We live in a mathematically illiterate world...

[watervole]

Apparantly I am the first person in three years to query this...

Can you spot the problem?

The skip dimensions don't multiply to give the quoted volume.  The 2.5-3.5m cubed skip actually holds 2.28m cubed. (It's unclear where the length dimension is measured.  If it's the longest point, then the discrepancy is even worse.)

Other skip websites appear to have the same incorrect figures.

You're not allowed to load beyond the top of the wall of the skip.

Comments

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

You're not allowed to load beyond the top of the wall of the skip.

....except that virtually every skip I've ever seen has been loaded above its walls, by the simple expedient of their users sticking in old doors or other large pieces of wood to form new, higher "walls". And next time you look, they've been taken away, presumably as is, because there's never any of the excess load left behind.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

The loading requirement applies particularly to builder's rubble (which is what we have) as there's a risk of it coming off in transit and causing damage.

I'm quoting the restriction, (from the web site) because this obviously means they can't claim that you can get to the quoted volume by piling high.

[temeres.livejournal.com]

I guessed it was probably the volumes. Rough calculation in my head suggested they might be 'about right' but I really couldn't be arsed to fiddle about with a calculator.

I don't think 0.22m^3 amounts to all that much anyway. A couple of brieze blocks, maybe.

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

That's 220 litres or 293 bottles of wine.

[raspberryfool.livejournal.com]

We live in a mathematically illiterate world...

Innumerate, then :-)

I wouldn't have spotted this - numbers and I have never been friends. With words, I get along fine. Although I may have wondered why they state their skips' capacities as variable figures whilst the dimensions are fixed. If the lowest figure is a minimum, shouldn't it be, erm, zero?

Oh well...

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

Of those illiterate ones, I am the worst. Both my dad (was) and my brother (is) mathematicians, I always use a lame excuse that there were not any genes left for me because I am s "late child" (8 years behind my brother). The only consolation - my brother is "language illiterate" !:-)

[winterbadger]

Ha! I saw all sorts of spelling and punctuation errors, but I didn't think to check the math...

[winterbadger]

Although I may have wondered why they state their skips' capacities as variable figures whilst the dimensions are fixed.

Yes. Having had that pointed out, I find it very odd. Didn't occur to me to wonder at it to begin with, though, I admit.

The variable number of black bags I can understand, since different people fill them differently and with different things (some more compressible than others).

But surely something of fixed dimensions ought to have a fixed capacity (even before one gets to the vole-ish point of actually doing the maths and realising that Something Is Not Right...)

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Except that .25 would take you up to their minimum and is nowhere near 3.5 m cubed.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Next time, check out the icon I'm using - it can give a clue...

[sugoll.livejournal.com]

Having not looked at the PDF itself, I wonder: are all the sides the same height? Sides of skips are usually higher than the ends, so the amount you can keep in it will vary according to what it is (bricks can be piled higher; water, less so).

That doesn't let you exceed a volume computed from the highest sides. Although deforming them into something closer to a sphere does. Are we allowed to melt the raw material down and recast it before filling the skip? :-)