Austin destroys outdoor furniture in a predictable order: UV first, heat second, one hard freeze finishes it. Which material you own decides whether it cleans up like new or has quietly become unsafe. Here's the honest breakdown, material by material, with what each piece costs to remove.
One photo of the set — flat quote, per piece or by the truck, whichever is lower
Upload a Photo & Get Quote →Three forces, stacked. UV exposure across a long high-sun season breaks down polymers and fades finishes. Sustained heat — months of triple-digit afternoons — accelerates every chemical process involved. And then the occasional hard freeze, which arrives rarely enough that nobody prepares for it and does concentrated damage when it does.
The result is that patio furniture here doesn't wear out gradually and evenly. It survives, survives, survives, and then fails — usually in the spring, when you pull the cover off and discover what happened.
What follows is which materials do what, because that's what determines whether you're cleaning something or hauling it.
What happens to it: very little, honestly. The coating chalks and fades, but the metal underneath doesn't rust and the frame stays sound. This is the material most likely to look nearly new after an afternoon of cleaning.
Verdict: clean it, don't haul it. If you're replacing it for style rather than condition, it's genuinely donatable.
If it goes anyway: chair $30, table $89, and aluminum routes to scrap recovery rather than landfill.
What happens to it: rust, starting where you can't see it — inside hollow tubing, under the feet, at welds. Surface rust is cosmetic and fixable; rust that has eaten through a joint is structural, and a chair that fails while someone is sitting in it is the actual risk here.
How to check: tip it over and look at the feet and the underside of the seat frame. Press a screwdriver against any bubbling — if it goes through, the piece is done.
Verdict: restorable if it's surface-only, replaceable once it's structural. It's also heavy, which is why people postpone dealing with it.
If it goes: chair $30, table $89, and the iron goes to metal recovery.
What happens to it: UV makes polymer brittle. A resin chair that looks fine can snap without warning, and the failure mode is a person on the ground rather than a wobble you noticed first.
How to check: flex an arm or a leg. Sound plastic gives slightly; degraded plastic feels rigid and then cracks. Chalky white residue on a coloured chair means significant UV breakdown.
Verdict: this is the category to be least sentimental about. Not donatable once it's brittle — you'd be handing the failure to someone else.
If it goes: chair $30 each, or bundled into a loose pile — small $82, medium $129, large $208 — which is usually cheaper for a stack of resin chairs.
What happens to it: teak goes silver-grey and everyone assumes it's ruined. It usually isn't. The greying is surface oxidation and the wood underneath is generally sound; a clean and an oil brings it back.
What actually kills it: joints. Once the joinery loosens and the piece racks when you push it, the repair is real carpentry.
Verdict: the most over-discarded material on this list. Check the joints before you decide, because greyed teak is worth restoring and worth donating.
If it goes: chair $30, table $89, lounge $82.
What happens to it: fabric fades and weakens, foam absorbs water and never fully dries, and in Austin's humidity that means mildew inside a cushion that looks fine outside.
The honest test: squeeze it. If water comes out or it smells, the foam is done regardless of the cover.
Verdict: not donatable in that state, and worth separating from the frames — plenty of sets have five more good years in the frame and none in the cushions.
If it goes: cushions bundle into a loose pile — $82 small, $129 medium.
What happens to it: the canopy shreds along fold lines from UV, and the crank or tilt mechanism seizes. Both usually happen before anything is wrong with the pole.
Verdict: a canopy can sometimes be replaced; a seized mechanism generally can't be, economically. Cantilever bases are worth keeping if they're the heavy kind.
If it goes: $71, base included.
What happens to it: tempered glass doesn't crack gradually. It holds, holds, and then fails completely into thousands of small pieces, often triggered by an edge chip plus a temperature swing — which is exactly what an Austin freeze after a hot autumn provides.
Verdict: a chipped tempered top is a failure waiting for a trigger. If it's already gone, sweep what you can reach and mention it when booking; the pieces travel much further than people expect.
If it goes: priced with the table at $120. Flag it so the crew brings the right handling.
What happens to them: burners corrode, the firebox rusts through from the bottom, and the regulator ages. A grill with a rusted-through firebox isn't repairable and shouldn't be lit.
The safety point, which matters more than the price: the grill can go on the truck; the propane tank cannot. A full or partially full cylinder is a pressure vessel, and it isn't a paperwork problem — it's a genuine hazard to a crew and a vehicle. Detach it and take it to a propane exchange or a household hazardous waste drop-off.
If it goes: propane grill $71, tank detached beforehand. Tell us it's a propane model when you book.
What happens to them: ash holds moisture against steel, so charcoal units rot from the inside out. A kettle whose bottom vents have rusted away can't control temperature and is effectively finished.
