Old appliances and electronics are the two categories North Texas curbside pickup is most likely to refuse. Refrigerators and freezers hold refrigerant, televisions and monitors are handled through separate recycling streams, and washers, dryers, and water heaters are mostly steel that a scrap recycler wants. A crew can take all of it in one visit.
The confusing part is that the rules differ by item and by city, and nobody tells you which is which until the truck drives past your driveway. Here is the plain version.
Which appliances have special rules
Refrigerators, freezers, window air conditioners, and dehumidifiers. These contain refrigerant, which cannot legally be vented to the air and has to be recovered by someone certified before the shell is scrapped. That single fact is why most city bulk pickups either exclude them outright or require a separate arrangement. It is also why leaving one at the curb with the door on is a bad idea for a second reason, which is that an old fridge with a working latch is a hazard to a curious kid.
Washers, dryers, dishwashers, and water heaters. No refrigerant, and mostly steel. These are the easy ones. They go to a scrap recycler rather than a hole in the ground, which is the outcome you want anyway. Water heaters have one extra step, because a plumber has to disconnect and drain the tank before anybody carries it, and that whole job is covered in water heaters, softeners and the utility closet.
Microwaves, small kitchen appliances, and power tools. Treated as either scrap metal or electronics depending on what is inside them.
Televisions, monitors, computers, and printers. These are electronics, not appliances, and they are the strictest category. The EPA's overview of electronics donation and recycling explains why: screens and boards contain materials worth recovering and materials you do not want in a landfill. Older tube televisions are the worst of the group and the heaviest, which is why they sit in garages for years.
Anything with fuel or chemicals in it. A gas mower with fuel in the tank, a generator, a propane tank off the grill. Those are household hazardous waste and are handled separately, covered below.
What curbside will and will not do
Most northern suburb cities run some form of bulky waste or brush collection for residents, and it is worth using when your item qualifies. Plano publishes its bulky waste rules, and the shape is similar across the area: set collection days, quantity caps, and a list of excluded items that usually includes refrigerant appliances, tires, and construction debris.
We say this even though it costs us jobs. If your city will take the dryer for free next Tuesday and you can wait until Tuesday, wait until Tuesday. We would rather tell you the truth and lose the small job than take money you did not have to spend.
Where curbside stops working is the refused item, the item in a second-floor laundry closet, the four items at once, and the deadline that is not next Tuesday.
The appliance almost never has to come out to the curb first. The most common reason people put off a fridge or a washer is the thought of moving it themselves. You do not. The crew disconnects nothing plumbed or wired, but anything already unhooked gets carried out from wherever it stands.
What Hero's takes, and what happens to it
We take refrigerators, freezers, washers, dryers, dishwashers, ranges, microwaves, water heaters, window units, televisions, monitors, computers, and printers. One item or a whole kitchen. Appliance removal is the service page for the specifics.
The load gets sorted rather than tipped. Working appliances go to local donation partners, steel and copper go to scrap recyclers, and electronics go into the recycling stream built for them. TCEQ keeps a plain overview of recycling in Texas if you want to see how the state frames it. The goal on every load is keeping more than half of it out of the landfill, and where your junk actually goes covers the whole sorting process.
One thing we do not do is hazardous waste. Paint, motor oil, gasoline, pool chemicals, solvents, and propane tanks are a city matter, and the collection is free for residents. Plano runs household chemical collection and every neighboring city has an equivalent. Drain the mower before we come and the mower is fine. The fuel is not.
What it takes to have one picked up
You tell us what it is and where it sits. A photo and a room. Second-floor laundry, garage, back patio, all normal.
We give you a number before anything is lifted. The crew looks at what you have and quotes it firm, with disposal inside the number, no weight tickets and no hourly clock. That is the whole model, and how junk removal works walks through a job start to finish. The quote is the bill.
Have it disconnected if you can. Unplugged, water line shut off, gas line handled by whoever handles gas lines. We are haulers, not plumbers or electricians, and we will not pretend otherwise.
You point, we carry, we sweep. The crew goes to the appliance rather than the other way around, and the floor gets swept where it stood.
We keep pricing fair and we do not add on for how awkward the item is. For a free quote, tell us what needs to go.
Getting rid of several things at once
An appliance is rarely alone. Most of these calls turn out to be a fridge plus a treadmill plus the boxes behind them.
If the garage is the real problem, the garage cleanout checklist sorts it into piles first, which usually shrinks the load. If you are clearing an apartment on a deadline, apartment junk removal covers stairs, elevators, and complex rules. If the appliances belong to a unit a tenant just left, rental property cleanout is the closer fit.
We run pickups seven days a week. Call before noon and same afternoon is typical across Plano, Allen, Frisco, McKinney, Richardson, Little Elm, Prosper, The Colony, Wylie, and Fairview. After noon, the next morning's first slot is the normal worst case. Typical, not guaranteed. Old appliances run on the same schedule. A fridge is the usual call, whether that is a fridge pickup in Plano or an old unit out of a Prosper garage. Washers and dryers come out the same way, and McKinney is a regular stop for those.
Frequently asked questions
Will you take a refrigerator with the refrigerant still in it?
Yes. Refrigerant appliances go through a disposal path built for them rather than to a landfill, and that is already inside the quote you approve.
Do I have to move the washer out to the driveway?
No. The crew carries it out from where it stands, including a second-floor laundry closet. Have it unplugged and the water shut off if you can.
Can you take an old tube television?
Yes. Tube televisions are heavy and are one of the most common things left in a garage for years. They go into the electronics recycling stream rather than the trash.
What about the gas can and the half-used paint next to the fridge?
Those we cannot take. Fuel, paint, solvents, and pool chemicals go to your city's household chemical collection, free for residents. Ask us and we will point you at yours.
Is it worth waiting for the city to pick it up instead?
If your city accepts the item and the timing works for you, yes, and we will say so. Curbside programs exclude refrigerant appliances often enough that it is worth reading your city's list first.
If you have an appliance or a stack of old electronics sitting where you would rather have floor, send us a photo and we will tell you what the pickup looks like.