Many of the big box appliance stores remove your old refrigerator when you purchase a new one if you opt for the delivery fee. Refrigerators are usually easy to take in one piece, although sometimes the doors and other parts may need removing in order to get them out of tight spaces and to avoid damaging floors. Those big box stores usually refuse to remove SubZero and similar style refrigerators (although they don’t tell you that until they get to the property, so please remember this if you are replacing one). This is because these types of refrigerators are usually designed and built to be cabinet depth and look built-in to match the surrounding cabinetry. They are therefore wider and taller than a standard refrigerator. The compressor and parts are mounted at the top of the refrigerator instead of the bottom, which makes them top-heavy and difficult to remove and/or install.

We have plenty of experience removing these fridges, and I admit that it can get expensive because of the time and effort involved. We always warn clients that although we will take every precaution, there’s always a chance a wall gets dinged or a floor gets nicked simply because of the size of these hulking beasts.

One time, a client hired us to remove a subzero from their kitchen and wasn’t too happy about our warnings and caveats. But they ultimately agreed, and we got to work. It took us a couple hours of disassembling and jockeying to get this brute out of its alcove, on a cart, and out the door. We walked the route with the client after the job to show no visible damage occurred.

Now did you know that subzero refrigerators often have removable door panels? That way you can match the doors with your existing cabinetry by staining a sheet of wood, or you can jazz it up with stainless steel inserts for a more modern look. As luck would have it, this one had stainless steel inserts, and they were an exact match to the subzero I had in my kitchen that was installed when the house was built well over 30 years ago. I brought the panels home and swapped them with the wood inserts in my SubZero to see how it looked. My wife came home and saw it and exclaimed, “OMG, that stainless steel is beautiful. We HAVE to replace all of our appliances with it, including this old refrigerator.”

And that’s how removing a subzero refrigerator cost me $5000.