Have you ever received a request like this?

I can't believe that a homeowner would call me, and ask if we accept hair dryers and curling irons?

What a joke. It did make me chuckle though.

Unfortunately, no we cannot come by and remove your hair dryer and curling irons.

haha. I would cut the cords off, if I had them laying around. But to drive somewhere to pick them up. Not a chance.

I think i can beat that story.. a lady calls me asking if i take metal, yes i do i said, i ask where shes located and what she has.. she says i have an antenna on my roof, is that something i do. I said not normally,but depending on what else you have i can manage to go on your roof and take it down for you.. i proceed to ask what else she has, she says no thats it! and do i do that free?? REALLY? I'm gonna come over there, climb on your roof to cut off an antenna.. and do it for no charge.

Yesterday I had a lady call me long distance from two cities over. She wanted me to drive to Oakville, disconnect and haul up ONE WASHER from the basement, then down 8 front steps.

I politely declined, but her blatant abuse of the term 'free scrap pickup' amused me to no end.

I'm just starting out. So this is the type of requests you generally get from residential customers? Is it worth it as you start to build your business or are you going to run yourself into the ground with too high a cost?

One time a guy asked me if I would rip down his basketball hoop. He was an old landscaping client of mine. I told him that I couldn't drive half an hour in my truck, chain up his hoop, rip it down, and then scrap it and expect to make any money. In fact, I would lose money. So, I told him I would do it for $150 and he said, "OK, but for that price I also want you to take an old wheel barrow, soccer goal, and some other stuff I have out back." He's a rare one, though... very, very well off. (I also don't think he realized that had he offered the soccer goal and old wheel barrow I may have done it for free, or much much less.)

That's my thing with the whole scrap metal gig... I have never been able to make it work by itself (until the past job I found where I started ripping out an old metal dump, but that is a unique situation). I have found that (for me) I can make the business work when I am already on my client's property. Then, the metal I find is just like a tip. The other day I found two gigantic steel handrails and about 20ft of 1.5in copper pipe under some leaves. I was already getting paid to remove everything from the back yard, so the scrap was an added bonus to the whole process. Here's my main issue with the "free junk removal" ads: I don't understand how it is worth it to drive somewhere to pick up a washing machine. Perhaps if my truck got better mileage, but even so, if it takes two gallons to get the machine, doesn't that eat up most of the profit?

"free scrap removal ads" only work if the trip is worth it.. its part of the business, i always ask "what do you have" if i think its worth my trip i do it free, if not i let them know there will be a small fee.. when dealing with residential clients, 9 out of 10 times its not worth it.. Sometimes i think if no1 ever started with the "free removal" then these customers would not have gotten the idea in there head that there washer in the basement is like gold to a scrapper.. scrap guys are a dime a dozen, soo the customer knows eventually they will find some1 to take that appliance out of there basement for free.

I almost bit off more than I could chew when I agreed to haul an old furnace away from a rental house for free that had been left there by the new furnace installer.
The thing was very big and heavy but it took me about four hours to get it into small enough pieces to carry up and the heat exchanger was still almost more than I could get up the stairs and loaded onto my trailer. I should have told the landlady there would be a charge to do it but I like to stand by my word and had already said that I would do it free before seeing it and being a retired HVAC contractor figured "it can't be that bad". I probably made about thirty five cents an hour but I learned a good lesson and the landlady was happy. Maybe she'll call me sometime when she has something more lucrative to get rid of, hopefully an old HEAVY vehicle that some tenant abandons.

I removed one from my parents house. There was one piece that was very heavy. So we backed the pickup to the door and ran a rope from the bumper to the piece and pulled it out. Would not recomend that at a strangers house but it worked.