An old stove parked on the back porch, a freezer in the basement nobody has opened in years.
Appliance removal in Chicago is almost never about the appliance. It's about the doorway it has to come back out through, and no fridge has ever gotten smaller since the day it went in. A side-by-side can run three hundred pounds with the doors still on, and those wooden back stairs weren't built with that in mind. We take fridges, ranges, washers and freezers out of houses, condos and rentals across the city and the nearer suburbs.
Doors come off, jambs get padded, and the unit gets carried, not dragged down a tread. Refrigerator removal means the sealed cooling system goes to a recycler licensed for refrigerant, never the alley. Park it out there and you've bought yourself a ticket.
Below: how it's done, what changes the price, where we work, and what people ask before they book. Or call and we'll come look at the stairs.
Appliance Disposal
Appliance disposal runs through our demolition company the same way concrete and framing lumber do: sorted, weighed, and hauled to a place that will actually take it. Anything with a sealed system gets handled first, so refrigerator freon removal happens before the shell ever goes on the scale at the metal recycler. Stoves, dryers, window units and dishwashers are mostly steel, so very little of what we load should end up buried.
Nobody on my crew leaves a unit parked in the alley behind your garage waiting for a scrapper who may never come. That's a citation with your address on it, and the city does check.
Unit count, how many flights of stairs are between the machine and the curb, and whether refrigerant has to be recovered are what change what appliance removal takes, in time and in money both.
Large Appliance Disposal
Large appliance disposal is the half of this job nobody watches, and it's the half that decides whether the thing ever comes back to bite you. A dead washer is mostly steel, so it goes to scrap rather than a landfill. Ranges, dryer cabinets and dishwasher shells go the same way once the glass, plastic drum liners and wiring get split off at the transfer station.
Set a fridge out by your cart and Streets and San will write you up for it. Worse is handing it to a cheap hauler who tips it behind a vacant lot, because your address is usually still on a warranty sticker inside the door.
Weight and count move an appliance disposal job more than anything on the truck. Two units out of a first floor kitchen is quick work. Six out of a rear stairwell, with a dishwasher still plumbed in, is not.
Refrigerator Removal
Refrigerator removal is the appliance removal call most likely to leave a mark on the house it's leaving. A full-size unit is three hundred pounds of steel with the compressor down low, and the one in your basement got carried down when everybody involved was younger and dumber.
We shut the copper icemaker line off and drain it before the fridge moves an inch, because a saddle valve snapped behind the unit will show up on the ceiling underneath by dinner. Doors come off when the stairwell turn is tight. It goes out strapped to a stair dolly, with blankets on the jambs and the banister.
What changes the job is which floor it sits on, how tight that turn is at the bottom, and whether the truck can get down the alley. Washer dryer removal the same day is one trip.
Refrigerator Freon Removal
Refrigerator freon removal is the part of appliance removal nobody thinks about until the scrap yard sends the truck back. The refrigerant in that sealed system has to be pulled with a recovery machine off the process tube, not let go into the alley, and the unit gets tagged once it's out.
Older boxes hold R-12, most of what we pull is R-134a, and a lot of the smaller newer units run isobutane, which is flammable and gets handled its own way. Recovery on one fridge is about twenty minutes of work.
Skip that step and the fridge comes right back to your garage, because transfer stations won't take an untagged unit and a punctured line is a fine waiting to happen. Unit count, whether somebody already cut the compressor out, and the stairs between the kitchen and the truck all change what an appliance pick up like this runs.
Dishwasher Removal
Dishwasher removal looks like a ten-minute job until you get your head under the sink. There's a supply line on a shut-off valve that hasn't turned since the Clinton administration, a drain hose looped into the garbage disposal, and usually a hardwired pigtail feeding a junction box behind the toe kick.
We kill the breaker, close the valve, catch the water still sitting in the sump, and back out the mounting clips screwed up into the underside of the counter before the unit slides anywhere. Yank it cold and you snap a brass angle stop or shear the disposal fitting, and now you need a plumber on top of an appliance removal.
Flooring laid in after the dishwasher went in is the thing that adds real labor, along with walking the old box out through a narrow galley kitchen. Stove removal on the same trip costs less than two visits.
Appliance Pick Up
Appliance pick up means we come to where the thing actually sits, not where you managed to shove it. Basement laundry room, third-floor back porch, the corner of the garage behind the snowblower. We show up with appliance dollies, ratchet straps and moving blankets, pop a fridge door off its hinges when the unit won't clear the frame, and lay hardboard down over finished floors and stair treads.
The pick ups that go badly are the DIY ones: two guys, one bath towel, and a gouge in the doorjamb that costs more to fix than the appliance removal did.
Stairs change the price on this more than weight does, along with how many units you've got and whether the truck can nose into the alley or has to sit half a block up. Once it's strapped in, appliances disposal is on us.
Washer Dryer Removal
Washer dryer removal is mostly plumbing and stairs, not muscle. We close the shutoff, pull the supply hoses into a bucket, and tip the drum so whatever water is still sitting in the bottom goes to the floor drain instead of down your stair treads. On a gas dryer we shut the valve at the unit and cap it, then pull the vent off the wall.
Front loaders are the heavy ones, with a concrete counterweight bolted inside the cabinet, so those come out on straps over a runner rather than getting dragged across your oak.
