Air conditioner disposal in Austin

The short answer

Old AC equipment is priced by type, with no environmental or refrigerant line added anywhere.

An outdoor condenser or heat pump unit is $115. A window unit of 8,000 BTU or more is $109, a smaller one is $87, and a portable floor unit is $85. A furnace, which frequently goes at the same time as a system changeout, is $131. A dehumidifier is $77. The minimum for a visit is $75, so a small window unit at $87 clears it on its own.

Carry-out is included from any floor. That covers getting a window unit down three flights near campus and dragging a condenser out from behind a fence on the side of a house in Allandale.

Why so much of this sits around in Austin

Because of when AC gets replaced here.

Nobody in this city replaces a system in February. It happens in the first genuinely hot stretch, usually somewhere between late April and June, when every HVAC company in the metro is already four hours behind schedule. The install crew gets the new equipment in, gets the house cold, and leaves. The old outdoor unit stays on its pad or gets dragged to the side of the house, and the old furnace or air handler ends up in the garage.

Then it is July, and nobody is doing anything outdoors that is not urgent. So it sits. We collect a great deal of AC equipment in October and November that was replaced in May.

Window units follow the same pattern in the older rental stock - the bungalows and duplexes around Hyde Park, Cherrywood and Bouldin that never got full central air, and the pre-renovation apartment blocks in East Riverside.

Prices

There is no refrigerant fee and no environmental surcharge. Sealed-system handling is inside the item price.

Window units are the Austin volume item

Two moments generate almost all of them.

The first is a renovation. A 1930s or 1940s bungalow in Travis Heights, Hyde Park or Rosedale gets central air retrofitted, and four or five window units come out of the same house in one afternoon. Those houses have nowhere to put them - no basement, a small detached garage if any - so they go to the side yard and stay.

The second is a lease turn. Window units in older rentals get left behind constantly, because they are heavy, awkward, and not worth a tenant's last day in late July. They pile up in the laundry room or the breezeway, and the property has to clear them.

Priced per unit: $109 for a large one, $87 for a small one. Four large ones are $109 + $109 + $109 + $109 = $436, at which point the half truck at $431 is fractionally lower and is what the quote applies.

Worked examples

A system changeout in Crestview. The old outdoor condenser at $115 and the old furnace at $131 comes to $115 + $131 = $246. The quarter truck at $241 is slightly lower, so it books as a quarter truck.

A bungalow retrofit in Hyde Park. Three large window units and a portable: $109 + $109 + $109 + $85 = $412. Still under the half truck at $431, so the itemized price stands.

One window unit from a West Campus walk-up. $109, third floor, no stair charge.

A Steiner Ranch garage clear. An outdoor condenser at $115, a dehumidifier at $77 and a portable generator at $71 is $115 + $77 + $71 = $263. Above the $241 quarter truck, so that tier applies instead.

What to do before we arrive

Not much, and none of it is required.

• Window units: if they are still in the window, leave them there. Getting them out is part of the job and they are more dangerous to handle alone than they look, particularly on an upper floor.
• Outdoor condensers: the refrigerant should have been recovered by the HVAC contractor who removed the system. If the unit was disconnected by a licensed installer, that is already done. Tell us if it was not.
• Line sets and copper: mention them at booking if they are coming out too.
• Access: a condenser tucked behind a gate on the side of a house is normal here. Leave the gate unlocked, or send the code. Long private drives in Westlake, Lakeway and out toward Dripping Springs are fine and do not change the price.

Booking

Type the equipment into the quote box and the total comes back immediately - itemized or by truck tier, whichever is lower. That number holds. Nobody arrives to reassess it and there is no per-unit surcharge added at the door.

If the AC work is part of a wider renovation, add the rest of the debris at the same time. Construction debris is $120, and a small junk pile is $82, a medium is $129 and a large is $208. One visit is almost always cheaper than two.

Frequently asked questions