How to get rid of a TV in Miami

The short answer

Pricing is by size, not by technology, so a heavy old rear-projection set or a plasma costs the same as a flat panel of the same width. Wall mounts come off as part of the job. The minimum visit is $75, carry-out from any floor is included and disposal is inside the price.

A television is not household trash

Start here, because it decides everything else.

Televisions are electronic waste. Older sets contain leaded glass and other materials that are not supposed to go into a general waste stream, and newer flat panels contain backlight components and circuit boards that should be handled as e-waste too. Most municipal bulky-item programs in this metro exclude electronics from the ordinary curbside collection, and nearly every condo and apartment building in the county excludes them from the trash room and the compactor.

This is the single most common mistake made with a television in Miami: it gets carried down to the building's trash room because it is the nearest place a large object can be left. It is then removed by the building and billed to the unit, sometimes with a fine on top, and you have paid more than the flat removal price for the privilege.

Check your own municipality's page for what it does with electronics, and check the building rules before you carry anything to a chute room.

Why so many Miami televisions die early

Three local reasons, and between them they explain the volume.

Lightning and surges. This is one of the most lightning-prone places in the country, and summer storms take televisions out through the mains and through cable and antenna lines. A set can be killed by a nearby strike without the house losing power at all. Surge protection on the power lead alone does not cover a coaxial input.

Humidity and salt. Electronics in a unit that is shut up for a season — snowbird apartments, seasonal rentals, anything closed from spring to autumn with the air conditioning off — corrode internally. In a beachfront building the salt content in the air makes it worse. Sets in screened patios and Florida rooms fail fastest of all.

Turnover. Furnished rentals, short-term lets in the Grove, Wynwood, Edgewater and North Beach, and seasonal units all refresh their electronics on a short cycle. A working but dated set in a rental is replaced long before it dies.

The old heavy sets

There is still a meaningful population of pre-flat-panel televisions in this county, mostly in the older housing stock in Hialeah, Little Havana, Allapattah, Westchester and the back bedrooms of houses that have not changed hands in twenty years.

Two things about them. They are genuinely heavy — a large tube television or a rear-projection cabinet is a two-person lift and a bad one to attempt on a staircase — and they are the sets most likely to be refused by a general waste route because of what is in the glass.

They price the same as anything else their size: $62 under 42 inches, $68 up to 65, $73 above that. The weight is not a pricing input and neither is the age.

Selling, donating or recycling it first

Worth trying in one case and not worth trying in the others.

If it works and it is a flat panel from the last few years, it will sell or rehome quickly in this market — the rental and furnished-unit demand across the county is constant. Expect to help carry it, and be aware that most towers will not let a stranger take a television out of the building without a booked service elevator window.

If it works but it is old, the market is thin and getting thinner. Set a hard deadline before you decide to keep storing it.

If it does not work, stop. There is no resale, charities will not take it, and the routes left are an e-waste drop-off or a pickup.

For drop-offs: check your municipality's or the county's current household e-waste arrangements before loading anything. Sites, hours and what they accept change, and a wasted Saturday driving across the Palmetto with a 65-inch set in the back is a bad trade against $73.

Getting it out of a high-rise

The awkward part of a Miami television is rarely the television. It is the route.

A 75-inch panel does not go down a staircase safely and does not fit in a passenger lift in some older buildings. In the towers along Biscayne Boulevard, in Brickell and on the beaches it goes out on the service elevator, in a booked window, with a certificate of insurance naming the association on file first.

Two things worth doing before the day. Ask management whether electronics may go down the service lift at all — a few buildings have specific rules about what may be carried through the loading dock. And if the set is wall-mounted, leave it mounted. A panel on a bracket is stable; a panel leaning against a wall in a corridor waiting for a lift is a broken panel. The crew takes it down and removes the bracket.

Clearing the whole setup

Televisions rarely leave alone, and the totals are straightforward.

A living room in Edgewater with a 42-to-65-inch set at $68, an entertainment center at $96 and a large speaker system at $57 is $68 + $96 + $57 = $221.

A home office in Doral with a monitor at $58, a desktop tower at $62 and an inkjet printer at $58 is $58 + $62 + $58 = $178. Loose cables, remotes, routers and games consoles go in a box of electronics at $77.

Wipe anything with your data on it before the day. A smart television is a signed-in account: factory reset it, and sign out of the streaming services from another device afterwards. Same for a computer — the removal is disposal, not data destruction.

Booking it

Send the screen size and a photograph, and say what floor it is on and whether it is wall-mounted. That is enough for an exact price before anything is scheduled.

If other items are going in the same visit, list them and you get one total. If you are in a building, send the certificate requirements and the window management gave you. Bookings and crews work in Spanish across the county.

Frequently asked questions