The kitchen fridge that quit in the middle of July, or the second one that's been humming in the garage since 2011. We unplug it, walk it out, and haul it — flat $221 for a standard refrigerator, $246 for a large French-door unit — with the refrigerant recovered by a certified process before disposal and the steel recycled. Often the same day. No Arizona sales tax on the service.
One photo of the unit. Exact price back in seconds.
Upload a Photo & Get Quote →Snap the fridge where it stands — kitchen, garage, patio, laundry room. The flat number comes back in seconds, refrigerant handling already inside it.
Same-day is usually open across the Valley. Book it against your delivery slot so the new fridge arrives and the old one leaves within the same few hours. June through September we run early.
Doors off if the doorway is tighter than the unit, straps on, hand truck under it. Then certified recovery of the refrigerant, and the shell goes to metal.
One flat number per unit, quoted from your photo, with nothing conditional attached to it. What moves the price is size and weight, not the drive or the difficulty: a mini fridge is a two-hand lift, a French-door unit is a two-person carry on straps. Every price below already contains the walk-out, the refrigerant recovery and the disposal.
| Unit | Flat price |
|---|---|
| Refrigerator — standard top-freezer or bottom-freezer | $221 |
| Refrigerator — large side-by-side / French-door | $246 |
| Mini fridge / dorm or beverage fridge | $155 |
| Chest freezer | $196 |
| Upright freezer | $201 |
| Washer — if the laundry pair goes too | $179 |
| Dryer — if the laundry pair goes too | $172 |
The $75 minimum applies to any order but never binds on a fridge — a single refrigerator is well past it, and even a $155 mini fridge clears it on its own. The two most common Valley combinations are a fridge plus a chest freezer out of the same garage and a fridge plus the old laundry pair after a house sale. Items simply add up — no trip charge, no fuel surcharge, and no Arizona sales tax on the service — with one break worth knowing: a washer and dryer booked together is $225 rather than $179 + $172 separately. Everything else with a compressor in it is priced on the appliance removal page.
Third-party benchmarks, so you can place that $221: LoadUp, a national flat-rate service, advertises refrigerator pickup from about $130 — a curbside number, meaning the kitchen-to-curb portion is yours. Independent 2026 surveys of this metro put an average junk-removal job at roughly $226–$237, which is about what a single fridge costs here done end-to-end.
| Option | Cost | Speed | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| City of Phoenix bulk trash appointment | Free | Up to ~3 business days out | The program is for uncontained trash and is capped at 4 collections a year. A sealed refrigerant system isn't ordinary bulk, and you'd still be walking a 250-pound appliance to the curb and leaving it there. |
| Retailer haul-away with a new delivery | Free or a per-item fee, varies | Delivery day only | Requires a matched new fridge on the same truck. Crews decline stairs, garages and "the second one" all the time — and if you bought the new fridge online or used, it isn't on the table at all. |
| Scrapper from a marketplace ad | Free, sometimes they pay you | Unpredictable — if they show | They want the steel and the compressor, not the obligation. Refrigerant gets vented rather than recovered, which is exactly what the federal rule exists to prevent, and the door often comes off in your driveway. |
| Self-haul it | $55/ton gate rate + a truck | Half a day | Your drop-off is the 27th Avenue or North Gateway transfer station — the city's SR-85 Landfill takes no walk-up public loads. That assumes a pickup truck and a second set of hands, because a refrigerator fits in essentially no sedan or SUV and should travel standing up. |
| JunkRabbit | $221 flat | Same day | None — carried out of the room it's in, refrigerant recovered, steel recycled, price fixed before we drive out. |
This is the question that sends most people to this page, and the honest answer is that the free program isn't built for the object you're trying to move. Bulk collection from City of Phoenix Public Works goes by appointment, and the appointment covers what the city calls uncontained trash. The limits are firm: four collections in a calendar year, an appointment slot up to three business days out, and nothing allowed at the curb earlier than seven days before it. That's a system shaped around palm fronds, a broken dresser and a stack of moving boxes.
A refrigerator is a different category of object. It is a sealed pressure system holding refrigerant, and federal law doesn't allow that system to be crushed or buried until the refrigerant has been professionally recovered — which is why refrigerant appliances get handled separately from the bulk pile everywhere, not just here. The fridge, the garage chest freezer and the window AC all sit outside the easy free path.
Then there's the part the program description leaves out: you move 250 pounds of appliance from the kitchen to the curb, and it stands there for days. In the Valley's HOA-governed suburbs that's one of the fastest violation letters there is, and an accessible fridge with the door still attached is a genuine child-entrapment hazard the whole time it waits — which is why the standard safety practice is taking the door off any unit left unattended.
