Air conditioner disposal in Raleigh

The short answer

Air conditioning equipment contains refrigerant and metal, which is why it is one of the categories most likely to be excluded from whatever bulky collection your town runs. Check your own municipality's current page — Raleigh, Cary, Apex, Garner, Morrisville, Wake Forest and Holly Springs each set their own terms, and an unincorporated Wake County address may be served differently again.

The flat prices: AC Condenser or Heat Pump outdoor unit $115, Window AC Unit small under 8k BTU $87, Window AC Unit large 8k+ BTU $109, Portable AC Unit $85, Furnace $131, Dehumidifier $77. Disposal is included and there is no refrigerant fee. The per-visit minimum is $75.

The prices

Every one of those except the space heater and the ceiling fan already clears the $75 minimum on its own. If the only thing going is a $33 space heater, the visit is $75, so it is worth looking round the garage first.

Heat pumps are the Piedmont standard

Almost every house in Wake County is conditioned by a heat pump rather than a separate furnace and AC pair, because Triangle winters are mild enough for it and Triangle summers are not mild at all. What that means practically is that the box on the concrete pad at the side or rear of your house is the outdoor unit of the whole system, and it is $115 to take away.

When a system gets replaced, the indoor air handler usually goes at the same time. If yours is the older configuration with a separate furnace, that is $131, and the pair together is $115 + $131 = $246 on one visit. Installers frequently leave the old equipment on the pad or in the crawlspace, which is why we get so many of these calls a week after the new system went in.

Pollen is what ages them here

From late March into April the Triangle disappears under pine pollen. It coats cars, decks, porches and — relevantly — the fins of every outdoor condenser in Wake County. Pollen packs into the coil, airflow drops, and the unit works harder through exactly the months it is about to be worked hardest.

Combine that with a summer that runs humid from May into September and Raleigh heat pumps live a demanding life. The failures cluster in July and August, which is also when nobody wants to wait, so the old unit tends to sit on the pad for a while after the new one goes in. It is $115 whenever you get round to it.

Window units and the older housing stock

Inside the Beltline, a lot of the older ranch homes in Longview Gardens, Anderson Heights and parts of Mordecai were built before central air was standard, and window units still fill the gaps — a bedroom that the ductwork never reached, a converted porch, a sunroom on the back. Student rentals around Hillsborough Street and Avent Ferry are full of them too.

Small units under 8k BTU are $87, larger ones from 8k BTU up are $109. If a house is going from window units to central, several usually leave at once: two large window units is $109 + $109 = $218, and adding a portable at $85 makes it $109 + $109 + $85 = $303.

The dehumidifier problem

Raleigh houses sit on crawlspaces, not basements, and a great many of those crawlspaces have a dehumidifier running in them because a Piedmont summer will otherwise put moisture into everything above. Dehumidifiers are hard-used appliances and they do not last forever.

One is $77, which clears the minimum. Getting it out of the crawlspace is included — there is no surcharge for a confined space, a low clearance or a long crawl, and there is no charge for the condensate pump or hose that comes with it. If the crawlspace is also where a failing water heater lives, that is $131 on the same visit.

Preparing the unit

Not much is required. For a window unit, take it out of the window before the day if two people can do it safely — a large one is heavier than it looks and the sash is not a good place to be negotiating one. Leave it on the floor by the window rather than on a porch in the rain.

For an outdoor condenser, make sure it is disconnected at the disconnect box, and clear the side yard route from the pad to the driveway. Wake County subdivisions are built close together and that side gap is usually the only way round. For anything in a crawlspace, tell us where the access hatch is.

What goes with it

AC removal rarely happens alone. A system replacement often clears out the rest of the mechanical backlog at the same time — a water heater at $131, an old furnace at $131, the metal shelving in the garage at $71. And in May, when the student rentals off Gorman Street turn over, window units go out alongside the twin mattresses at $82 and the flat-pack frames at $68.

One visit, one flat total, quoted from photos before anyone is dispatched. No stair charge, no crawlspace charge, no refrigerant fee.

Frequently asked questions