The spa nobody has filled since 2023, cut down and carried off the deck. Flat $434 — quoted from a photo before anyone drives out to Potomac, McLean or Capitol Hill. We strip the cabinet, cut the shell into sections two people can carry, take the cover and the steps with it, and sweep the pad. No city program in this metro will touch a hot tub.
One photo of the tub, one of the disconnect box — price back in seconds
Upload a Photo & Get Quote →One of the tub with the cover off, from far enough back that we can see the deck, the steps and the route out. One of the disconnect box or GFCI panel beside it. That second picture is what tells us whether an electrician needs to touch it first — and it costs you nothing to find out now instead of on the day.
The flat $434 and the soonest slot come back in seconds. Your one job before we arrive is to drain the tub — valve or submersible pump, then let it drip out. Same-day is often open across the District, Montgomery, Prince George's, Arlington, Alexandria and Fairfax.
Cover off, skirt stripped, plumbing capped at the existing shutoff, shell cut into carry-able sections, everything walked out through the gate or down the deck stairs. Steps, cover and cover lifter go too. The pad gets swept before we pull away.
$434, flat. It's the same number in Bethesda, Anacostia and Great Falls, it's committed from your photograph before a truck is assigned, and it already contains the cut-down, the carry-out, the loading, the drive and the disposal. There is no drain fee, no disconnect fee, no crane fee, no stair fee and no long-driveway fee — not because we're being generous, but because the method makes them unnecessary: a tub that leaves in pieces never needs to be lifted over a fence in one.
The three tubs people actually call about, and the outdoor items that usually ride along with them:
| Item | Flat price |
|---|---|
| Patio chair | $40 |
| Planter, large | $60 |
| Patio umbrella | $71 |
| Outdoor lounge / chaise | $82 |
| Grill (propane) | $95 |
| Patio table | $120 |
| Picnic table | $150 |
| Cold plunge tub | $365 |
| Sauna | $395 |
| Hot tub / spa | $434 |
| Pool table | $812 |
| Deck, framing & construction debris | $162 per cubic yard |
The ladder for the wellness-equipment family in one line: cold plunge tub $365 → sauna $395 → hot tub $434. The order minimum is $75, which never binds on a job like this — but it's the reason it's worth photographing the dead grill and the sun-bleached patio set at the same time, since several items combine into one flat number rather than a stack of separate charges and a second visit.
If the deck is coming out with the tub, the framing and decking price as construction debris at $162 per cubic yard. And if the whole backyard is going — tub, deck, swing set, the pile behind the shed — truck-fill usually wins: 2/8 of the truck $325 · 3/8 $455 · 4/8 $580 · 5/8 $690 · 6/8 $790 · 7/8 $890 · full truck $985. Photograph the yard, not just the tub, and we'll tell you which side of that line you're on before you book.
For an outside benchmark, since a hot tub is exactly the item people expect to be gouged on: 1-800-GOT-JUNK and College HUNKS both quote heavy or oversize items in person only, and HomeGuide's 2026 pricing research puts a franchise half truck at roughly $400–$600 and a full truck at $700–$1,000. A hot tub reliably lands in that band — after the estimate visit. There's also a genuine cost underneath everyone's number: Fairfax County charges commercial haulers about $90 a ton to tip at the I-66 Transfer Station and the I-95 Landfill / Energy-Recovery Complex in FY2026 (Fairfax County DPWES), and a cut-up spa shell with its cabinet is heavy enough that the tonnage is a real line item, not a rounding error. In the District sales tax applies to the service at checkout; Maryland and Virginia don't tax it at all — which on a $434 item is worth knowing. Full detail in the DMV cost guide.
