Who picks up old appliances in Denver

The short answer

Four groups will take an old appliance off your hands in the Denver metro: the retailer delivering the replacement, a scrap or salvage operator, your municipal or contracted hauler under whatever bulky-item rules apply at your address, and a junk removal crew.

Each has a catch. The retailer will usually only take the unit it is replacing, only if it is disconnected, and only if it is on the same floor as the door. Scrap operators want metal, not a fridge with a refrigerant loop and a plastic interior. Municipal programs vary by city and often exclude appliances outright — check your own city or county's current bulky-item page rather than a general answer. We take any of them, from anywhere in the house, at a published price. There is no refrigerant fee.

What each appliance costs with us

A laundry pair replaced together is $133 + $128 = $261. A kitchen going out ahead of a Berkeley pop-top is the standard fridge and the electric range at $164 + $134 = $298. The chest freezer in the garage plus the old fridge in the basement is $164 + $146 = $310.

Denver puts the laundry in the basement

This is the single biggest practical difference between an appliance job here and one in a newer market. In the brick bungalows of Congress Park, Park Hill, Platt Park and Baker, the washer and dryer live in the basement, at the bottom of a steep flight that turns at a landing. Often the original hookups are still down there even after a main-floor laundry was added.

A washer weighs what it weighs and it does not get lighter going up. That stair is also frequently the reason the old pair is still down there years after the new pair was installed upstairs — the delivery crew would not take the old one out, so it stayed. We carry it up. There is no stair charge; a washer is $133 from the basement and $133 from a Highlands Ranch laundry room off the garage.

The swamp cooler changeover

Denver has an appliance category most cities do not. At this altitude and humidity, evaporative coolers genuinely work, so thousands of older homes across Harvey Park, Athmar Park, Virginia Village, Westwood and the north-side neighborhoods have one sitting on the roof or hanging off a side wall. Over the last decade a lot of those households have switched to refrigerated air.

What comes out of that project is a roof-mounted or wall-mounted cooler unit and, on the other side of the job, an old outdoor condenser when the AC itself gets replaced years later. An AC Condenser / Heat Pump (Outdoor Unit) is $115. If the house went from a window unit to central, a Window AC Unit (Large, 8k+ BTU) is $109 and a Window AC Unit (Small, under 8k BTU) is $87.

Roof work is a licensed-contractor job and we do not do the disconnect. Once a unit is on the ground, we take it.

When the retailer take-back actually works

It works well when three things line up: you are buying the replacement from them, the old unit is disconnected and empty, and it is on the same level as the door. That is a reasonable description of a Highlands Ranch or Parker kitchen with a garage entry on the same floor.

It works badly in central Denver. The old fridge is in the basement, the new one is going in the kitchen, and the delivery crew's job is the new one. It works badly for a second appliance — the garage chest freezer the delivery crew has no obligation to touch. And it works badly when the old unit is not the one being replaced at all, which is most of the time, because these things accumulate.

The garage freezer problem

Denver garages hold chest freezers at an unusual rate, and the reason is elk. Fill one in October, live off it through the year, replace it every fifteen years and never remove the old one. The result is a detached alley garage in Park Hill or a three-car garage in Arvada with two freezers in it, one of which has not been plugged in since the Broncos were good.

Empty it before pickup day. A freezer that has been off for a while, in a garage that swings from single digits in January to over a hundred against the south wall in July, is not something anyone wants to open in your driveway. Once it is empty and dry, a Freezer (Chest) is $146 and a Freezer (Upright) is $149.

What to do before the crew arrives

• Disconnect it. Water lines off and drained, gas shut off by whoever is qualified to do it, power unplugged. We are not licensed to disconnect gas or do electrical work.
• Empty and defrost fridges and freezers. In a dry Denver winter this takes less time than you would think; in July, do it the night before.
• Tell us where it is. Basement, second floor, detached garage across a gravel alley — it does not change the price, but it changes the crew and the equipment we send.
• Check the alley in winter. If the truck has to reach a detached garage and a plow berm is across the alley mouth, we will bring it out the front instead. Worth mentioning when you book.

Frequently asked questions