A dead fridge, an old washer that finally gave out, a couch nobody can lift down three flights of stairs — bulky items are the single most common reason Montrealers call us. Here's what it actually costs, how walk-ups and tight stairwells factor in, and what to expect from pickup day.
Tell us what it is and where it's located — fridge, couch, mattress, third-floor walk-up — and we'll give you a price before booking.
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Most junk removal is priced by volume — how much space something takes up in the truck. Bulky appliances and heavy furniture break that model a little, because a single fridge or a hide-a-bed sofa can weigh more than an entire truckload of boxes while taking up a fraction of the space. Weight, awkward shape, and how hard something is to physically move are what actually drive the cost and difficulty of these jobs, not volume alone.
That distinction matters even more in Montreal, where a large share of housing stock is duplexes and triplexes with narrow staircases, tight turns at landings, and often no elevator at all. A washer that would be a quick two-person carry in a bungalow with a garage becomes a genuinely difficult job on a spiral staircase up to a third-floor unit. This guide covers what drives pricing, how stairs and access actually factor in, what needs special handling, and how to get an accurate quote without guessing.
Whether it's a single fridge that finally quit or an entire apartment's worth of furniture being swapped out during a renovation, the underlying question is usually the same: how do I get this heavy thing out of my home without hurting myself, damaging a doorway, or paying for a truck rental I'll use once. That's the practical problem this guide is meant to solve.
Fridges, freezers, washers, dryers, dishwashers, stoves, and old air conditioning units.
Sofas, sectionals, hide-a-beds, wardrobes, dressers, dining sets, bookcases, and mattresses.
Exercise equipment, pianos in some cases, large mirrors, safes, and other awkward, heavy household items.
A detail that catches a lot of people off guard: it's rarely the single heaviest item that causes the most trouble on pickup day, it's the combination of weight and shape. A treadmill, for example, weighs less than most refrigerators but is long, low, and awkward to angle around a stairwell landing, which can make it take just as long to move. Home gym setups with multiple pieces — a bench, a rack, stacked weight plates — are also worth mentioning as a group when you book, since the total volume and number of trips needed changes the estimate more than any single piece would on its own.
| Item(s) | Typical situation | Estimated price |
|---|---|---|
| Single appliance | Fridge, washer, dryer, or stove, ground-floor or easy access | $100 – $180 |
| Single large furniture piece | Sofa, mattress set, wardrobe, or dresser | $100 – $200 |
| Multiple items | 2-4 appliances or furniture pieces together | $200 – $400 |
| Full furniture set | Living room or bedroom set, several pieces at once | $400 – $700 |
Access is the biggest swing factor after the item itself — a third-floor walk-up with a tight stairwell can move a job toward the higher end of its range, and disassembly (a sectional that needs to come apart, a bed frame that won't clear a doorway) adds time on site. We confirm the exact price by phone or photos before the truck is booked, the same way we price standard residential debarras jobs.
Ask anyone who's tried to move a fridge down a spiral Montreal staircase alone, and they'll tell you the item itself was rarely the hard part — it was the geometry of getting it out of the building. A few specific things that change how a bulky item job actually runs:
Ground floor to a driveway is straightforward. A third-floor walk-up adds real time and effort, and it's the single biggest factor in why two seemingly identical jobs can be priced differently.
Many older Montreal triplexes have narrower stairwells than modern construction, sometimes with tight 90-degree turns at each landing. A couch that came up the stairs in one piece during move-in doesn't always come back down the same way years later if it's since been reupholstered or the stairwell has been renovated — this is where disassembly sometimes becomes necessary.
Montreal's iconic exterior spiral staircases look great on a postcard and are genuinely difficult for moving anything bulky, especially in winter or wet weather. If your unit is accessed this way, mentioning it upfront helps the crew plan the right approach and timing.
Back lanes, no-parking zones, and buildings without a dedicated loading area all add time to a job. If you know your street has restricted parking at certain hours, flagging that when you book avoids a scheduling mismatch on pickup day.
Disconnect appliances from water, gas, or electrical lines beforehand — we don't perform plumbing or electrical disconnection. Empty fridges and freezers of food. Clear a path from the item to the door as much as possible.
Actually lifting and carrying, navigating stairs, and any disassembly needed to get an oversized piece through a doorway or stairwell. Trying to move a heavy appliance solo beforehand is one of the more common ways people get injured during a home project.