| Option | Cost | Speed | Effort | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sell it or give it away (Marketplace, Buy Nothing) | Free — you might even be paid | Weeks, if ever | All of it, plus strangers in your yard | A working, recent tub with a clean shell — and a buyer who owns a trailer, an appliance dolly and three friends. Most listings die here: people want a free hot tub right up until they see the deck stairs |
| Hire a handyman to cut it up, then self-haul | Labor + truck rental + tipping (Fairfax commercial disposal ≈ $90/ton, FY2026) | A weekend, usually two trips | Sawzall blades, fiberglass dust, and loading it yourself | Someone who already owns the truck. Be honest about the tonnage — a cut-up shell with a wet wood cabinet weighs enough that the tip fee stops being theoretical |
| Full-service franchise (1-800-GOT-JUNK, College HUNKS) | ≈$400–$600 half truck to $700–$1,000 full — HomeGuide 2026 | 1–3 days | Low, after the estimate visit | People who don't mind that heavy and oversize items are quoted in person only, so the price arrives after the truck does |
| City or county bulk pickup | Not available | — | — | Nobody. No bulk-trash program in DC, Maryland or Virginia collects hot tubs — see the section below |
| JunkRabbit | Flat $434 | Same day when a slot's open | Drain it. That's your entire job | Anyone who'd like the number before the truck, not after |
One row on that table doesn't exist anywhere else in this metro: a hot tub is the item where the free municipal option isn't slow or capped — it simply isn't an option at all. Which means every honest comparison here is between paying someone and doing it yourself with a reciprocating saw.
No. Not in the District, and not in any of the surrounding counties either. This is the cleanest municipal answer on the whole subdomain, and it's worth walking through precisely, because people reasonably assume that a free city program that takes a sofa might stretch to a spa.
DC DPW's Bulk Trash Collection is requested through 311 or at dpw.dc.gov, and it runs on three rules that each independently rule a hot tub out:
Underneath all three is the physical reality: a hot tub is a fiberglass shell weighing 500 pounds and up before a drop of water goes in, wrapped in a wood or synthetic cabinet, with a pump, a heater and plumbing bolted inside it, sitting on a pad or a deck behind your house. It is not a curbside item under any reading of any bulk program. There is no version of that 311 request where a DPW crew comes into the backyard, disconnects the spa pack and cuts the shell into pieces — and getting it to the curb yourself in one piece is the exact problem you're trying to solve.
And there's the harder line, the one that decides it for a large share of the District: condominiums, co-ops and apartment buildings of four or more units are excluded from the DC bulk program entirely, and District rules require those residents to have bulk items removed by a private, licensed hauler. If the tub is on a Navy Yard terrace, a Logan Circle roof deck or a NoMa penthouse patio, "call 311" was never going to be the answer.
Across both borders, same conclusion, different letterhead. Montgomery County, Prince George's County, Arlington County, the City of Alexandria and Fairfax County each run their own bulk-collection programs, each with their own item caps and their own exclusion lists — check your jurisdiction's current terms directly rather than trusting a neighbor's memory. But none of them is a hot-tub program. All of them are curbside. None of them come into the yard, and none of them cut anything up. That gap is the entire reason this page exists.
We'd rather tell you the truth than sell you a green story. The shell goes to landfill. Fiberglass and cast acrylic have no meaningful recycling stream in this region — no processor within reach of the DMV is taking cut-up spa shells — so anyone who tells you your hot tub is being recycled is either confused or counting on you not to check. Ours is tipped at the Fairfax I-66 Transfer Station or the I-95 Landfill and Energy-Recovery Complex, or at Montgomery County's Shady Grove Processing Facility and Transfer Station, and that tipping cost is already inside your $434 rather than added afterwards.
What genuinely does get diverted is the hardware, and on a hot tub that's more than people expect. The pump, the blower, the heater assembly, the spa pack housing, the steel or aluminum sub-frame and the copper wiring and fittings all go to metal scrap. A jetted tub carries a surprising amount of metal for its size, and it's separated on the truck rather than buried inside the shell. A cedar cabinet in decent condition gets set aside for reuse — cedar skirting survives weather far better than the tub it's wrapped around, and it finds a second life often enough to be worth pulling carefully rather than smashing.
We're not going to quote you a diversion percentage we can't stand behind. The order of operations is: salvage the metal, save the cedar where it's worth saving, tip the rest. That's the honest version.
