How to get rid of appliances in Salt Lake City

The price list

A basement laundry pair is $133 + $128 = $261. A full kitchen swap of fridge, gas range and dishwasher is $164 + $137 + $109 = $410. The minimum visit is $75, so a single fridge at $164 is well clear of it.

Retailer haul-away only exists on delivery day

If you are buying a replacement, take the haul-away. It is the cheapest route by a distance and it is a genuinely good offer. But understand what it is: a one-time window attached to a specific delivery, for the same type of appliance, usually requiring the old unit to be disconnected and accessible when the truck arrives.

It fails in this valley for one reason above all others — the old unit is in the basement. Delivery crews routinely will not carry an appliance up a flight of stairs, and in Salt Lake the washer, dryer, water heater and second freezer are almost always downstairs. It also does nothing for the garage fridge you are not replacing, or the range you pulled out during a kitchen remodel three months before the new one shipped.

Miss the window and the offer is gone. That is when the appliance gets moved to the garage, and then it is there for two years.

Refrigerant: handled, never charged for

Refrigerators, freezers, window and portable air conditioners and outdoor condensers all contain refrigerant. It has to be recovered by someone certified before the shell can be scrapped — that is a federal requirement, not a company policy, and it is the reason your bin service will not take a fridge.

We do that as part of the job. There is no refrigerant fee, no reclamation charge, no environmental surcharge and no weight fee. A standard refrigerator is $164 and that is the whole number. If a quote arrives with an appliance price and a separate freon line added afterwards, that is a pricing choice, not a legal necessity.

The Salt Lake appliance job, specifically

Three patterns show up here over and over.

• Basement laundry and a basement water heater. Standard in the post-war ramblers across Rose Park, Glendale, Murray, Kearns and Taylorsville, and in most of the pre-war stock as well. Everything comes up a narrow staircase, and in the older houses it turns at the bottom.
• The second freezer. A great many Utah households keep an upright or chest freezer in the basement or the garage for bulk storage. When it finally fails it is full, heavy, and at the bottom of the stairs it went down in 1998.
• Cooling conversions. Plenty of homes in this valley ran evaporative coolers for decades and have since moved to central air. That leaves an outdoor condenser to remove, at $115, and often a pair of window units that have not been in a window since. A small window unit is $87 and a large one is $109.

None of those carries a stair or access charge. The published item price is the price.

Prep, in order

1. Empty and defrost a fridge or freezer a full day ahead. A freezer that thaws in transit makes a mess of the truck and of your hallway.
2. Shut off the water to the washer and dishwasher, disconnect the hoses and let them drain into a bucket. Old valves in older homes sometimes will not close — if that happens, say so when you book rather than forcing it.
3. Gas gets disconnected by someone qualified. Gas ranges, gas dryers and gas water heaters need the line capped properly before removal. Electric units just need unplugging at the outlet or isolating at the breaker.
4. Drain the water heater if you can. A full tank is a great deal heavier than an empty one and this is the one item where that genuinely matters on a staircase.
5. Clear the route. Basement stairs, the side entrance, the garage apron. In winter, shovel and salt it.
6. Measure the narrow point if you know the fridge was a tight fit going in. It tells the crew whether the doors come off.

What not to do

Do not put a fridge or freezer on the park strip to wait for someone to take it. Beyond the legality, a unit with doors on it left outside is a safety issue where there are children, and a unit that sits through a Salt Lake winter takes snowmelt into the compressor housing and becomes a worse problem than it was.

Do not let a scrapper cut the lines out on your driveway either. Venting refrigerant is exactly the thing that is regulated, and it is being done at your address. If you use a free pickup, use one that will tell you where the unit goes.

Booking it

Pick your appliances on the pricing page, add anything else that is going while you are at it, and the total builds as you go. Choose a window, get a text when the crew is on the way, and approve the number before anything is dispatched. Two people arrive, handle the carry, and the metal, the refrigerant and the shell go to the right places.

If a kitchen or a laundry room is being redone, book the appliances and the debris in the same visit. Fridge $164 + dishwasher $109 + a large junk pile of cabinet doors and offcuts at $208 is $164 + $109 + $208 = $481, against a half truck at $431 — so in that case you book the half truck instead. Price it both ways every time.

Frequently asked questions