.
Any solid timber, the metal hanging rails and the hinges and runners are also worth separating. Metal has a value and it is easily kept aside as you work.
Access and local coverage
Everything on this job comes down a staircase, so board the route and take the bedroom door off before you start. Panels and door frames do not get on.
Most properties around here have driveway space, which avoids a permit entirely. We cover the surrounding area regularly, running Up Holland skip hire and Billinge skip hire jobs alongside Shevington, and this whole area sits in our Wigan delivery zone.
Ring us on 01942 417456 and tell us how many rooms are being stripped. Our contact page is there if you would rather send a photograph of the units.
