Air conditioner disposal in Portland

The short answer

Visit minimum is $75, which every one of those clears on its own. No sales tax in Oregon.

Refrigerant is handled, never surcharged

Window units, portables, condensers and heat pumps all contain refrigerant in a sealed system. It has to be recovered by a certified technician before the metal can be scrapped. That is a federal requirement and it applies to every hauler in this metro.

On our pricing that handling is inside the number. There is no refrigerant fee, no EPA fee, no Freon line. A large window unit is $109 and nothing gets added afterwards. Disposal is included too, so nothing is settled up after the load is weighed at Metro Central or Metro South.

If a phone quote comes in lower somewhere and then grows at the curb, this is nearly always the line that grew.

Why Portland has so many of these now

This used to be a city that did not need air conditioning, and the housing stock reflects that. Craftsman bungalows, foursquares and old eastside fourplexes were built with sleeping porches, cross ventilation and big double-hung windows — and no ducts.

Then came the heat dome summer of 2021, and after it a very large number of households in Portland bought a window unit or a portable in a hurry. Several summers on, a lot of those units are now being retired: the cheap portables that never really cooled a west-facing attic bedroom, the window units that were awkward in a double-hung sash, and the ones that got replaced when a proper ductless system went in.

That is the call we get most. Not a broken unit — a superseded one, sitting in a basement or a garage since the last hot spell.

What nine wet months do to a stored AC unit

The specific Portland problem: these units live outdoors or in an unconditioned space for nine months and get used for six weeks.

• Basement storage. A window unit left on the basement floor of a pre-war house takes on damp. The coil corrodes, the cabinet rusts from the inside, and the filter mildews.
• The garage or carport. Worse. Uninsulated single-wall detached garages in Cully, Montavilla or Sellwood are effectively outdoors with a roof.
• Left in the window all year. Very common in old eastside rentals, because taking a heavy unit out of a double-hung sash in October is a two-person job nobody wants to do. The consequence is a unit that has been rained on continuously and a window that has leaked around it all winter.

By the time it is retired, a Portland window unit is usually corroded and not worth donating or reselling. Take one photo, ask once, and then book it.

Getting a window unit out safely

This is the one item where the DIY risk is genuinely about the window rather than the weight.

Old Portland double-hung sashes are wood, they are often original, and the sash cords may be long broken. A 60-pound unit sitting in one has been held there by a bracket, a couple of screws, and optimism. Taking it out means supporting the weight while the upper sash is free to drop.

Second-story windows are the ones to be careful with. A unit that goes out rather than in lands on a parking strip, a sidewalk, or a neighbor's side yard three feet away on a narrow eastside lot.

Practical steps: unplug it well beforehand, drain the pan, clear the sill, and have the window hardware loose before the crew arrives so nobody is improvising while holding a heavy object at a first-floor sill.

Outdoor condensers and heat pumps

An outdoor unit is $115. The usual Portland version is an old condenser sitting on a pad or a bracket down the side of the house, in that 30 to 36 inch gap between the wall and the neighbor's fence, being replaced by a ductless heat pump.

Two things before we come:

• The refrigerant lines must be disconnected by an HVAC technician and the circuit killed. This is not a cut-the-line situation.
• The pad. If a concrete pad is coming out too, concrete and masonry debris is $219 per quarter truck and priced separately because it is dense.

The carry out through a narrow side gate to a truck on the street is included. On the inner eastside that is the normal arrangement and there is no access surcharge.

Worked totals

Addition shown:

• Two large window units: $109 + $109 = $218
• Window unit (large) + portable unit: $109 + $85 = $194
• Old condenser + two window units (small): $115 + $87 + $87 = $289
• Portable AC + dehumidifier: $85 + $77 = $162
• Condenser + concrete pad as a quarter truck of masonry debris: $115 + $219 = $334

A whole-house changeover — old condenser out, three window units and a portable retired at once — is a common Portland job now that ductless systems have become standard on retrofits.

The other routes

Scrap collectors. They want the metal and they will not take a sealed-system unit properly, because the refrigerant is somebody else's problem then. Do not hand an AC unit to someone who cannot tell you what happens to the refrigerant.

Utility efficiency programs. Rebates and take-back schemes for retiring inefficient cooling equipment exist in this region and change over time. Ask your utility what is currently running before assuming.

Self-haul. The regional transfer stations accept appliances, with their own handling rules for sealed systems. Check the current gate rate and the appliance rules before loading a condenser into a car.

Reselling. Occasionally worth it for a nearly-new unit in August, when everyone in Portland suddenly wants one. Almost never worth it in March.

Frequently asked questions