What changes the price is which floor the laundry sits on, how tight the turn at the bottom of the stairs is, and whether a stacked pair has to be split first. Of all the appliance removal we do, laundry sets are the ones people wreck their backs on. The steel goes to a scrap yard, which is where appliances disposal ought to end.
Stove Removal
Stove removal starts at the gas line, not the stove. A freestanding range sits on a flex connector behind it, and that stub in the wall gets shut off and capped before the range tilts out of its slot. Electric ranges are a heavy cord at a 240-volt outlet, simpler, though a forty-year-old cast iron range is still a two-person lift either way.
We take the door and the racks off first, which sheds a good chunk of the weight, and we put protection down over hardwood before anything slides. A range dragged bare across a finished floor leaves gouges the refinisher gets paid to fix. Built-in wall ovens and drop-in cooktops run slower because we're working around cabinet boxes and counter edges. Stairs, built-in units and a live gas feed all push the number up.
The steel goes to scrap, same as the rest of our large appliance disposal.
Large Appliance Removal
Large appliance removal is mostly a physics problem with a staircase in the middle of it. A chest freezer runs a couple hundred pounds, a full water heater more, and neither one bends around a landing. So we measure the doorway before we lift anything, pull the door off its hinges when the jamb is tight, blanket the treads and the newel post, and strap the unit to a stair-climbing dolly instead of walking it down on its corners.
Skip that and you get gouged plaster at every turn, a chipped tile at the bottom of the stairs, and a scraped railing you'll be looking at for years. Two people minimum on anything wider than a back door.
Price follows the path more than the poundage: flights of stairs, how far the back steps sit from the alley, and whether the appliance removal starts with us capping a live line.
What the job involves
Most appliance removal starts with the disconnect: water line capped, gas valve shut and the fitting plugged, cord pulled, then the unit strapped to a four-wheel dolly and walked out. We put board or blankets down on hardwood and pad the door casings first, because the damage on this work is rarely the appliance. It's the newel post that catches a washer on the way down, or a stair tread nobody had tested with three hundred pounds on it.
The price follows the walk, not the weight. A kitchen ten steps from the alley door is one thing, a chest freezer in a back basement corner with a turn in the stairs is another, and a whole kitchen's worth of large appliance removal means more trips than a single unit does.
What it costs
What appliance removal costs at your place comes down to where the thing sits and how many of them there are. One dead washer in an attached garage is the easy end. A cast-iron range down in a basement with a turn in the stairs, or a side-by-side refrigerator on a third floor in a building with no service elevator, means two guys, straps, and real time on the clock, so it prices higher.
Old units still holding water weigh more than anybody expects. If a gas line or a water supply needs capping first, mention it when you call. Putting three or four pieces into one trip costs less per item than sending us back a second time. Call us with the floor it lives on and whether we can get to the alley, and we can put a figure on it. Weight, stairs and count are most of the math.
When appliance removal is the wrong fix
Sometimes appliance removal is the wrong call, and I would rather say that on the phone than turn up with a dolly for one dead range. If the garage it's sitting in has a sagging roof and a rotted sill plate, paying to walk a freezer out of it first is money thrown away; garage demolition takes the building and its contents in one pass.
Same story with a backyard shed holding a rusted chest freezer and forty years of yard tools, where shed removal is the cheaper order of operations. Gutting a whole house back to the studs is residential demolition, and the kitchen goes out with everything else. Clearing a trailer off a lot is mobile home demolition. And if an old gravity furnace is tied into a crumbling flue, chimney removal belongs in the same plan.
Why choose us for this
You have a dead unit sitting where you want your floor back, and what you actually want is appliance removal done once, by one crew, without supervising anybody.
The number I give you standing next to the thing is the number on the invoice. How many units, how many stairs, and whether the truck can get near the back door or the alley is what moves it, and I ask all of that before I say anything at all. I also will not start your job, park the washer halfway up the landing, and vanish onto another one until tomorrow.
The best part of 34 years doing this, and nobody has ever remembered which crew was cheapest. They remember whether the thing was actually gone. The estimate costs nothing and nothing gets booked until you say so.
Frequently asked questions
What changes the price of appliance removal?
Mostly where the unit sits and how it gets out. A dryer on the ground floor beside a wide door is quick work. A chest freezer at the bottom of a back staircase with a turn in it comes out in stages, on a dolly, with two of us on it. Count matters too, and so does whether there's refrigerant to recover or a gas shutoff behind the stove to cap.
Will you tear up my door frames and stairs getting it out?
No. Fridge doors come off before the box moves, the jamb and the stair nosing get padded, and nothing gets skidded across a finish floor. A 36-inch side-by-side will not clear a 30-inch opening with the doors still hung on it.
Is this just hauling?
Not the same job. A hauler takes what you drag out to the alley. We disconnect the water line, the vent or the shutoff, then carry it from where it stands.
Contact Chicago Demolition now
Ready to book appliance removal? We're here weekdays, nine to five. Leave a message if we're on a job and we call back.
Tell me three things when you reach us: what the unit is, what floor it's sitting on, and whether there's alley access or only the front stairs. A fridge coming down from the third floor of a three-flat with a tight turn in the stairwell needs four hands and a stair dolly. One in an attached garage needs two guys and about twenty minutes. That answer alone decides how I schedule the truck and the crew.
Mention too if the water line is still hooked up or the gas is live, so we arrive with the right tools instead of hunting your basement for a shutoff. Licensed, bonded and insured, with the certificate available if you ask.