COLORADO SPRINGS YARD CLEANUP COST

Pricing here is driven by volume and weight, not by how bad the yard looks. Our truck holds roughly 15 cubic yards — about the bed of six full-size pickups. A load of dry tumbleweed and juniper trimmings fills that space at maybe 800 pounds. The same 15 yards of wet sod, dirt, and river rock weighs 8,000 pounds or more, and we pay the landfill by the ton either way.

Typical Pueblo West ranges we quote:

• Small brush and weed pile, one-quarter truck: $150–$225. Roughly 2 hours of crew time.
• Half-acre lot cleared of tumbleweed, dead shrubs, and scattered debris: $300–$450, usually 3–4 hours.
• Full 1-acre Pueblo West lot after a season of neglect: $500–$900, often two truckloads.
• Rock, concrete, or dirt mixed in: add $100–$250 per ton — this is the single biggest surprise on final invoices.
• Minimum charge: $95–$125. Below that, it's cheaper for you to make one dump run yourself.

Pueblo County disposal fees change; expect roughly $40–$70 per ton for mixed waste at the transfer station, plus a separate rate for clean concrete and dirt. Call and confirm before you plan a DIY run — the fee schedule is not stable year to year.

This matters more than it sounds. Colorado Springs sits around 6,035 feet with roughly 17 inches of annual precipitation and a lot of quarter-acre platted lots. Pueblo West sits near 4,900 feet, gets about 12 inches of moisture a year, and was subdivided into 1-acre and 2.5-acre parcels. You have four times the ground and two-thirds the rain.

The practical result:

• Russian thistle (tumbleweed) dominates. March and April gusts over 50 mph stack it three feet deep against every north and west fence line in the district.
• Puncturevine — goatheads. Seeds stay viable in the soil for four to five years, so one bad summer costs you multiple cleanup seasons. Pulling before the burrs harden in July is worth more than any haul-off in September.
• Cheatgrass cures out by mid-June and becomes fine fuel two months before a Springs yard does.
• Monsoon storms, roughly July 15 through mid-September, drop debris in a single afternoon that took nobody any effort to accumulate.

A Colorado Springs cleanup contractor prices around lawn clippings and aspen leaves. Down here we're pricing around wind-deposited fuel load on an acre of scrub. Different job, different truck, different day.

> If you only do one thing this year, clear the first five feet around your foundation and leave the back forty alone. That five feet is worth more than the other ninety-five percent combined.

Colorado State Forest Service guidance splits your property into three zones: 0–5 feet from the structure (nothing combustible — no mulch, no woodpile, no juniper), 5–30 feet (thinned, mowed under 4 inches, spaced trees), and 30–100+ feet (reduced fuel continuity). On a Pueblo West acre, Zone 1 and Zone 2 are maybe 12–15% of your lot and account for the overwhelming share of structure-ignition risk.

We tell people to spend the budget there. A $350 cleanup focused on the 30 feet around the house does more for you than an $850 cleanup that spreads evenly across the parcel. If your insurance carrier has sent a non-renewal warning letter with photos, bring us the letter — the photos tell us exactly which 200 square feet to attack first.

Related work we handle on the same visit: [yard debris removal](/services/yard-debris-removal-pueblo), [concrete and rock removal](/services/concrete-rock-removal-pueblo), [shed demolition and removal](/services/shed-demolition-removal-pueblo), and [deck and fence removal](/services/deck-fence-removal-pueblo).

This is the section that costs us jobs, and it should.

Don't hire a hauling crew if you own a truck and a free Saturday. A half-ton pickup with a trailer moves 3–4 cubic yards a trip. Three round trips to the transfer station is maybe $60–$90 in tipping fees and four hours of your life. We'd charge $350 for the same material. If your time is worth less than $65 an hour and your back is fine, do it yourself. We're not offended.

Don't hire us for ongoing weed control. We are a removal crew. We haul what's cut and piled. We do not spray, we do not do pre-emergent applications, and we do not mow on a schedule. If goatheads come back in fourteen months — and they will, because of those four-year seeds — that's a landscape maintenance contract, not a junk removal one. Hiring us annually to solve a chemical and timing problem is burning $400 a year on the wrong tool.

Don't hire us in the wrong month. Cleanup in late October is largely wasted; the wind reloads your fence line by April. If your goal is fire mitigation, May and June are the correct window. If your goal is selling the house, do it 10–14 days before photos, not four weeks.

Don't hire us if the property needs grading, not clearing. Washed-out driveways, drainage swales, and settled trenches are equipment work. That's [dirt work and excavation](/services/dirt-work-excavation-pueblo) or [skid steer services](/services/skid-steer-services-pueblo) — different rate, different day, sometimes a different contractor entirely.

Don't expect us to solve an HOA or Metro District citation on 24 hours' notice. We're often booked 5 to 10 business days out in April–June. Emergency same-week slots exist but carry a $75–$150 expedite fee, and in peak season we sometimes can't offer one at any price.

• Weight underestimates. Phone quotes on rock, dirt, sod, and wet debris are wrong more often than they're right. We'll give you a range, and the range can move 20–30% once we see it. Ask for an on-site estimate on anything heavy.
• Access. If our truck can't get within about 75 feet of the pile, labor time roughly doubles. Narrow side gates, soft ground after a monsoon storm, and low power lines are the usual culprits.
• Slope and rock. Plenty of Pueblo West lots have caliche two inches down. Anything requiring digging or stump extraction is not a yard cleanup line item.
• Hidden material. Pressure-treated lumber, railroad ties, tires, paint, and old fuel cans all get separated and priced individually. Tires alone typically add $8–$25 each.
• We are not a recycling program. Green waste in Pueblo County largely goes to the landfill. Some outfits imply otherwise. If diversion matters to you, compost your own brush on-site and hire us only for the inorganic material.

Pile it yourself before we arrive — a homeowner who stacks brush in one accessible spot cuts labor time roughly in half and commonly saves $100–$200. Separate clean concrete and rock from everything else so it goes out at the cheaper mineral rate. Book mid-week; Tuesday and Wednesday are our lightest days. And bundle: a yard cleanup plus a [garage cleanout](/services/garage-cleanout-pueblo) on one truck is meaningfully cheaper than two separate trips.

For coverage boundaries, see [our service areas](/areas); for turnaround times, deposits, and what we won't take, see the [FAQ](/faq).

Bottom line: if you're searching from Colorado Springs, hire local up there — the 45-mile drive down I-25 gets built into any Pueblo crew's price and you'll overpay for it. If you're in Pueblo West and you've got an acre of tumbleweed against the house heading into fire season, that's exactly the job we're built for.