How to get rid of a refrigerator in San Antonio

The short answer

Flat prices: standard refrigerator $164, side-by-side or French door $183, mini fridge $115, upright freezer $149, chest freezer $146.

Those include the carry-out, the truck, the disposal, and routing the unit so the refrigerant is recovered by a certified technician. There is no separate fee for any of that.

Minimum per visit is $75. If the kitchen unit and the garage unit are both going, one visit takes both.

Why a fridge is not like other junk

Refrigerant. Federal rules require it to be recovered by a certified technician before the unit is destroyed rather than vented, and compressor oil gets handled the same way.

That single fact explains every frustration people hit with a fridge.

• Scrap haulers will not take it, even though they will happily take the washer standing next to it.
• It cannot go in a dumpster or a general load.
• Curbside collection treats it separately from ordinary bulky waste, with its own conditions.

On a flat-price pickup none of that is your problem, and none of it is a surcharge.

The San Antonio garage fridge

There is a specific unit in this city and you probably have one.

The kitchen fridge gets replaced, the old one still works, and throwing out a working appliance feels wasteful. So it goes into the attached two-car garage as the drinks fridge, which makes complete sense in a city where households host large gatherings and where a garage fridge full of cold drinks is genuinely useful four times a year.

Then it runs in a garage that sits well above 100 degrees for five months. A refrigerator in that environment works constantly against ambient heat it was never designed for, burns power at a rate that shows up on the bill, and dies years earlier than it would have indoors. Eventually it stops cooling, and then it is a 250-pound cabinet full of warm air in the corner of the garage.

That unit is $164, and it is one of the most common single-item calls in the city.

Prep, so the day is quick

None of this changes the price. It just means the crew is in and out.

• Empty it completely, including the freezer and the door shelves.
• Unplug it at least a day ahead and prop the doors open so it defrosts before the pickup rather than on the way to the truck.
• Put towels down. A freezer compartment that has built up ice over years produces a genuine puddle on a garage slab.
• Disconnect the water line if it has an ice maker or a door dispenser. Shut the valve first.
• Clear the path. Measure the doorway if it is coming out of a kitchen. A French door unit is wider than a lot of interior doors and the doors may need to come off, which is part of the job.

The safety point about the doors

If a fridge or a chest freezer is going to sit for any length of time before it is collected, especially in a garage or outside, remove the doors or secure them so they cannot latch shut. An unattended appliance that a child can climb into and that closes behind them is a genuine hazard, and it is the reason this rule exists.

Same for a chest freezer, where the lid is heavy and the seal is good.

If it is being collected promptly and it is inside the house, leave it intact and let the crew handle it. The hazard is the unit sitting abandoned, not the unit in your kitchen.

The other routes

Retailer haul-away on delivery day. The cheapest route that exists. Nearly every appliance retailer in the metro will take the old unit when they deliver the new one for a small fee at purchase. It is delivery-day only, and it is the route that gets missed because the old fridge still works and goes to the garage instead.

Utility programs. Electric utilities sometimes run appliance recycling or efficiency incentives, and inefficient second refrigerators are exactly what those target. Terms change year to year, so check what is currently on offer. If yours is a working garage fridge, this is worth five minutes.

Your bulky-waste window. Refrigerant-bearing appliances usually have their own conditions attached. Read the current rules on your city's solid waste page before you wheel anything to the curb.

Selling it. A working modern unit has value, particularly in late spring and summer when families arriving through Joint Base San Antonio are setting up rentals. A unit that has spent three summers in a garage does not.

Prices and combinations

Kitchen fridge and the garage fridge: $164 + $164 = $328, against a 3/8 load at $338. Item pricing wins.

Fridge and the chest freezer beside it: $164 + $146 = $310, also under the $338 tier.

Fridge, washer and dryer: $164 + $133 + $128 = $425, against a half truck at $431. Items win by $6.

Getting it out of the house

A full-size refrigerator weighs a few hundred pounds, the weight is high and toward the back, and it does not want to go down a step. It is a two-person job with an appliance dolly and straps, and it is the appliance most likely to put somebody's back out or take a chunk out of a door casing.

San Antonio specifics: kitchens in mid-century ranch houses inside the loop often have a tight turn between the kitchen and the hall, and the doorway may be narrower than a modern French door unit. Newer builds out past 1604 are easier on width but often have a step down into the garage.

Carry-out is included in the price and there is no stair charge, so there is no reason to attempt it yourself. Clear the path, prop the exterior door, and let it happen.

Frequently asked questions