Most bulky furniture and appliances go through our standard removal process, but a few categories have specific rules worth knowing about ahead of time.
These contain refrigerants that require specific handling under environmental regulations rather than standard scrap disposal. We route these through facilities equipped to properly recover refrigerant before the unit is processed for materials recovery.
Mattresses can't simply be shredded like most furniture — many recovery facilities separate out the metal springs and foam for recycling rather than sending the whole unit to landfill. If you have several mattresses at once (a common situation during a move or an estate cleanout), let us know so the pickup is sized correctly.
Extremely heavy and dense items like upright or console pianos and home safes need advance notice — these often require additional crew members or specific equipment, and not every visit is automatically staffed for them. Mention these specifically when booking rather than as a surprise on pickup day.
The most common single-item call: a fridge or washer that's stopped working and a replacement is arriving soon. Coordinating pickup around the delivery date of the new appliance avoids having both units in the space at once, which matters more in smaller kitchens and laundry closets typical of Montreal apartments.
A new couch is arriving and the old one needs to go, or a bedroom set is being swapped out. Same logic applies — timing pickup close to delivery keeps the apartment usable in between.
Heavy furniture that isn't making the trip to a new (often smaller) apartment is one of the most common reasons for bulky item pickup in Montreal, given how often people move here. If you're not sure whether a specific item can simply be set out on the curb versus needing scheduled pickup, our complete guide to bulky waste bylaws in Montreal and Laval breaks down what each municipality actually allows.
Kitchen appliances during a renovation, or furniture replaced as part of a room refresh, often come with an inconvenient timing window — the old stuff needs to leave before the new stuff can be installed or delivered. Booking a pickup around that window, rather than after the fact, keeps a reno on schedule.
A surprising share of our bulky item calls come from landlords and property managers clearing appliances or furniture left behind between tenants, or replacing an aging appliance across several units at once. If you're managing waste pickup across multiple properties on an ongoing basis rather than as a one-off, our guide on per-load or monthly billing for small businesses covers how to think about the cost structure once bulky item pickup becomes a recurring need rather than a single call.
What it is, where it's located, and whether stairs or a walk-up are involved.
A clear number before booking — no surprise charges once the crew is on site.
Including disassembly if needed to clear a doorway or tight stairwell.
Donation first when possible, then recycling for materials like metal and refrigerant recovery.
Not every bulky item needs a professional crew. A light dresser down a single flight with a friend's help is a perfectly reasonable DIY job. The calculation changes with weight, distance, and the number of people available to help — and it's worth being honest about the risk of injury, since heavy lifting on stairs is one of the more common ways people hurt their backs during a home project, sometimes badly enough to need real medical attention over what started as a favour for a friend.
The item is light enough for two people, there are no stairs involved or just one short flight, and you have a vehicle that can actually fit the item (a lot of furniture doesn't fit in a typical sedan or hatchback trunk, and renting a van for a single piece rarely pencils out).
You're dealing with a major appliance alone, there are multiple flights of stairs or a tight, turning staircase, the item needs disassembly to get out of the unit, or you simply don't have a truck and don't want to pay for a rental plus dump fees for a single item. A flat quote for pickup often ends up cheaper than a truck rental once gas, dump fees, and your own time are factored in — and nobody's back gets hurt in the process.
Bulky item pickup is a competitive space in Montreal, and pricing is often the biggest source of frustration for people who've tried booking with a national franchise like 1-800-GOT-JUNK or a local operator. Getting a real number typically means waiting for a phone call or an on-site visit, since most operators in this space don't publish price ranges — you find out the cost when someone shows up or calls you back, which makes it hard to compare options or budget ahead of time.
We publish our price ranges directly because most bulky item jobs are predictable enough to quote accurately by phone or from a couple of photos — a fridge is a fridge, a third-floor walk-up is a third-floor walk-up, and there's rarely a reason to hide that math behind a "call for pricing" wall. It also means you can decide whether professional pickup makes sense for your specific situation before committing to a call, rather than having to go through a full booking process just to find out the number doesn't work for your budget.
The other place we tend to differ from bigger operators is turnaround — a national franchise's local schedule availability can vary a lot depending on how busy the region is that week, while our 24-48h option is built specifically for the kind of urgent single-item situations bulky item pickup so often involves (an appliance that died today, a delivery arriving tomorrow).
