How to get rid of an air conditioner in Atlanta

The short answer

Every one of those contains or is associated with refrigerant or compressor oil, and every one of those prices already includes correct handling and disposal. There is no refrigerant fee, no EPA fee and no surcharge. The visit minimum is $75.

Why you cannot just put one out

Air conditioners hold refrigerant, and refrigerant cannot legally go to a landfill inside the unit. It has to be recovered by someone certified before the shell is scrapped, and the receiving facility has to be set up for it.

The practical consequences in metro Atlanta:

• Bulk programs often exclude them. The City of Atlanta, unincorporated DeKalb and Fulton, Cobb, Gwinnett, Clayton and the individual cities all run their own bulk-item arrangements, and refrigerant-bearing appliances are frequently handled separately from ordinary furniture or not accepted at all. Check your own jurisdiction's current page.
• Scrappers make it worse. A window unit left at the curb attracts someone who wants the copper. They cut it open in the street, the refrigerant vents, and you are left with a gutted shell that is now unambiguously your problem.
• Transfer stations vary. Some accept them under specific conditions; check the current rules and gate rate before you drive anything anywhere.

Atlanta runs its air conditioning harder than most places

This is a humid subtropical climate with a cooling season that realistically runs from April into October, and a lot of households here are not on a single central system.

Window units are everywhere in the older stock. The garden apartment complexes off Buford Highway, Clairmont, Memorial Drive and Candler Road, the 1920s bungalows in Grant Park, Kirkwood and Cabbagetown that never got proper ductwork, converted intown houses split into units, and half-finished basements and bonus rooms where the central system does not quite reach. Every one of those is a window or portable unit, and they do not last forever in this duty cycle.

Outdoor condensers get replaced on a cycle. Running eight months a year in Georgia heat, they wear out. An HVAC company replacing a system will usually take the old outdoor unit, but not always, and never the spare one that has been sitting beside the house since the last replacement.

Dehumidifiers are a whole category here. Because so much of the metro has a basement or a daylight lower level, and because the humidity is what it is, dehumidifiers run constantly and die regularly. There is one in a lot of Brookhaven, Decatur, Tucker and Sandy Springs basements right now that stopped working a few years ago.

The pollen factor

One genuinely Atlanta-specific thing about AC lifespan: late February into April, the pine pollen is heavy enough to coat outdoor surfaces, and condenser coils and window-unit intakes are outdoor surfaces.

A unit that has been running through several pollen seasons without the coils being cleaned works harder, runs hotter and fails sooner. Which is why a lot of removal calls happen in early summer — the first genuinely hot week reveals that last year's marginal unit is this year's dead one.

If the unit is being replaced, the replacement is the moment to get the old one gone. A dead window unit parked on a carport or a back deck 'for now' rusts and seizes in this humidity within a season or two.

What we handle and how

Refrigerant recovery, then the shell goes to a facility set up to take it. That routing is inside the price, and it is the reason the number is what it is rather than something suspiciously low.

What we need from you:

• Window units out of the window, if you can safely do it. A unit still mounted in a second-floor sash is a two-person job and worth mentioning at booking. Do not remove one alone from an upper floor.
• Outdoor condensers disconnected. The electrical disconnect should be handled by a qualified electrician or the HVAC company, and the refrigerant lines cut and sealed by someone licensed to do it. Have that done before the day.
• Portable units emptied. Drain the condensate tank, or it leaks across the floor on the way out.
• Tell us where it is. Basement, third-floor walk-up, back of the house behind a gate. It changes crew size, not price.

Common combinations

These jobs are rarely one unit.

• The end-of-season clear-out in a garden apartment: window AC (large) $109 + window AC (large) $109 = $218
• System replacement leftovers: AC condenser $115 + dehumidifier $77 = $192
• The basement pile: dehumidifier $77 + mini fridge $115 + portable AC $85 = $277
• A bungalow going from window units to central: window AC (large) $109 + window AC (small) $87 + portable AC $85 = $281

If a renovation is producing ductwork, drywall and old equipment together, the truck ladder is usually the right shape: quarter $241, half $431.

Access in this city

Window units are heavy and they live in awkward places.

Garden apartments off Buford Highway and Clairmont have exterior stairs and no elevator. Everything comes down in the open. No stair charge.

High-rises in Midtown and Buckhead need a certificate of insurance and a booked freight elevator before anything moves through the building, and a condenser on a balcony needs a plan.

Houses put the outdoor unit down the side, often behind a gate, on a pad cut into a slope, with a fence between it and the driveway. In Decatur, Brookhaven and Chamblee that side yard is usually narrow and on a grade. Priced in.

Booking it

Pick the units off the list, get the total, choose a fixed window. One visit, correct handling, nothing added at the end.

Same-day slots are common across the metro, which matters in July when the thing has just died and the replacement is being delivered tomorrow.

Frequently asked questions