Two grab hire quotes for the same pile in Wembley or Greenford can come back miles apart. The lorry is the same. What changes is how heavy the material is, how the driver gets to it, what the street lets him do, and what is hiding in the pile. Here is what actually moves the price on HA9 and UB6 jobs, and how to make sure the price you are quoted is the price you pay.
Weight, not volume, sets the limit
Most West London grab work is done with an 8-wheel grab lorry, and every quote comes with a tonnage allowance per load. Go over it and you pay per tonne on top. The trap is that contractors measure a pile in cubic metres, while the lorry is limited by weight.
Dry topsoil from a Greenford garden job is light for its size. Wet London clay from a Wembley basement or footing dig is not. The same lorry reaches its weight limit with clay long before it looks full, and that is how one load becomes two.
Soil also bulks up once it is dug. A trench measured in the ground takes up more room in the lorry than it did in the ground, so estimates taken off drawings run short. Ask your supplier what the allowance is, tell them exactly what the material is, and plan for a second load on any clay dig. For the working, see how to calculate grab hire loads for West London groundworks jobs.
Access decides which lorry turns up
A full-size grab is the cheapest way to move muck per tonne. It needs room to park alongside the pile, clear air above for the arm, and a road it can actually get down. Plenty of the wide 1930s streets around Greenford and Perivale are fine. Tight terraces, cul-de-sacs with cars parked both sides, and back-land plots behind houses are where it goes wrong.
If the big lorry cannot get in, a smaller vehicle carries less per trip, so you pay for more trips to move the same tonnage. If the problem only shows up on the day, the driver can refuse the job and you pay for the wasted journey on top.
Before you ask for a price, send photos of the pile, the road outside and anything overhead: cables, trees or scaffold. Keep the pile within reach of the kerb, because the arm only reaches so far. Our grab hire site setup guide covers positioning in detail.
Parking suspensions are where the council cost sits
A grab lorry loading from the road is only there for the collection, so there is usually no skip-style licence to buy. The council cost comes in when the lorry needs a parking bay kept clear for it. Storing material on the pavement or road before collection is a separate matter and needs its own highways licence, so keep the pile on your side of the boundary.
HA9 is Brent. Brent charges £67 per bay per day if you apply more than 14 days ahead, and adds £133 if you apply inside 14 days. You need to apply at least 7 working days in advance, and cancelling an approved suspension costs £101. If the lorry only needs to stop on a yellow line, Brent's dispensation costs £38 per vehicle per day on a single yellow and £73 on a double, for a maximum of four hours.
UB6 is Ealing. Ealing charges £39 per bay per day if you apply at least 7 working days ahead, or £50 per bay per day at 3 working days, which is the minimum notice. A bay is 5 metres long, so a full-size grab lorry usually needs more than one. Ealing will not refund a correctly signed suspension if someone parks in it anyway.
Wembley has one more catch. Stadium event days bring their own parking restrictions around HA9, so check Brent's event day information before booking a collection anywhere near the stadium.
Book the suspension before you book the lorry. In Brent, applying late costs £133 more for exactly the same bay.
Waiting time
Grab lorries run several collections a day. If the pile is not ready, the access is blocked, or the driver is stood waiting for someone with the site keys, most suppliers charge for waiting time. Ask what the rate is and how much free time is included when you book, then have everything ready before the lorry is dispatched.
What is in the pile
Grab prices assume clean inert material: soil, hardcore, brick and concrete. Anything else changes the disposal route and the cost. Timber, plastic, cable and packaging mixed into a muck pile can get the load refused or surcharged at the transfer station. Plasterboard cannot go in with soil or hardcore and has to be collected separately, as explained in can you put plasterboard in a mixed waste skip. Asbestos is never a grab job. Brownfield and former industrial plots are worth a proper look before you assume the ground is clean.
Walk the pile before the lorry arrives and pull the obvious contaminants out. Ten minutes on site costs less than a refused load. For why transfer stations are so strict, read what happens to your muck after the grab lorry leaves.
How to get a grab hire price that holds
- Tell your supplier exactly what the material is, and whether it is wet.
- Send photos of the pile, the road and anything overhead.
- Confirm the tonnage allowance per load and the rate over it.
- Confirm the waiting time rate and how much free time is included.
- Book any bay suspension or dispensation with Brent or Ealing before you book the lorry.
- On big digs, plan the loads across your programme rather than paying for reactive call-outs.
Grab hire in Wembley and Greenford with WasteHub
Send us photos of the pile and the access, a what3words pin and what the material is. We come back with a per-load price for your HA9 or UB6 job, and we flag anything that could add cost, such as weight, access or a suspension, before the lorry is booked rather than on the invoice.
One contact for grab hire, skip hire and RoRo bins. Text or call to book. Waste transfer notes and invoices go into your shared Drive folder when the job is done, so there is nothing to chase.