How to get rid of a TV in Colorado Springs

The short answer

Flat, disposal included, carried out from wherever the set is. No e-waste surcharge added at the door, no stair charge, no same-day surcharge. Minimum per visit is $75, so a single small TV at $62 reaches the minimum rather than its list price — worth knowing before you decide whether to send one item or four.

Why you cannot just put it in the trash

Electronics are handled as a separate stream in Colorado, and household trash service is generally not the route for them. Practically, that means two things for a Springs household: your private subscription hauler almost certainly will not take a television with your normal service, and a set left at the curb will still be there next week.

There are drop-off options, and they vary — some are permanent, some are periodic collection days run by a municipality or county, and what they accept and charge changes. We are not going to print a schedule or a fee here, because the version you read online is rarely the version that is running. If you want to self-haul, look up the current page for your own jurisdiction — Colorado Springs, Fountain, Monument, Manitou Springs and unincorporated El Paso County are separate, and the address on your mail is not always the jurisdiction you are in.

Then weigh it against a $68 pickup for a mid-size set, carried out of the room it is in.

The CRT in the garage

The single most common television we collect in this city is not a modern flat panel. It is a glass tube set from before 2010 that has been in a detached garage in Old Colorado City, a basement in Patty Jewett, or a shed on a Black Forest lot for a decade and a half.

They are the hardest sets to get rid of by any route other than removal. They are extremely heavy for their size, leaded glass makes them a genuine handling category rather than a nuisance, and the resale and donation value is zero. People try to give them away, fail, and then they stay.

A CRT is priced on the same size lines as anything else: $62 under 42 inches, $68 from 42 to 65. There is no surcharge for it being old glass. If you have two in the garage plus the monitor that came with a long-dead desktop, that is $62 + $62 + $58 = $182 in one visit, which is generally the end of a problem that has been running for years.

The Colorado Springs upgrade cycle

Televisions turn over here on a schedule set by moves rather than by technology.

A household arrives on orders and buys a set that fits the rental they are in — often something modest for a three-bedroom in Fountain, Security-Widefield or Cimarron Hills. Three years later they are in a house in Stetson Hills or Wolf Ranch with a basement media room, and they buy something much larger. The old set goes into the basement. On the next move, the old set is still in the basement, and it is not going on the household goods inventory.

That is the sequence behind most of the two-and-three-television pickups we do. It is also why the calls cluster hard from late spring through summer, when everyone attached to Fort Carson, Peterson and the Academy is trying to clear inside the same warm stretch.

Big sets, mounted sets and basement media rooms

A set over 65 inches is $73, and the price is the small part of the problem. The awkwardness is where these live in the newer north and east subdivisions: mounted high over a fireplace in a two-story great room, or in a finished basement at the end of a stair with a turn in it.

Two practical notes. First, take the set off the wall before we come if you can do it safely with two people — a large panel coming off a bracket at height is not a one-person job, and we would much rather you did not attempt it alone than that you did. If it needs to stay on the wall until we arrive, tell us when you book and we will plan for it. Second, the mount itself and the entertainment center underneath are separate items if they are going too; a TV stand or entertainment center is $96.

Stairs do not change any of it. A 70-inch panel coming up from a finished walkout basement on a Rockrimmon slope is the same $73 as one already sitting in the garage.

Clearing the whole media wall at once

Televisions rarely leave alone. The combinations we see most often, with the arithmetic:

• Old TV and the entertainment center under it: $68 + $96 = $164.
• Two TVs and a large speaker system: $68 + $62 + $57 = $187.
• A home office clear — monitor, tower and printer: $58 + $62 + $58 = $178.
• A basement media room — 65-inch-plus set, stereo, large speakers and a box of assorted electronics: $73 + $52 + $57 + $77 = $259.

Once you are past about six items, check the total against volume pricing: a quarter truck is $241, three-eighths is $338, a half is $431. Electronics are dense rather than bulky so item pricing usually stays lower, but we run both sums and quote whichever is cheaper.

Before you hand the set over

Two minutes of housekeeping that has nothing to do with price.

• Sign out of everything. Smart sets hold accounts. Factory-reset it from the settings menu before we come.
• Pull the storage out of anything that has it. Desktops and some recorders keep drives that are worth removing if you care about what is on them.
• Keep the remotes and cables together. If they are going too, put them in a box — a box of assorted electronics is a single $77 line rather than a dozen small ones.

Everything else is ours. You get the price in writing before we drive out, item by item, from the same published list the crew works from.

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