Outside the city limits, every suburb writes its own appliance rules — Mesa, Chandler, Gilbert, Scottsdale, Glendale and Peoria each run their own bulk programs with their own caps and exclusions, so check your own city before you build a plan around it. We're the other route: we come to the kitchen or the garage, and the fridge is off the property the same day, having never touched the curb.
None of this is mandatory; each one just makes the pickup faster and cleaner. Empty the food and pull the loose glass shelves and drawers — glass shifting inside a fridge on a hand truck is the one thing that reliably breaks. Unplug it a day ahead if you can, leave the doors cracked and put a towel underneath: a freezer that's run for years holds real water in the drip pan and around the ice maker, and it comes out somewhere. If there's an ice maker plumbed in, close the small saddle valve on the line behind the unit; we'll disconnect the line itself.
If none of that happened, it's still fine. In a Phoenix July a fridge that quit overnight is full of thawed food and standing water by morning — say so when you book and the crew brings plastic. We'd rather take it warm and wet today than leave it in a 110-degree garage waiting for a tidier day.
A fridge is the one household item whose destination is set by law rather than preference. Before any refrigerant appliance can be scrapped or disposed of, the refrigerant has to be captured by an EPA-certified process — Section 608 of the Clean Air Act. These are potent greenhouse gases, and the rule exists precisely because the cheap alternative, cutting the line and letting it hiss off into a driveway, is what an unlicensed scrapper does. Your unit goes through that capture step first, and it's inside the $221 rather than a "freon fee" produced on arrival.
Phoenix generates more of this work than most metros for an obvious reason: the desert eats cooling equipment. Fridges, garage freezers, window units and portable ACs fail on a compressed summer schedule here, so June through September this is close to daily work for us. It's a fair thing to ask any hauler how they handle.
After that the rest is simple. Strip out the refrigerant and a refrigerator is mostly steel — so the shell is worth more to a metal recycler than to a hole in Buckeye, and that's where it goes. When a unit is still genuinely working — the good fridge coming out of a kitchen remodel, the extra one from a house that just sold — we'd rather it be used again than shredded, so it gets routed toward donation. Whatever is left goes to responsible disposal through a City of Phoenix transfer station at the $55/ton 2026 gate rate, a big part of why a flat $221 can stay flat here.
Doorways are the recurring problem. A full-size fridge usually came into the house before the trim and the flooring did, and it does not want to come back out the same way. When the opening is tighter than the unit, the doors and handles come off — that's a normal part of the job, not an obstacle, and it buys the two or three inches that decide the whole thing. Straps and a heavy-duty appliance dolly do the rest, and the unit stays upright, which matters for the compressor oil and for the floor.
Where it sits changes the job more than what it is. A garage fridge is the easiest removal there is: the truck backs up the driveway, the unit rolls maybe fifteen feet, and it never spends a second on public frontage where an HOA could photograph it — which is why this is most of what we do across Chandler, Gilbert, Peoria and Ahwatukee. A kitchen unit is a careful walk over tile or wood with corner protection. A second-floor apartment — the Tempe, Midtown and Mesa rental stock — means an exterior-stairs carry with two people and no stair fee. In the Downtown Phoenix and Old Town Scottsdale towers, a fridge goes out the loading dock on a reserved freight-elevator window with a COI on file (typically $1M general liability naming the association and management), and gated communities across North Scottsdale, Paradise Valley and Anthem get vendor check-in arranged ahead of time. In summer everything shifts early: carrying an appliance across a driveway at 112 degrees is how people get hurt, so June-through-September jobs get morning slots by default.
"Fridge quit on a Saturday in July with a full freezer in it. Photo Sunday morning, flat price back immediately, gone by that afternoon. They brought plastic for the mess without me asking."
"Old side-by-side wouldn't fit back through the kitchen doorway. They pulled both doors, walked it out, put nothing on my floor. Price was the same as the quote."
"Garage fridge and a chest freezer from my dad's house before we listed it. Loaded from the driveway, showed me the recovery paperwork on the freon, done in twenty minutes."
How much does refrigerator removal cost in Phoenix?
$221 flat for a standard refrigerator, $246 for a large side-by-side or French-door unit, $155 for a mini fridge, $196 for a chest freezer, $201 for an upright freezer. There's a $75 minimum on any order, which a fridge clears on its own. The carry-out, the refrigerant recovery and the disposal are in that number, and Arizona doesn't tax the service.