It's a fair question, and the honest answer is that it depends on the item and its condition. Here's the general breakdown by category.
Working appliances in decent condition sometimes go to resale or donation channels rather than being scrapped outright — a functioning washer with a few years of life left in it is worth more to a donation program than to a scrapyard. Non-working appliances are taken to facilities equipped to recover metal, and in the case of fridges and air conditioners, to properly extract refrigerant before the unit is processed further. Very little of a typical major appliance actually ends up as unrecoverable landfill waste, since metal is one of the most efficiently recycled materials there is.
Furniture in genuinely usable condition — no major structural damage, reasonably clean, not falling apart — is set aside for donation first. This is a bigger share of the load than people usually expect; a lot of what gets replaced during a move or a home refresh isn't actually broken, it's just no longer wanted. Furniture that's damaged beyond repair is broken down where possible to separate recyclable materials like metal frames from wood and fabric that typically can't be recovered.
Mattresses are one of the more specialized recovery streams — dedicated facilities separate the steel spring coils, foam, and fabric layers rather than sending the whole unit to landfill intact, which is what happens when a mattress is simply left at the curb for standard municipal pickup in some cases.
If you want the fuller picture of how this donate-recycle-landfill hierarchy applies across all types of household items, not just bulky appliances and furniture, our guide on donate vs. recycle vs. landfill in Montreal covers it in more depth.
Demand for appliance and furniture pickup isn't evenly spread across the year in Montreal — a few periods reliably see a surge, and knowing them can help with planning if your timing is flexible.
Tied to the traditional July 1st lease turnover date, this is by far the busiest stretch of the year for bulky item pickup across the city, as outgoing tenants clear furniture they're not bringing to a new place and incoming tenants deal with whatever was left behind. Booking a week or two ahead during this window, rather than the day before your move, gives you far more flexibility on timing.
April-May and September-October see a secondary bump as households do seasonal decluttering and appliance replacements tend to cluster around home renovation projects that pick up once the weather cooperates.
New appliances and furniture purchased as gifts or during holiday sales mean a wave of old items need to go in January, once everything's delivered and set up.
None of this means pickup isn't available outside these windows — it's simply a factor in how far ahead you might want to book if your date has some flexibility.
We remove bulky appliances and heavy furniture throughout Montreal, Laval, and the surrounding area, including walk-ups and triplexes in neighbourhoods like DDO, Anjou, and Hochelaga-Mercier, plus Boisbriand and Pont-Viau further north. The full list of service areas covers the rest of the region if your address isn't listed here.
If bulky item pickup is part of a larger job — a full apartment or house being cleared out rather than just one or two pieces — our residential debarras service covers everything from a single appliance to a complete home clear-out under the same pricing logic.
A single major appliance typically runs $100-$180 depending on access. Removing several appliances at once, or an appliance plus a stair carry-down in a walk-up, usually falls in the $180-$300 range.
Yes, this is one of the most common jobs we handle. Narrow Montreal staircases, tight turns, and third-floor walk-ups are factored into pricing, and our crews are experienced with the specific layout challenges of duplexes and triplexes.
Yes, appliances need to be disconnected from water, gas, or electrical lines before our crew arrives — we don't perform plumbing or electrical disconnection. If you're not sure how, a quick call to a plumber or your landlord's maintenance line usually resolves it fast.
Furniture in usable condition is prioritized for donation. Appliances that still work sometimes go to resale or donation channels too; those that don't are taken to facilities that recover metal and other recyclable materials before what's left goes to landfill.
In most cases our crew can disassemble furniture that doesn't fit through a doorway or stairwell as-is — bed frames, sectional sofas, and large wardrobes are common examples. Mention the situation when you book so the crew comes prepared with the right tools.
Same-day isn't always guaranteed depending on the day's schedule, but we offer 24-48h turnaround in most cases, which covers the vast majority of single-item pickup requests.
Planning a pickup? See all of our service areas, including Boucherville and Mirabel. Related reading: The 2026 Bulky Item Pickup Calendar for Montreal and Laval: Complete Guide and Construction Waste Removal in Montreal: Dumpster Bin vs Direct Pickup.
Call us with the details — item, location, and any stairs involved — for a flat price before booking.
📞 (514) 295-2123From $150, same-day pickup often available in Montreal, Laval, the North Shore and the South Shore.
GoodBye Junk Montréal
Montreal, QC, Canada
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