How to get rid of a TV in Philadelphia

The short answer

Price is by screen size, not weight. A thirty-year-old tube set measuring 32 inches is $62, the same as a flat panel of the same size, even though one of them takes two people to lift.

Two TVs from the same house is $68 + $62 = $130. A large set with the cabinet it sat in is $73 + $96 = $169. The minimum is $75 per visit, so one small TV on its own would come to $75 — worth combining with something else.

You probably cannot just put it at the curb

Televisions and computer equipment are handled differently from general household trash in Pennsylvania. Before you carry anything out to the pavement, check the current state electronics recycling guidance and the city's own drop-off information.

We are deliberately not naming a site, a program or a date here, because those change — sometimes more than once a year — and a wrong civic fact is worse than a vague one. Read the current version.

What is stable is the practical consequence on a Philadelphia street. A TV set out with the bags does not quietly vanish. It sits on a pavement a few feet wide, in front of somebody else's door. It gets rained on. Then the screen goes, and now there is broken glass on a pavement that people walk children down. On a row-home block that is a shared problem within about two days, and it is the kind of thing neighbors report.

The CRT in the basement

Every clearance in the older parts of this city turns one up. A tube or rear-projection television from the late nineties or early 2000s, sitting in the basement of a row home in Mayfair, Frankford, Olney or Port Richmond, because when the flat screen arrived nobody could face carrying the old one back up the stairs.

They are genuinely heavy — a big rear-projection set is a serious two-person lift on a flat floor, and a Philadelphia basement staircase is steep, straight, low-headroom and usually has a door at the top that opens the wrong way. They also contain leaded glass, which is exactly why the state handles them separately from general waste.

Screen size still sets the price. Most of them are under 42 inches, so $62. The awkwardness of getting it up out of the cellar is included, not extra.

A note for anyone tempted to handle it alone: do not attempt a rear-projection set on your own on those stairs. It is the single most common way people hurt themselves clearing a Philadelphia basement.

Wall-mounted sets

A lot of rentals in Fishtown, Northern Liberties, Graduate Hospital and the Center City towers have a flat panel bolted to a wall — frequently a party wall, because in a row home that is the only wall long enough.

• The TV and the bracket come off and go on the truck. That is included in the size price.
• The anchors and the patch are a different trade. If your lease or your sale requires the wall made good, arrange plastering and paint separately. It is worth doing before a walkthrough rather than arguing about it on a deposit statement.
• In a managed Center City building, you still need the freight elevator booked and a certificate of insurance on file, even for one television. The building's rules do not scale with the size of the load.

Before you pay: is it actually dead?

If the set works, Philadelphia will absorb it, and the timing is the trick.

The best moment of the year is the last week of August, when tens of thousands of people move into rooms across West Philly, North Philly and Center City in the space of seventy-two hours. A working television put out on a Powelton, Spruce Hill or Cedar Park pavement with a sign on it during move-in week has an unusually good chance of being taken within the hour. Reuse and repair projects around the city will sometimes take working gear as well.

What will not move, in any season: cracked panels, anything with a tube in it, anything that needs a remote nobody has, and anything that has been in a damp basement. For those, $62 to $73 is what the line costs, and the price includes it being disposed of the way it is supposed to be.

Wipe it first

Ten minutes, the evening before, and nobody else is going to do it.

• Factory reset a smart TV. It holds your streaming logins and your home Wi-Fi password.
• Sign out of accounts before the reset, not after.
• Unpair remotes and soundbars if they are going too.
• Check behind the set. Streaming sticks live in the back HDMI port and get forgotten. A box of electronics is $77 if the whole shelf is going.

Booking it in one trip

The $75 minimum is per visit, so the sensible move in a Philadelphia house is to clear everything electronic at once rather than one item at a time as each fails.

A typical living room in a Fishtown rental being emptied: TV 42-65" $68 + entertainment center $96 + box of electronics $77 = $241.

A whole-house clearance in Mayfair with the living room set, the bedroom set and the basement tube TV: $73 + $62 + $62 = $197 for the three televisions alone.

Tell us the sizes and the floors when you book. Nothing about stairs, floors or the basement changes the price — it changes how many people arrive.

Frequently asked questions