How to get rid of a TV in Washington DC

The short answer

Every one of those prices is under the $75 visit minimum except the electronics box and the stand, so a single television books at $75 unless something goes with it. Two TVs together price normally: a 55-inch and a 32-inch is $68 + $62 = $130.

Why you cannot just put it out

Televisions are electronic waste and every jurisdiction in this metro handles e-waste as a separate stream. Collection crews refuse them. Building trash rooms refuse them. That is consistent from the District through Montgomery and Prince George's counties and across the river into Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church and Fairfax.

What is not consistent is the alternative. Each of those jurisdictions runs its own arrangement -- some with permanent drop-off, some with scheduled events, some with residency proof and per-visit limits -- and incorporated towns like Takoma Park, Rockville, Hyattsville and College Park run their own on top. Much of Fairfax County is on private subscription hauling, where the terms are your hauler's contract.

Check your own address's current electronics page. In this metro that is not a formality: people here change jurisdictions every few years without thinking about it, and the answer from your last lease is often wrong.

Two very different televisions

The old CRT. Heavy out of all proportion to its size, with leaded glass in the tube. A 32-inch tube set is a genuine two-person carry, and carrying one down a Capitol Hill stoop is how people discover that. These are the sets most often refused everywhere and most often still sitting in a rowhouse cellar or a Bethesda basement a decade after being replaced.

The modern panel. Light, large and fragile. A 75-inch panel is mostly air and glass, and it does not survive being angled around a rowhouse stair landing by one person. It also does not fit in most cars, which is what rules out the drop-off option for a lot of District households.

Both go at the published size price, carried from wherever they are.

The wall mount

Almost every flat panel in a DC apartment is on a wall bracket, and almost every lease says something about it.

Take the set off the mount before the visit if you can -- it is a two-person job and it is easier without a clock running. The bracket itself comes off the wall with the anchors, and that leaves holes. In a rental in Navy Yard, NoMa, Ballston or Columbia Heights, decide in advance whether you are patching them or whether it is coming out of the deposit, because the walkthrough will find them.

In a rowhouse with plaster rather than drywall -- common on the Hill, in Georgetown, in Mount Pleasant -- removing a heavy bracket sometimes takes plaster with it. Worth knowing before you pull.

What goes with it

Television removals are almost always part of a living-room clear, because the set and the furniture it sat on go together.

• Petworth rowhouse living room. 55-inch panel and the entertainment center: $68 + $96 = $164.
• Arlington basement. Old CRT, a large stereo and a box of cables: $62 + $52 + $77 = $191.
• Foggy Bottom student unit in May. Small TV and a mini fridge: $62 + $115 = $177.
• Bethesda family room refresh. 65-inch-plus panel, entertainment center, and a large speaker system: $73 + $96 + $57 = $226.

Getting it out of a DC building

• Rowhouse. Narrow front door, stoop, stair that turns at the landing. Large panels come down flat and slow. No stair charge.
• English basement. Exterior stair under the stoop. No below-grade charge.
• Walk-up. Adams Morgan, Mount Pleasant, Columbia Heights. No walk-up charge.
• High-rise. Navy Yard, the Wharf, Rosslyn, Ballston, Tysons, Bethesda. Certificate of insurance and a booked freight elevator, produced at no charge.

Tell us the block when you book. Permit parking and rush-hour standing restrictions on Connecticut, 16th, Wisconsin and Rhode Island decide the arrival window more than the job size does.

Donation, realistically

A working flat panel from the last few years has a real reuse path and it is worth trying before you pay to dispose of it. Schools, community organizations and reuse programs in this region take some of them.

What has no path: any CRT set, anything with a cracked panel, anything with dead backlight rows, and anything that has been in a humid basement for years. Nobody in this metro wants those. They are disposal, and $62 to $73 is what it costs to have one carried down a stoop and handled properly.

The practical sequence

• Decide whether it works. If it does, try reuse first.
• If it does not, check your jurisdiction's electronics page for a drop-off that accepts your size -- and check the set actually fits in your car.
• If it does not fit, or it is a CRT, or it is above the ground floor, book the pickup.
• Pair it with whatever else is going so the $75 minimum is not doing the work. The TV stand, the stereo, the box of cables behind it.

Frequently asked questions