Coates Hire  supplied and installed a rubbish chute at a top-floor apartment for quick and efficient disposal of old building materials from the renovation project.

Amber Cutajar and Daniel Fawcett purchased their first home, a top-floor apartment in a four-storey block in the Sydney suburb of Monterey, and immediately began planning some DIY renovations.

Beginning with the bathroom, the couple soon expanded their renovation plan into a complete home makeover, which included changing the flooring to timber tiles throughout, laying new carpet in the bedrooms and tiles on the balcony, renovating a complete bathroom, adding LED downlights throughout, painting the apartment, setting up a home media hub, and rewiring the apartment to allow full connectivity.

The couple soon faced the problem of disposing of the rapidly-growing pile of old building materials quickly and efficiently, without causing undue mess in the common area of the block or disrupting their neighbours. The rubbish amounted to about three cubic metres comprising of carpet, balcony tiles, bathroom tiles and concrete.

A friend in the waste management business recommended Australia's leading equipment hire company, Coates Hire. Following a brief phone consultation with the Coates Hire crew, it was agreed that a rubbish chute system with a top hopper and window bracket was the perfect solution.

Coates Hire Area Product Specialist – Lift & Shift, Propping, Brouke McLachlan, who was assigned to the job, inspected the site and measured the space for the garbage chute. He explains that rubbish chutes are designed to get building material down in a safe and controlled manner. In this particular instance, an 880mm-wide window bracket was used with the rubbish chutes hanging from the actual window bracket. The top hopper was placed on the top chute to prevent any debris from going over the side or top.

The chute system in question also proved cost-effective for the couple, eliminating the need to hire additional labour to remove the garbage and clean the carpets in the common area of the stairwell.

However, when Brouke and the Coates Hire installation team arrived to set up the system, they faced an unforeseen problem. He had identified the balcony as the right location to install the rubbish chute at the initial site inspection. On installation day, he realised that the customer had chipped away the existing tiles and some concrete from the balcony, making the double brick wall not as stable as it was originally.

They quickly decided to install the garbage chutes out the bedroom window, around the other side of the building. The rubbish chutes were installed, used and dismantled all within about 30 hours to the satisfaction of the clients.

Key features of Coates Hire rubbish chutes:

  • Designed for safety with lockable covers and anti-spill barriers
  • Securable to the floor
  • Made from high density polyethylene
  • Extra strong and very versatile
  • Quick installation and dismantling
  • Capable of being mounted on a number of applications, including worksites and high rise constructions
  • Available with a scaffold bracket to be hung from a steel scaffold, and a slab bracket, designed to be dyna-bolted into concrete