Is anything still standing, still hanging, or leaning on a roof? Then a tree service goes first, and we will say so on the phone rather than at the curb. There is no chainsaw crew here, no climbing gear and no stump grinder — different trade, different license.
The first question after a storm is usually the cheapest one: will the city take it? Charlotte runs a weekly curbside yard-waste collection, and the answer turns almost entirely on how the material is cut and stacked. The dimensions below are not advice. They are the specification the program is built around, and a heap outside them is a heap that gets driven past.
You may have typed storm debris removal charlotte to get here, or tree limb and brush removal charlotte nc. Both name the same driveway: green wood that was a tree on Tuesday, and a trash day that is not going to touch most of it.
Read the sentences together and the shape of the afternoon appears. Five feet is a short limb. Four inches is about a wrist. A limb off a mature willow oak is longer and thicker than both, several times over, and the trunk sections cut to free a driveway are past the log line before they hit the ground. That is not a complaint about the program — a weekly truck with a claw has to be built to some specification. It just means the big half of a storm heap was never inside it.
There is a second rule that catches storm material, and it surprises people because it is not about how much of it there is. It is about when the heap goes to the curb and how it is stacked when it gets there — and after a storm the answer to “when” is usually “the same evening, in the dark, while the adrenaline is still up.”
The City's guidelines page describes this as a “minimum $150 citation.” The controlling instrument does not say minimum. It sets one amount, three separate times, and the subsection everybody quotes is not the one most likely to catch a storm reader.
api.municode.com/CodesContent?jobId=486645&nodeId=PTIICOOR_CH10HESA&productId=19970, HTTP 200), and the City Clerk's copy of the ordinance as adopted: Ordinance No. 9151, September 11, 2017 (charlottenc.gov) — “AN ORDINANCE REPLACING CHAPTER 10 OF THE CITY CODE, ENTITLED HEALTH AND SANITATION,” effective January 1, 2018, with Sec. 10-115 at Ordinance Book 60, Page 015, Exhibit A page 14. Both were read rather than a brochure, because a brochure is not the instrument that sets a penalty. This is a City of Charlotte ordinance and it governs the city's curb, not a county facility. Text checked September 2026. Ordinances change.
For a storm heap, (b) and (c) are the two with teeth. Subsection (a) is the early set-out everybody has heard of — the mistake made the night of the storm rather than the night before collection. Subsection (b) is the one that catches the aftermath: material still at the curb at 11:59 p.m. on collection day is the homeowner's again, and after a bad night the truck does not always clear a street in one pass. Subsection (c) points back at the dimensions in the first fact above, because “properly prepare” is the ordinance's phrase for meeting the program's set-out rules.
How any of that reads against a particular curb is the City's call and not ours. We quote the section and link two copies of it so it can be read whole; we do not apply it. The only practical line on this page is the plain one: stack it the day before your collection day rather than the night of the storm, and clear whatever the truck refused instead of leaving it out. If it has already been refused and it is already out, that is the afternoon we exist for.
Past the curbside limits there are two ways out: a vehicle of your own and a county gate, or a crew. Both deserve pricing, so here is the gate — and note that this is Mecklenburg County, a different authority from the city rules above, running its own sheet.
Two numbers on that sheet decide most storm heaps. Four inches is where a log stops being a flat fee and starts being a weigh-in — the same four inches the City uses at the curb, reached independently by a different authority for a different reason. Twenty-four inches is where an ordinary center stops taking the log at all. If a mature trunk has already been sectioned in the backyard, those rounds are very likely on the wrong side of both lines, and the family car with the seats folded down is not the vehicle for them.
Our own figure comes off the published rate card on the home page once we know roughly what is on the ground. A photo of the heap is usually enough to price it.
This is the part worth reading twice, because it is where storm calls most often go to the wrong company.
704junk hauls debris that is already down. Limbs on the lawn, brush dragged into a heap, rounds somebody has already cut, a fence panel the wind folded, a shed roof out of the bushes, the soaked contents of a garage. The crew loads what is lying there and takes it away.
