Appliance Removal in Orlando, FL

Yes, a dead refrigerator or freezer is the most common appliance call in Orlando, and refrigerant units carry an adjustment that is named in the estimate because the gas inside has to be recovered by a certified technician before the unit is scrapped. EPA Section 608 requires that recovery, holds the final party in the disposal chain responsible for it, and requires that party to keep a signed recovery statement; a sticker on the unit is no substitute. A hauler who takes refrigerators therefore needs a recycler that does the recovery, and the cost of that step is what the adjustment covers. It is the same reason the county truck drives past them.

What the pickup looks like in practice is plain. The crew empties the unit if it has not been emptied, tapes the doors shut or removes them, straps it upright on a dolly, and wheels it out. A chest freezer behind the house on soft ground is a two-person carry and is priced as one. A refrigerator in a second-floor condo kitchen is priced with the elevator or the stairs in the range. Nothing is drained or cut on the property, and the refrigerant stays sealed in the compressor until the recycler recovers it.

A single appliance is priced on its own, and the written estimate carries that number before the dolly comes through the door. HomeGuide's May 2024 price list puts a washer or dryer at $70 to $205 nationally, and Fixr (January 2025) gives a minimum load of about 60 cubic feet, which is roughly one large appliance, at $75 to $125. A refrigerator or freezer sits toward the top of those bands because of the recovery step. Two or three appliances together usually land in the minimum-to-quarter-truck range; a whole kitchen plus laundry pair runs toward a half truck.

What moves the appliance number

Four adjustments cover nearly every appliance job, and each is listed on the estimate before booking.

• Refrigerant: refrigerators, freezers, air conditioners and dehumidifiers, for the recovery step
• Stairs, elevators or a long carry from a back porch or a detached garage
• Weight that needs a third person: commercial units, cast-iron ranges, full-size safes riding along
• Distance to the recycler or to the Young Pine Road landfill from the edge of the county

For a load that mixes appliances with furniture and bags, the crew prices by the fraction of the bed it fills and shows you the bed before and after loading so the fraction on the invoice is the fraction you watched go in. No deposit, card or invoice when the appliance is on the truck and the floor is wiped, and tips are never expected.

Inside the Orlando city limits, a refrigerator, dishwasher, washer or dryer counts as one of the two free large items picked up on your yard waste day, with the refrigerator or freezer doors removed before set-out (orlando.gov). That is the best free route in the metro, and the estimate call starts by asking whether your address qualifies. Unincorporated Orange County households get a weekly three cubic yard large item collection that takes washers, dryers and stoves, but the county program excludes refrigerators, freezers and air conditioners outright because of the refrigerant (ocfl.net). County residents are told to have the delivery company take the old unit or haul it to the landfill themselves.

The self-haul option is cheap if you own a truck and two strong friends: the Orange County landfill on Young Pine Road accepts a refrigerant appliance for the $10 minimum charge. Scrappers also pull metal appliances off the curb for free in most neighborhoods, usually within a day, though a fridge left on the curb is a hazard to children and many HOAs will not allow it.

When the paid pickup is the better call

The paid pickup earns its fee at an unincorporated address with a dead refrigerator, in any kitchen where the appliance has to come up a step or down a flight, and on any day the delivery truck is bringing the new unit and the old one has to be gone before it arrives. It also covers the chest freezer that died behind the house during a power outage with the meat still in it, which no free program and no scrapper wants to touch.

Yes, TVs, monitors, computers, printers and anything else with a circuit board go on the same truck for a separate line item on the estimate, because electronics are routed to a recycler instead of the landfill. Florida has no electronics landfill ban, but Orange County asks residents to keep anything with a circuit board out of the trash cart and bring it to the household hazardous waste sites, and a hauler running a proper route does the same. Rear-projection and tube televisions are heavy and awkward and are priced with that in mind.