Every hot tub job in this metro is really an access job. The tub isn't the hard part; the twelve feet between the tub and the truck is. Here's what that looks like across the DMV.
Gated entries and long driveways — Potomac, McLean, Great Falls, Chevy Chase. Estate lots where the truck can't get within a hundred feet of the backyard, sometimes with a gate code, a call box and a landscaping crew already on site. Cutting the shell down is what makes that distance survivable: sections get carried out, not dragged, and nothing crosses the lawn in one heavy piece. There's no surcharge for the driveway and no equipment fee, and we'll protect the turf and the pavers on the way through.
Deck-level tubs. The single most common DMV configuration: a tub set into or beside a raised rear deck, one flight up, reached by stairs that were built for people rather than for freight. We work on the deck, cut on the deck, and walk it down. If the decking has to come up to get at a sunken tub, that framing prices as construction debris at $162 per cubic yard — quoted with the tub, not sprung on you afterwards.
Narrow side yards — Bethesda, Arlington, Silver Spring, Falls Church. Post-war lots where the only route from the backyard to the street is a three-foot strip between the house and the fence, often with an AC condenser and a downspout in it. A cut section clears that; a whole tub never did, which is why the fence usually stays up.
Row-house rear gates and alleys — Capitol Hill, Petworth, Shaw, Georgetown, Old Town Alexandria. DC row houses do have hot tubs, tucked into small rear gardens behind a solid gate, reached only through a shared alley. We load from the alley rather than block a historic street, and we're careful on cobblestone and around brick garden walls.
Condo terraces and roof decks — Navy Yard, NoMa, The Wharf, Logan Circle. Here it's paperwork before it's muscle: buildings typically want a certificate of insurance filed 48–72 hours ahead naming the management company or association as additional insured, plus a reserved freight-elevator and loading-dock window. We file it and book it at no charge, and there is no high-rise surcharge. Given the District's private-hauler rule for 4+ unit buildings, that paperwork isn't your building being difficult — it's the mechanism the rule runs on.
One line worth repeating on a $434 item: Maryland and Virginia charge no sales tax on the service. A Bethesda, Silver Spring, Arlington or Falls Church address pays $434 and that's the total. The District applies its service tax at checkout, shown in the quote rather than discovered at the end.
"Dead spa on a raised deck for four years. Two guys, a photo quote, and by lunchtime there was just a clean pad. No add-ons at the end."
"Long driveway, gated, and every other company wanted to come out and look first. These guys priced it from a picture and it didn't change. No tax in Virginia either."
"Tub plus the rotten deck under it, one flat quote. Carried everything out through the alley gate and swept up after. Selling the house next month — huge relief."
How much does hot tub removal cost in DC?
A flat $434 from a photo — cut-down, carry-out, cover, steps, loading and disposal all inside it. A sauna is $395 and a cold plunge tub $365. No drain fee, no disconnect fee, no crane fee, no stair or driveway fee. $75 order minimum. DC applies sales tax on the service; Maryland and Virginia don't.
Does DC pick up hot tubs?
No. DC DPW bulk trash (via 311 or dpw.dc.gov) serves single-family homes and buildings of three units or fewer, takes up to 7 items per appointment, and excludes renovation and construction debris — a 500-plus-pound fiberglass shell with a pump and plumbing isn't a curbside item under any of that. Condos and 4+ unit buildings are excluded from the program entirely and must use a private, licensed hauler. Montgomery, Prince George's, Arlington, Alexandria and Fairfax each run their own capped bulk programs, and none of them is a hot-tub program.
Do I have to drain it first?
Yes — it's the one thing we ask of you. Use the drain valve or a submersible pump and let it finish dripping. A full tub is thousands of pounds of water; nobody can safely cut or lift it wet.
Do you disconnect the electrical and plumbing?
We disconnect at the existing shutoff or GFCI disconnect box and cap the lines. We do not cut live electrical or gas — if it's hard-wired with no accessible disconnect, or gas-heated, a licensed electrician or plumber goes first. Photograph the disconnect box with the tub and we'll tell you which case you're in before you book.
