Air conditioner disposal in St. Louis

The short answer

Air conditioners contain refrigerant, and federal EPA rules require it to be recovered before the unit is scrapped. Missouri also bans major appliances from landfills under RSMo 260.250. City of St. Louis residents can use the monthly BOAT-E appliance collection; County and Illinois residents check their hauler. Or book a flat pickup: small window unit $87, large window unit $109, portable $85, outdoor condenser or heat pump $115.

Why St. Louis goes through so many window units

St. Louis summers are hot and humid, and a lot of the City's housing is older brick: two-family and four-family flats, rowhouses in Soulard and Benton Park, bungalows in Tower Grove South and St. Louis Hills. Many of those homes cool upstairs bedrooms with window units, and window units do not last forever. The result is a steady supply of dead ACs sitting in basements and back porches, usually discovered in May when someone tries the old one and it hums and does nothing.

Fall is the other moment: after the last hot spell, people pull units out of windows and decide which ones are not worth storing. The same pattern runs through the inner-ring suburbs. Maplewood homes were mostly built between 1900 and 1910, and Richmond Heights grew fast in the 1920s, so plenty of houses there were never designed around central air and still lean on window units upstairs.

Option 1: City BOAT-E collection

The City's BOAT-E program collects batteries, oil, appliances, tires and electronics monthly, included in the $14 per month per unit solid-waste fee billed on the water bill. An air conditioner is an appliance. Follow the City's set-out instructions for your week and area.

Do not put a window unit in the alley dumpster with regular trash. It is the wrong route for an appliance with refrigerant, and a heavy unit in a dumpster is a hazard for the crew emptying it. Also remember the regular bulky limits still apply to everything else you set out that week: up to three items, none over 100 lbs or 6 ft long.

Option 2: County municipalities and Illinois

In St. Louis County, appliance collection is set by your municipality or trash district. Webster Groves, Kirkwood, Florissant, University City, Ballwin and the districts covering Oakville, Mehlville and Affton may each handle AC units differently — included, scheduled, or charged. In the Metro East, Belleville, O'Fallon, Edwardsville and the rest each have their own service. Check your hauler before setting one out.

A useful habit: call or check your hauler's page in April, before the first heat wave, rather than in July when the dead unit is already in the way. Scheduled appliance pickups in some towns can be weeks out, and summer is when everyone asks at once.

Option 3: through an HVAC contractor

If you are replacing a central air condenser or a heat pump, the installing contractor typically takes the old outdoor unit as part of the job. Ask when you get the quote. That is the cleanest route for a condenser, because the contractor already handles refrigerant recovery.

If the old condenser has been sitting beside the house since the last replacement, or the contractor left it behind, it is just a heavy metal box in the yard. Book it with anything else that needs to go.

Option 4: flat pickup prices

Two small window units from the bedrooms of a four-family flat are $87 + $87 = $174. A portable AC on its own is $85, so it bills at the $100 minimum — add the old basement dehumidifier and it is $85 + $77 = $162. An HVAC swap that left a condenser and the old furnace behind is $115 + $131 = $246.

Getting a window unit out of an upstairs window

This is where people get hurt. A large window unit can be heavy and awkward, and it sits in a window two or three floors above a St. Louis sidewalk or gangway.

• Two people, always. One inside holding the unit, one removing the brackets and side panels.
• Lower the window sash slowly after releasing the unit so nothing drops.
• Pull it in, never push it out. Never let a unit go outward.
• Drain it. Tilt it back over a towel to empty condensate before carrying it through the house.

Then comes the carry. Brick flats in Dutchtown, Bevo Mill and Cherokee Street often have tight interior stairs with a turn at the landing, and a large unit has to go down them held level so it does not drip or gouge the plaster. If it is still in the window, a crew can take it out and carry it down any number of floors with no stairs fee.

Keep it, repair it, or let it go?

Before paying to dispose of a unit, it is worth a quick check, because a few problems are cheap and a few are not.

• Weak cooling: clean the filter and the coils first. A clogged filter after a St. Louis summer can make a working unit feel dead.
• Hums but will not cool: often a compressor or capacitor issue. On an older window unit, repair rarely makes sense.
• Leaking indoors: usually a drain or tilt problem; a unit should slope slightly toward the outside.
• Rattles, rust and a cracked case: time to go.

If you are replacing several units at once — common in two- and four-family flats when a landlord upgrades a building — clear them together. Three large window units are $109 + $109 + $109 = $327, carried down from every floor in one visit.

Landlords, turnovers and what happens to it

Property owners with flats around SLU, the Central West End or the Delmar Loop tend to find dead window units during August turnovers, when the last tenant leaves one behind. Pairing it with the rest of the turnover junk keeps it to one visit: a large window unit, a queen mattress and a sofa left in a unit are $109 + $103 + $126 = $338. Owners with several buildings can set up one account covering all of them, and a COI for the building is emailed within one hour.

Collected AC units go to appliance recycling, where refrigerant is recovered under federal rules and the metal is scrapped. We recycle whatever we can. Price one or a whole batch from a photo at the instant quote page, choose a two-hour window, and it can be gone the same day if you book by 4 PM.

Frequently asked questions