PCS move-out cleanouts around Joint Base San Antonio

The short answer

Clear it before the packers come, not after. Household goods shipments are measured by weight, and the allowance is finite. Anything over it is out of your own pocket.

The pricing: 1/4 truck $241, 3/8 $338, 1/2 $431, 5/8 $513, 3/4 $587, 7/8 $661, full truck $732. Single items price flat: couch $126, mattress and box spring set $143, treadmill $115. Minimum per visit is $75.

Confirm your own weight allowance with the transportation office rather than guessing from what someone told you at the last duty station, because it depends on your circumstances and the rules change.

Why the discard happens late, every time

Because the orders arrive, the report date is fixed, and everything compresses. San Antonio's PCS season runs heaviest from May through August, and the whole metro feels it: the rental market around Randolph tightens, movers book out, and every family at Lackland, Fort Sam Houston, Randolph and Camp Bullis is doing the same thing in the same eight weeks.

So the garage gets left until the week of the pack-out, and by then it is too late to sell anything and too late to schedule a donation truck.

The fix is boring: do the discard pass the week the orders land, not the week the packers come. It is the only part of a PCS that is genuinely within your control.

What the packers will not take anyway

Some of this is going to be your problem regardless, so deal with it deliberately.

• Propane cylinders from the grill. Not shipped. Cylinders go to an exchange or a hazardous waste drop-off, and the grill itself is $59 charcoal or $71 propane.
• Paint, solvents, pool chemicals, pesticides, automotive fluids, car batteries. Household hazardous waste, dedicated drop-off only. Check the current accepted list on your city's solid waste page.
• Open food and anything perishable. The pantry sweep is its own bag pile.
• Plants. Not shipped, and with a summer move they would not survive the truck anyway.
• Anything wet or with pests. Which in this climate can include whatever has been sitting on the garage floor.

What is not worth the weight

Be ruthless about the heavy, cheap, replaceable category. That is where the allowance goes.

Particleboard flat-pack furniture is the classic. It is heavy, it has already been disassembled and reassembled once or twice, and it does not survive a third move. Same for the treadmill nobody has used since the second week at this station, the weight set, and the patio furniture that a San Antonio summer has already half destroyed.

Worked examples

The gym corner of the garage: treadmill $115 + weight set $93 = $208, against a quarter truck at $241. Items win.

Add the patio set: $208 + patio table $89 + four patio chairs at $30 each ($120) = $417, against a half truck at $431. Items still win, just.

A whole garage and the leftovers after the packers leave: $431 for a half truck or $732 for a full one.

The quote runs both calculations and charges the lower.

Housing and clearing standards

Whether you are in privatized base housing or an off-base rental, the clearing inspection works the same way: the unit comes back empty and clean, and anything left behind is billed to you at a number you do not get to negotiate.

Off base, the rental clusters are predictable. Randolph families are out through Universal City, Schertz, Cibolo, Converse, Live Oak, Selma and Windcrest. Fort Sam families are across the Northeast side and the older neighborhoods inside the loop. Lackland families are out on the Southwest and far West sides toward Valley Hi and Alamo Ranch.

Many of those are garden-style complexes with exterior stairs and no elevator, or two-story rentals with a stair landing turn. Carry-out from any floor is included and there is no stair charge, so the third-floor unit is the same price as the ground-floor one.

Sequencing the week

• The week orders land: discard pass. Garage, shed, patio, closets. This is when things are still sellable.
• Two to three weeks out: sell and donate. This is also when you book the junk pickup, because May through August is the busiest window in this city and slots go.
• The day before the packers: hazardous materials out, propane cylinder gone, pantry emptied, plants rehomed.
• Day after the packers: the leftovers cleanout. There are always leftovers. Book this separately rather than trying to squeeze it into pack-out day, because a single-width driveway will not take two trucks.
• Before the inspection: final walk, including the attic hatch over the garage.

Incoming rather than outgoing

The same job runs in reverse. Families arriving at JBSA often take over a rental or buy a house with somebody else's leftovers in the garage, and the first weekend turns into a cleanout.

Same pricing: $241 a quarter truck, $431 a half. If it is a house you have just bought out toward Cibolo or the far Northwest side and the previous owner left a garage full, that is usually a half to a full load.

Booking is the same too. Price agreed before the truck is dispatched, no stair charge, no same-day surcharge, disposal included.

Frequently asked questions