We are not arborists and we do not pretend to be. Taking down a standing tree, freeing a limb hung up in a canopy, sectioning a trunk that is still holding weight, grinding a stump out of a lawn — every one of those is a licensed tree service's work, it needs equipment we do not own, and it happens before our truck is any use. Plenty of Charlotte tree companies do exactly the cutting and leave the wood where it falls, because hauling is quoted separately. That is the heap we come for.
One thing the City's guidelines settle on their own account: “Tree stumps will not be collected.” Read that for what it is — the City saying its curbside truck will not pick up a stump. It is a separate fact from ours, which is simply that pulling or grinding a stump out of the ground is not work 704junk does, at any price. Book the tree service for the stump, then call us for the rounds, brush and cut wood they leave lying on the lawn — that part is already down, and it is exactly what our truck is for.
If you are not sure which company you need, describe it or send a picture and we will tell you straight — including when the answer is “a tree service first.” Text a photo or call (704) 459-5052.
Storms arrive on their own schedule in this county, and the rest of the calendar does not wait for them. The same crew and the same truck do everything else: furniture, appliances, mattresses, garage and attic clutter, estate and rental cleanouts, office furniture, sheds and hot tubs, and ordinary household loads with nothing dramatic behind them at all. Debris after a storm is one line on that list, not a separate company.
The full item list and the published rate card are on the home page. If the question is where the material actually ends up once it leaves, that is the Mecklenburg County disposal explainer; if a whole property has to be emptied rather than a yard, start at cleanout services.
Our refusal list is short and it exists for regulatory reasons: wet paint, oils, fuels, chemicals, asbestos, medical or biohazard waste, and ammunition cannot go on the truck at any price. Storm heaps collect odd things — a can of two-stroke mix that came out of a flooded shed, a split bag of fertilizer — so mention it when you reach out. We work around those and take the rest.
The City's dimensions, the ordinance behind the citation, the county's gate price, and the line between a tree service and a hauler.
Some of them. Charlotte's yard-waste guidelines state that “Limbs must be no longer than 5 feet in length and no larger than 4 inches in diameter,” that “Logs must be under 4 inches in diameter,” and that limb piles should be “no longer than 5 feet long and 3 feet high” with “2 feet in between each pile.” A storm heap normally contains material on both sides of those limits: the small stuff is inside the program and the trunk sections generally are not. The guidelines page is linked and dated above.
The City's guidelines page uses the word minimum. The ordinance does not. Charlotte City Code Sec. 10-115 sets a civil penalty “in the amount of $150.00” in each of its three subsections — for setting material out more than one day before the scheduled collection, for failing to clear the curb by 11:59 p.m. on the day of scheduled collection, and for failing to properly prepare or containerize. We quote the ordinance because the ordinance is the instrument that sets a penalty, and both copies we read are linked above. How it applies to any particular curb is the City's call, not ours.
On Mecklenburg County's FY July 2026 – June 2027 residential sheet, under five 32-gallon bags of yard waste is No Charge; more than five bags of grass, leaves or brush is $8.00/unit; and once the load is weighed, limbs and brush are $42.00/ton with an $8.00 load minimum. Logs up to 4 inches in diameter are a flat $8.00/unit under one cubic yard, larger logs are weighed at $42.00/ton, and loads of logs over 24 inches in diameter have to go to Compost Central or Foxhole. Those are county drop-off prices at a county facility — they are not a City of Charlotte collection charge. The PDF is linked and dated above.
No. 704junk hauls what is already on the ground. Felling a standing tree, cutting a hung-up limb out of a canopy and grinding a stump are a licensed tree service's work and they happen before our truck arrives. Many tree companies leave the wood where it falls because hauling is quoted separately — that is precisely the heap we are for.
Usually, but tell us what is actually out there first. If anything is still standing, still hanging in a canopy, or resting on a structure, we will ask you to get a tree service in before us — putting a hauling crew under a hanging limb is not a favor to anybody. Once it is all on the ground and safe to walk around, we book it like any other job.
No. The truck is full-service the rest of the year: furniture, appliances, mattresses, garage and attic clutter, estate and rental cleanouts, sheds, hot tubs and office furniture, plus ordinary household loads. Storm debris is one line on the list. The rate card and item list are on the home page.
Text a picture of what is on the ground, or just describe it. We come back with a number off the published rate card — and if it needs a tree service before it needs a truck, we will say that instead.