Who picks up old appliances in Orlando?

The short answer

Appliance removal in Orlando is flat-priced per unit:

Carry-out is included, including from a garage that has to be navigated around a car, and the per-visit minimum is $75.

Option 1: the retailer takes the old one

If you are buying a replacement, ask about haul-away at the point of sale. It is often the cheapest route, sometimes free with delivery.

The catches are consistent. It normally covers only the one appliance you are replacing, so the second fridge in the garage stays. The delivery crew will usually refuse to take anything not disconnected, and in Orlando that trips people up on laundry: garage laundry hookups here are frequently the original 1970s ones and the shutoff valve is seized. And if the delivery window slips a week, the old unit sits in your garage adding heat and humidity to a room that has plenty of both.

Option 2: a scrapper takes it for free

Put a working washer at the end of a driveway in Pine Hills or Azalea Park and it will be gone inside a day. Metal has value and there are people who collect it.

Two problems. First, refrigerators, freezers and air conditioners contain refrigerant that must be recovered properly before the unit is scrapped, and a pickup truck with a chain is not doing that. Second, the appliance sitting at your curb waiting for someone to come is exactly the thing that generates an HOA letter in Winter Garden, Lake Nona or Horizon West, and a code complaint in the unincorporated county.

Free is only free if it actually leaves.

Option 3: county and municipal options

Most jurisdictions in this metro have some route for large white goods, whether that is a scheduled bulk collection, a drop-off at a county facility, or a recycling arrangement. What it is depends entirely on your address: the City of Orlando, unincorporated Orange County, Winter Park, Kissimmee, Apopka, Ocoee and the Seminole County cities each run their own thing.

Check your own city or county solid-waste page for the current rules and any set-out window. Do not assume your neighbor two miles away has the same service — in this metro the boundary lines are genuinely strange and a single subdivision can straddle one.

Option 4: flat-price pickup

You get the number first, you pick the window, and two people carry it out. A fridge is $164 whether it is in the kitchen, in the garage behind a car, or on the back of a screened lanai where somebody put the beer fridge.

Refrigerant-bearing units are handled through the proper channel rather than being dragged onto a flatbed, which is the part of this you are actually paying for.

The Orlando garage appliance problem

Nearly every house in this metro has a second appliance in the garage, and it is usually the one causing the phone call.

The classic is the beer fridge or the chest freezer bought for hurricane season, kept in a garage that hits well over 100 degrees on a July afternoon. It runs constantly, it fails eventually, and when it fails while you are at work the contents make the garage unusable for a week. By the time it comes out, the seals are moldy and it is heavier than anyone expects.

The other is garage laundry. Washers and dryers here are often in the garage rather than a utility room, and the pair has to come out past a car, over a threshold and down the apron. A stacked pair is $189 for both; separately it is $133 + $128 = $261, so say if they are stacked.

Before the crew arrives

• Empty the fridge or freezer. Everything. The crew will not tilt a unit full of food, and in this heat you do not want it opened on the driveway.
• Disconnect water, gas or power where you can do it safely. A licensed hand is needed for a gas range or a hard-wired water heater.
• Tape doors shut on fridges and freezers so they do not swing on the stairs or in the truck.
• Clear a path. On a slab house that means moving a car out of the garage before the window starts.
• If it has been leaking, put a towel down. Central Florida garages and standing water do not mix well with a two-person carry.

Booking it

Say what it is, where it is and whether it is stacked, built in or freestanding. You get a flat price back before anyone drives out, and you pay once it is on the truck.

If you are timing it around a delivery, book the pickup for the same morning. In this climate an old fridge left on the driveway for a day is a puddle, an insect problem and a neighbor conversation you do not need.

Frequently asked questions