For a self-haul, electronics are accepted free from residents at the household hazardous waste drop-off at the Young Pine Road landfill and the Porter transfer station on Good Homes Road, Monday to Saturday, 8am to 5pm. The same drop-off takes the things that stay off the truck: paint, pesticides, propane, fluorescent bulbs, pool chemicals and rechargeable batteries. The dispatcher lists the no-take items at quote time so nothing is left standing in the garage after the truck pulls away.

Orlando is one of the few places where the free curbside program depends on which side of a city line you live on: a city resident can set a doorless refrigerator at the curb for free, and a neighbor a mile away in unincorporated Orange County cannot, because the county program excludes refrigerant appliances entirely. That split is the reason the dispatcher asks for the address before anything else. Washers, dryers and stoves are curbside items in both programs; refrigerators, freezers and air conditioners are where the paid hauler does most of its appliance work.

The housing stock adds to it. The City of Orlando counted 152,600 housing units in the 2023 American Community Survey, with 60.5 percent of occupied units rented, and every turnover of a rented kitchen is a chance for a landlord to swap a failing unit before the next lease starts. Around Kissimmee and the Four Corners area, where Osceola County reports more than 30,000 vacation homes (Experience Kissimmee, July 2026), rental managers replace refrigerators and laundry pairs on a schedule and need the old ones gone between guests.

Hurricane season, June 1 to November 30, produces its own appliance work. A multi-day outage after a storm like Ian in 2022 or Milton in 2024 leaves chest freezers and refrigerators full of spoiled food across the county, and the county storm debris program collects vegetative and construction debris only, and leaves household garbage and appliances where they sit. The storm debris page covers the rest of what the county leaves behind.

Every appliance picked up by the haulers routed from here goes to a metal recycler, because Florida law leaves no other legal destination for it. Florida Statute 403.708(12) bars landfilling white goods, along with lead-acid batteries and used oil, so a refrigerator or washer cannot be buried at Young Pine Road even if someone wanted to pay the tipping fee. At the recycler, refrigerant and compressor oil are recovered by a certified technician under EPA Section 608, the recycler signs the recovery statement, and the steel, copper and aluminum are separated and sold. The EPA's most recent national figures (2018) put major appliances at 5.3 million tons of waste generated in a year, and the metal in them is one of the most reliably recycled streams in the whole system.

An appliance dumped in a retention pond or a wooded lot is a crime under the Florida Litter Law. A refrigerator alone weighs well over the 15-pound threshold, so dumping one is at least a first-degree misdemeanor with a fine up to $1,000, and a load of several or any commercial dumping is a third-degree felony with a fine up to $5,000 (Fla. Stat. 403.413 and 775.083). A hauler who cannot name the recycler is worth a second question.

Two credentials and three plain answers cover an appliance pickup. Florida has no state license for hauling, so the credential to ask about is an Orange County Business Tax Receipt plus liability insurance; the haulers routed from here hold both, and whoever attends can show proof of insurance on request. For refrigerant units, the second thing to ask is which recycler takes the unit and recovers the gas, because the recovery statement lives at that end of the chain.

1. Proof of liability insurance, shown on request.
2. The name of the recycler that takes refrigerant units.
3. The written range, with the refrigerant adjustment and the stairs named, before the dolly comes in.
4. The no-take list repeated at quote time: live gas connections, leaking units, fuel and chemicals.
5. No deposit, and payment only when the appliance is on the truck.

People apologize for the smell of a freezer that died in July as if the crew has never met one. They have. Bring it up on the phone and the crew arrives with bags and tape, and the garage smells like a garage again by the afternoon. The about page explains how the pickup is arranged, and the contact page has the phone number and hours.

Most Orlando pickups mix two or three of these, and the pages below describe the ones that most often ride on the same truck.

• Junk Removal: Mixed household loads priced by the fraction of the truck they fill, agreed before loading.
• Garage Cleanout: From packed to swept in one visit, with the paint and chemicals routed correctly.
• Construction Debris Removal: Drywall, tile, lumber and torn-out fixtures hauled to the one county site that takes them.

Most appliance calls are part of a bigger clearout, and the about page explains how the pieces get priced on one sheet.