Smokers are the same story at larger scale, and offset smokers are heavy enough that they tend to stay in place long after they stop being used.
If it goes: charcoal grill $59, smoker $65. A propane grill and a smoker together is $183. Make sure everything is fully cold — not "since yesterday" cold, properly cold.
| Item | Flat price |
|---|---|
| Patio chair | $30 |
| Patio umbrella | $53 |
| Charcoal grill | $59 |
| Outdoor lounge chair | $61 |
| Smoker | $65 |
| Propane grill (tank detached) | $71 |
| Patio table | $89 |
| Trampoline (disassembly included) | $116 |
| Swing set (disassembly included) | $143 |
| Loose pile — small / medium / large | $82 / $129 / $208 |
| Brush & dead vegetation, per cubic yard | $88 |
| Hot tub, if the whole corner goes | $322 |
| Order minimum | $75 |
Two useful sums. A dining set — table plus four chairs — is $209. A full set with two loungers and an umbrella is $384, which lands well under the $431 half truck — per-item wins by $10, though the truck would take the grill and the dead plants too. We quote both and charge the lower. Full Austin price list.
Keep or donate. Cleans up better than almost anything. Only haul it if you're changing style.
Keep. Wire-brush and repaint. Structurally fine.
Haul — $30 a chair, $89 a table. Not donatable; it's a collapse risk you'd be passing on.
Keep or donate. The most commonly discarded thing that shouldn't be.
Haul — $30 to $89. The joinery repair costs more than replacement.
Haul. Stack them and use loose-pile pricing from $82.
Haul the cushions, keep the frames. Bundled from $110.
Haul — $79 to $95. Tank off first if it's propane.
Haul, and flag it. Priced with the table at $120.
Haul — trampoline $116, swing set $143, disassembly included. Yard and outdoor clears.
Late winter into early spring is the natural window — before you're looking at it daily, and before the metro's HOA inspection season, which flags deteriorated outdoor furniture as a visible-condition issue in a lot of subdivisions. The spring letter cycle.
Fall is the easiest scheduling of the year if nothing is forcing the date. How timing works here.
Not August. Peak demand across the whole metro, and nobody enjoys carrying furniture across a patio in triple digits.
Before listing photos, if you're selling — a sun-destroyed patio set reads as deferred maintenance in exterior shots. Clear it before the photos.
Judge it by material, not by how old it looks. Greyed teak and chalky aluminum usually clean up; brittle resin and joint-rusted iron are finished no matter how good they look from ten feet. Getting that backwards is how people throw away the good set and keep the one that's going to drop somebody. Check the joints, flex the plastic, squeeze the cushions — then haul what fails, and take the propane tank off before we get there.
Free photo quote — furniture, grills, umbrellas and dead plants together
Upload a Photo & Get Quote →Flat by piece: patio chair $30, umbrella $53, outdoor lounge chair $61, patio table $89. Grills price separately — charcoal $59, smoker $65, propane $71. A dining table with four chairs totals $209. A full set of table, four chairs, two loungers and an umbrella is $384, well under the $431 half truck — so per-item pricing wins on a complete patio.
The grill yes, the tank no. A full or partially full propane cylinder cannot ride on a truck with other material — it's a pressure vessel and a genuine hazard, not a paperwork issue. Detach it and take it to a propane exchange or a household hazardous waste drop-off. Tell us the grill is a propane model when you book so the crew expects to check.
Sometimes, and it depends almost entirely on material rather than age. Powder-coated aluminum and teak that's only greyed can look nearly new after cleaning and are genuinely donatable. Anything with degraded fabric, brittle sun-damaged resin, rust through the metal, or a cracked glass top will be declined — donation centres have condition standards and outdoor furniture fails them faster than indoor furniture does.
Two windows. Late winter into early spring, before you'd otherwise be looking at it every day and before HOA inspection season, which in much of the metro flags deteriorated outdoor furniture as a visible-condition issue. Or fall, when scheduling is easiest all year. Avoid deciding in August — that's peak demand across the whole metro and also when nobody wants to be carrying furniture across a hot patio.
Mention it when you book. Tempered glass patio tops fail suddenly and completely rather than cracking gradually, and a top that's already chipped or has been through a freeze is worth treating as fragile. If it has already shattered, sweep what you can and tell the crew — tempered glass breaks into thousands of small pieces that spread further than expected.
Yes, and it's usually the cheaper way to do it. Furniture, grills, umbrellas, planters, dead vegetation and play equipment can all go in one visit — trampoline $116, swing set $143, and clean brush at $88 per cubic yard. If the total is heading past a half truck we quote truck pricing instead and charge whichever is lower.