How do you get it off a deck or out of a fenced yard?
We cut the shell into sections small enough to carry — down deck stairs, through a side gate, along a row-house alley. That's why a gated Potomac driveway, a Bethesda side yard or a Capitol Hill rear gate changes the method and not the price, and why no crane is involved.
What if the deck goes too?
Framing and decking price as construction debris, $162 per cubic yard, and the patio set can ride along — chairs $40, umbrella $71, lounge $82, grill $95, table $120. Whole-yard clear-out? Truck-fill: 2/8 $325 · 3/8 $455 · 4/8 $580 · 5/8 $690 · 6/8 $790 · 7/8 $890 · full $985.
How is this different from 1-800-GOT-JUNK?
They and College HUNKS quote heavy or oversize items in person only — estimate visit first, price second. HomeGuide's 2026 research puts a franchise half truck at roughly $400–$600 and a full truck at $700–$1,000. Ours is a published $434 committed from your photo before anyone drives out.
What happens to it afterwards?
Honestly: the fiberglass shell goes to landfill — there's no fiberglass recycling stream here and we won't pretend otherwise. The pump, heater, frame and copper go to metal scrap, and a sound cedar cabinet gets reused. Tipping happens at Fairfax I-66 / I-95 or MoCo's Shady Grove, and it's already in your price.
Yes — that is the one thing we ask of you. Drain it before we arrive, using the tub's drain valve or a submersible pump, and give the shell time to finish dripping. A full tub holds several hundred gallons, which is thousands of pounds of water, and no crew can safely cut or lift a tub with water still in it. If it has been sitting open and collecting rain, tell us in the chat and we will factor the drain time into the window rather than the price.
We disconnect at the existing shutoff or the GFCI disconnect box beside the tub, and we cap and pull the lines feeding it. We do not cut live electrical or gas — if the tub is hard-wired with no accessible disconnect, or a gas heater is plumbed in, a licensed electrician or plumber has to make that disconnect before we cut. Send a photo of the disconnect box along with the tub and we will tell you which situation you are in before you book, not after we arrive.
We cut it up where it sits. The cover comes off, the cabinet skirt is stripped, and the fiberglass shell is cut into sections small enough for two people to carry down deck stairs, through a side gate or along a narrow row-house alley. That is why the price does not change with a gated Potomac driveway, a McLean estate approach, a Bethesda side yard you can barely walk through, or a Capitol Hill rear gate — nothing needs to fit through in one piece, so nothing needs a crane.
That is a common pairing — the tub was the reason the deck existed, and the deck is rotten. Framing, decking and rails are priced as construction debris at $162 per cubic yard, and the surrounding patio set can go on the same trip: patio chair $40, patio umbrella $71, outdoor lounge $82, grill $95, patio table $120. If it turns into a full backyard clear-out, truck-fill usually beats per-item — 2/8 of the truck $325, 3/8 $455, 4/8 $580, 5/8 $690, 6/8 $790, 7/8 $890, full truck $985.
Both 1-800-GOT-JUNK and College HUNKS quote heavy and oversize items like a hot tub in person, so the sequence is: book an estimate, wait for the truck, then find out the number. HomeGuide's 2026 pricing research puts 1-800-GOT-JUNK at roughly $400-$600 for a half truck and $700-$1,000 for a full one. Ours is a published flat $434 committed from your photograph before anyone drives out to Potomac or Falls Church, and it does not move when the crew sees the deck.
Honestly: the fiberglass and acrylic shell goes to landfill. There is no fiberglass recycling stream in this region and we are not going to claim one. What genuinely does get diverted is the hardware — the pump, the blower, the heater assembly, the steel or aluminum frame and the copper wiring and fittings all go to metal scrap, and a cedar cabinet in decent shape gets reused rather than tipped. The remainder is tipped at the Fairfax I-66 Transfer Station or the I-95 Landfill and Energy-Recovery Complex, or at Montgomery County's Shady Grove facility, and that cost is already inside your flat price.