Grab & tipper
The lorry reaches over the wall and takes it away.
A grab lorry has a hydraulic arm that loads muck straight off the ground into its own body, reaching over a wall or fence from the road. Nothing is delivered and nothing is left behind: it arrives, loads in about twenty minutes, and leaves with the waste in one visit.
6-Wheeler Grab Lorry
Loaded by grab lorry — no container left on site
- Holds
- ~16 cubic yards
- Capacity
- 12 m³ · 12.5–14 tonnes
Is this the right thing to order?
Sometimes it isn't.
We would rather tell you now than send a lorry that cannot do the job.
- A heap already on the ground — muck away, spoil from a dig, hardcore from a broken-up drive.
- Anywhere you cannot put a container: no room, no permit possible, or a driveway you need to keep using.
- Work where a skip would sit half-empty for a fortnight. A grab is one visit, not a hire period.
- Loose heavy material in bulk. An 8-wheeler takes a payload no skip is allowed to carry away.
- Waste that is not out yet. The arm loads a heap, so anything still inside a building has to be brought out first — that is a skip's job.
- Mixed or bagged rubbish. Grabs take loose, gradeable material; a heap of black bags is a skip or a man-and-van.
- Anywhere the arm cannot see the pile. It reaches over things, not round corners or over buildings.
- Filling gradually over days. Nothing is left on site, so a grab is only worth booking once the muck is there.
How it's priced
What you are actually paying for.
Per load, by wheelbase
You are buying one lorry visit, so the price is per load and the size that matters is the lorry — a 4, 6 or 8-wheeler. Bigger axle count, bigger payload.
No hire period, so no extension
Nothing stands on your ground, so there is no daily rate, no overrun and nothing to collect later. It is the only service here with no hire window at all.
No permit, ever
The lorry stays on the road as a parked vehicle and nothing is placed on the highway, so no council licence is involved. Our booking skips the permit question entirely for grab.
Access & siting
What it needs from your ground.
The thing that stops a delivery on the day is almost never the price. Worth thirty seconds now.
- Corridor width
- ~2.6 m
- Headroom
- ~4.5 m
- The lorry stays on the road and the arm reaches over — so the muck can be behind a wall, a fence or a hedge.
- What it cannot do is reach round a corner or over a building. If the arm cannot see the heap, it cannot load it.
- Nothing stands on your ground afterwards, so there is no permit and nothing to collect later.
Typical figures for UK vehicles, not a specification — reach and length vary by lorry, and the supplier checks against your actual site before the day.
Wherever the site is
Check your postcode.
We arrange every job through the licensed supplier nearest the site.
Check your postcode
Enter your postcode for live prices and the next available dates.
Grab & tipper
Common questions
- How far can a grab lorry reach?
- Around six metres from the side of the lorry for a typical UK grab, and further on some 8-wheelers. That is usually enough to clear a front garden from the road, or to reach over a boundary wall or fence into a yard. What it cannot do is reach round a corner or over a building — if the driver cannot see the heap from the cab side, the arm cannot load it.
- Do I need a permit for a grab lorry?
- No. A permit is for something placed on the public highway, and a grab leaves nothing behind — the lorry is simply a parked vehicle while it loads, usually for under half an hour. That makes it the cheapest way to clear muck from a street where a skip permit would be difficult or expensive to get.
- What can a grab lorry take?
- Loose, gradeable material: soil and subsoil, hardcore and rubble, broken concrete, and green waste. What it cannot take is bagged or mixed household rubbish, because the arm loads by the bucketful and cannot sort. If your heap is bags rather than muck, a skip is the right answer and we will say so.
- How long does it take?
- About twenty minutes on site for a straightforward load, and the lorry leaves with the waste. There is no delivery visit and no collection visit — which is why a grab often beats a skip on a job that would otherwise need a container standing around for a fortnight waiting to be filled.
Get a number, or ask a person.
Both work. Only one of them needs a phone.