Five things bulk pickup won't take in Dallas

Read your own city's page first

One caveat before the list. Dallas-Fort Worth is a patchwork of separate municipalities — Dallas, University Park, Highland Park, Richardson, Garland, Mesquite, Irving, Carrollton, Addison, Plano, Frisco, Allen, McKinney — several using different contractors and several having changed their arrangements recently. There is no single DFW rule.

So the five categories below are the ones that are commonly excluded across programs, not a quote from any particular city's ordinance. Look up your own city's current bulky-item page by address and check it against this list. What follows is what to do when the answer is no.

1. Renovation and construction debris

The biggest one, and the one people are most surprised by. Household bulky collection is for household goods. It is generally not for the material that comes out of a building when you change it — drywall, timber, tile, cabinetry, roofing, concrete, old fencing.

Dallas produces a lot of this. Kitchen and bathroom remodels run continuously through Lakewood, the M Streets, Preston Hollow and University Park, and the pop-up remodel of a 1950s ranch is a whole local industry. Spring hail season adds roofing and fencing at scale: when a storm goes through a subdivision in Plano or Allen, every house on the street is replacing shingles and fence panels in the same month.

What it costs with us:

• Construction debris: $120
• Drywall, per sheet or small bundle: $37
• Lumber / timber scrap, per bundle: $41
• Roofing shingles, per bundle: $48
• Tile or flooring, per box or bundle: $33
• Hardwood / laminate flooring, per bundle: $41
• Concrete / masonry debris, per 1/4 truck: $219
• Full kitchen cabinet set, rip-out: $293
• Carpet, rolled: $68 — or carpet removal, per room: $71

Concrete is priced separately from the normal truck ladder because a quarter truck of it weighs what a full truck of furniture weighs.

2. Tires

Tires are excluded almost universally, because they are regulated separately and because they are worthless to a landfill and problematic in one. A tire also collects water, and a yard tire in the Dallas climate is an efficient mosquito hatchery from roughly April onwards.

Dallas houses accumulate them in the usual way: a set swapped out and kept "in case", a trailer tire, the spare from a car that was sold years ago. They live in the corner of the two-car garage behind everything else and surface only when the garage gets cleared.

Tire retailers will usually take yours back for a fee when they fit new ones, which is the easiest route if the timing works. Otherwise: a single tire is $22 and a set of four is $87.

3. Paint and liquids

Liquid paint is excluded from bulky collection everywhere, and for good reason. Most metro areas run household hazardous waste collection on a separate stream with its own schedule and drop-off arrangements — check your own city or county page for what is currently available to your address.

Fully dried-out latex paint is treated differently from liquid paint in many places, which is why people leave cans open in the garage. In a Dallas summer that works faster than you would expect, but it also means you now have open cans of hardened paint in a hundred-degree space, which is not pleasant to handle later.

What we charge: a 1-gallon can is $30 and a 5-gallon bucket is $52. Tell us what is in them when you book. Solvents, fuels, pool chemicals and pesticides need the household hazardous waste route regardless — ask us and we will tell you straight rather than turn up and decline.

4. Sealed refrigerant appliances

Fridges, freezers, wine coolers, ice makers, window and portable air conditioners, outdoor condensers and heat pumps. These contain refrigerant in a sealed system and must be processed by someone who can handle it. Programs across DFW either exclude them from the general bulky stream or run them separately with a condition attached.

Dallas produces these constantly. The garage beer fridge that finally quit after several hundred-degree summers. The window units pulled out of older rental stock. The outdoor condenser left on the side pad after a hail claim replaced the system.

• Refrigerator, standard: $164; side-by-side or French door: $183; built-in: $238
• Mini fridge: $115
• Freezer, chest: $146; upright: $149
• Window AC, small: $87; large: $109
• Portable AC unit: $85
• AC condenser / heat pump: $115
• Wine cooler, large: $156; small: $111

There is no refrigerant fee on any of those. And never leave one at the curb hoping — they get stripped for copper, which vents the refrigerant and leaves you with a gutted carcass nobody will now collect.

5. Anything over the volume cap

The quiet exclusion. Programs cap how much one household may present per cycle, usually by volume. Nothing on your list is a prohibited item; there is simply too much of it.

This is what turns an ordinary job into a problem. A two-car garage in Lake Highlands with thirty years in it. An estate clearance in Preston Hollow. A whole house emptied before a listing photographer arrives. A hail-season pile of fence panels, patio furniture and shingle debris that appeared over one weekend.

When the volume is the problem, the answer is a truck rather than a set-out. Our ladder: 1/4 $241, 3/8 $338, 1/2 $431, 5/8 $513, 3/4 $587, 7/8 $661, full $732. Most two-car Dallas garages land between a half truck and a full load.

If you prefer per-item, a small junk pile is $82, a medium is $129 and a large is $208, and you pay whichever route comes out lower.

The ones nobody thinks about until the day

Beyond the five, a handful of items are heavy or specialist enough that they are their own conversation regardless of what your city collects.

• Upright piano: $290. Baby grand: $438. Grand, 6ft+: $513.
• Pool table: $603. Three-piece slate: $706.
• Hot tub / spa: $322. Six to eight person: $390.
• Safe, large / gun safe: $260. Small safe: $100.
• Cast iron bathtub: $185. Cast iron radiator: $123.
• Storage shed, small, disassembled: $186.
• Riding mower / lawn tractor: $152.
• Propane tank, 20 lb: $33.

All published. All include carry-out from wherever the thing is sitting.

What to do when the answer is no

Three moves, in order.

Split the load. If only part of what you have is excluded, set out the part your city takes and book the rest. That is usually the cheapest overall outcome.

Check the specialist stream. Household hazardous waste for paint and chemicals, e-waste for electronics, the tire retailer for tires, the HVAC contractor for a condenser. Some of these are free to you.

Book a truck for the remainder. Send photos and you get the total before we dispatch — carry-out from any floor, disposal included, no stair charge and no same-day surcharge. The visit minimum is $75.

Frequently asked questions