What happens to the freon?
It's recovered by an EPA-certified process before the unit is disposed of or scrapped, as Section 608 of the Clean Air Act requires. Only then does the steel shell go to metal recycling. It's in the flat price, not a fee added on arrival.
Will City of Phoenix bulk trash take a fridge?
Don't count on it. The city program is appointment-based, capped at four collections a year, booked up to three business days out with nothing set out more than seven days early — and it's built for uncontained trash, not sealed refrigerant systems. You'd also be moving the fridge to the curb yourself. Suburbs each set their own appliance rules; check your own city.
Do I have to empty and defrost it first?
Empty it and pull the loose glass shelves, yes. Defrosting is optional — unplug it a day ahead with the doors cracked and a towel underneath if you have the time, and close the ice-maker saddle valve if there's a water line. If it died last night and is full of thawed food, say so when you book and we'll come prepared.
Can you come the day my new fridge is delivered?
Yes, and it's the most common booking on this page. Retailer haul-away only happens with a matched delivery and gets declined often. Schedule us into the same window and the old unit doesn't spend a season in the garage.
What if it won't fit through the doorway?
The doors and handles come off, which is usually the two or three inches the job needs, then they go back on. It's standard, and there's no extra charge for it.
Can you take it out of the garage, or from a second-floor apartment?
Both, all the time. Garage loading straight into the driveway is the norm here — no basements in Valley homes, so the spare fridge lives in the garage. Second-floor units come down the exterior stairs with two people and no stair fee.
Is it cheaper than a full-service junk hauler?
For one appliance, usually — and you have the price before anyone is dispatched. LoadUp advertises fridge pickup from roughly $130, but curbside; 2026 surveys of this metro average $226–$237 a job. At $221 ours covers the walk-out from inside the house plus the refrigerant handling.
Nothing with a sealed refrigerant system can legally be crushed, buried or scrapped until that refrigerant has been captured by an EPA-certified process, under Section 608 of the Clean Air Act. Your fridge is routed through that recovery first, and only then does the shell move on to metal recycling. It is part of the flat price, never a surprise freon fee collected at the door. In the Valley this is routine work rather than a special request — desert cooling loads mean we handle refrigerant appliances year-round.
Not as a solution you can count on. The city's bulk program is appointment-based and built for uncontained trash — brush, broken furniture, boxes — with a maximum of four collections per calendar year, appointments booked up to three business days out and nothing placed out more than seven days ahead. A sealed refrigerant system is a different disposal problem, handled separately from ordinary bulk. Even in the best case you would still be moving a roughly 250-pound appliance to the curb yourself and leaving it there. Every suburb writes its own appliance rules, so confirm with your own city before planning around it.
Empty it, yes — food, glass shelves and loose drawers should come out so nothing shifts or breaks on the stairs. Defrosting is a courtesy, not a requirement: unplug it a day ahead if you can, leave the doors cracked, and put a towel under it, because a freezer that has been running for years holds a surprising amount of water in the drip pan and the ice maker. If it died last night and is still full of thawed food, tell us and we will plan for it. If there is an ice-maker line, shut the little saddle valve behind the unit before we arrive.
Yes, and that is the most common way this gets booked. Retailer haul-away only exists when a matched new unit is being delivered, it only covers the same appliance type, and delivery crews decline it regularly once they see stairs, a garage unit or a second fridge. Book us into the same window and the old one is out of the house the day the new one lands, instead of living in the garage until spring.
The doors and the handles come off, which is usually the two or three inches the job needs, and they go back on afterwards. A full-size refrigerator generally came into the house before the trim and the flooring did, so this is a normal part of the removal rather than an obstacle, and there is no extra charge for it.
All three, routinely. A garage fridge is the easiest job we do — the truck backs up the driveway and the unit rolls about fifteen feet, so it never sits on public frontage where an HOA could write it up. Kitchen units come out on straps and a heavy-duty hand truck; if the doorway is tighter than the fridge, the doors and handles come off and go back on afterwards at no extra charge. Second-floor apartments through Tempe, Midtown and the Mesa rental stock mean an exterior-stairs carry, and there is no stair fee for it.
For a single appliance, generally yes, and you know the number first. Independent 2026 market surveys put a typical metro Phoenix junk-removal job at roughly $226 to $237, and national flat-rate services such as LoadUp list refrigerator pickup starting around $130 — usually as a curbside price, with getting the fridge out to the curb left to you. Our $221 includes the walk-out from inside the house and the refrigerant handling.