Hot Tub Removal Seattle
Hot Tub & Spa Removal
in Seattle
$390 flat for a standard tub, $501 for a 6-8 person spa. We cut the shell into carryable sections, pull the cover, cabinet and frame, and carry the whole thing out of the deck surround or down the side-yard steps. No municipal program in this region will take a hot tub — not SPU's $30 curbside pickup, not the county truck. Quoted from a photo, usually same day.
How hot tub removal works in Seattle
1 · Send two photos
One of the tub, one of the way out — the gate, the deck stairs, the side yard. That second photo is what lets us price a spa honestly without a site visit. The number comes back in seconds.
2 · Drain & disconnect
Drain it if you can. If it's hard-wired at 240V, have a licensed electrician disconnect it first — that part isn't ours to do, and we'd rather say so than fudge it. Plug-in tubs just get unplugged.
3 · We cut it apart & haul it
Cover off, cabinet and frame stripped, shell cut into sections a person can carry, everything walked out through the gate to the truck. The deck stays. The tub leaves. Site swept.
How much does hot tub removal cost in Seattle?
$390 flat. That is the whole job — the cut-apart, the carry-out, the haul, the disposal. We publish one hot tub price rather than a ladder of size tiers, because in practice the shell gets cut down either way, and a "small" spa in a walled side yard is more work than a big one on an open patio. Nor is there a deck-surround surcharge. What you're quoted from the photo is what you pay.
| Item | Flat price |
|---|---|
| Hot tub / spa (standard) | $390 |
| Hot tub / spa — 6-8 person | $501 |
| Outdoor lounge / daybed | $61 |
| Propane grill | $71 |
| Patio table | $89 |
| Trampoline | $116 |
| Swing set / play structure | $143 |
| Pool table | $603 |
Our $100 minimum is the floor for sending a truck and a crew anywhere in the metro — a hot tub clears it several times over, so it never comes up on this job. Clearing the whole back yard at once? The tub plus the swing set, the trampoline and the tired patio set price together off one photo, and a full yard or deck clear-out can price as truck-fill instead: quarter truck $241, half $431, three-quarters $587, full $732.
Third-party context. Cost guides from Homeyou and Yelp Costs put an average Seattle junk-removal job at roughly $253–$325. Published figures for 1-800-GOT-JUNK put a full truck at about $700–$1,000, with estimates given on site only. A hot tub is a full-truck-shaped job by volume, which makes it the single worst item to leave to an on-site reveal — a crew is already in your back yard by the time you hear the number.
On tax. Washington does not apply its retail sales tax (~10.35% in Seattle) to junk-removal service. The 3.6% state refuse and solid-waste collection tax (RCW 82.18) applies to the disposal portion of the job. Small, real, correctly named.
4 ways to get rid of a hot tub in Seattle
| Option | Cost | Speed | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| SPU curbside special-items pickup | Not available | — | Won't take it. $30-per-item bulky pickup is curbside-only household goods; a 700-lb shell with a frame isn't a curbside item, and SPU doesn't enter your yard |
| Cut it up and self-haul | King County $40.25 min/load, $243.38/ton, +$25 unsecured | A weekend, realistically | You do the demolition: drain, disconnect, saw the shell, strip the frame, load it, strap it, drive it — usually more than one trip |
| Sell or give it away | Free | Weeks, if ever | A working, current tub might move; a dead one doesn't. Buyers rarely arrive with the crew and trailer needed to actually take it |
| Traditional full-service franchise | ~$700–$1,000 full truck (third-party estimate) | 1–3 days | On-site estimate only — the price lands after the truck is in your driveway |
| JunkRabbit | $390 flat | Same day, usually | None — quoted from a photo, cut apart and carried out, no deck, stair or hill surcharge |
Does Seattle pick up hot tubs?
No. This is the cleanest answer on any of our Seattle pages, so we'll give it to you straight rather than dressing it up.
Seattle Public Utilities does run a bulky special-items pickup — $30 per item, by appointment, scheduled onto your next garbage day, and curbside only (seattle.gov/specialitems). It's a genuinely useful program for a couch or a mattress. It is not a hot tub program. A filled-foam acrylic shell with a steel or timber frame, a cabinet and an insulated cover is not a household bulky item you set at the curb; it commonly weighs several hundred pounds empty, it doesn't fit on a residential collection truck intact, and SPU crews collect from the curb — they don't come through your gate, onto your deck, or around the side of the house. There's no appointment you can book that changes any of that.
The county doesn't collect it either — it accepts delivered debris. Everywhere outside Seattle city limits — Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland, Sammamish, Issaquah, Renton, Newcastle, Mercer Island — you're in King County Solid Waste territory, with stations at Factoria (Bellevue), Houghton (Kirkland), Shoreline, Bow Lake, Renton, Enumclaw and Vashon. They will take a cut-up hot tub as garbage at the 2026 rates: $40.25 minimum per load (up to 320 lb), $243.38 per ton beyond that, plus a $25 unsecured-load fee if it isn't strapped down properly. Read that carefully. The county option assumes the tub is already in pieces, already in your truck, already tied down. The scale house is the last ten minutes of the job. Everything before it — draining it, having the 240V circuit disconnected, sawing a fibreglass-and-foam shell into sections, wrestling those sections out of a deck surround and down a set of steps, and doing it without cutting yourself on a rusted frame — is the actual work, and no public program does any of it.
That's the whole reason this page exists. There is no cheap civic path around a hot tub in Seattle. The choice is your weekend and a rented truck, or one flat number and a crew that owns saws.
What we actually do on a hot tub job
- Confirm the disconnect. Drained if possible; if it's hard-wired at 240V, a licensed electrician does the disconnect — the homeowner arranges that, and we say so plainly instead of implying we do licensed electrical work. Plug-in units we simply unplug.
- Cover and skirt off. The vinyl cover, the cover lifter, and the cabinet panels come off first — they're usually the only parts that come away whole.
- Cut the shell into sections. The acrylic-and-foam shell is cut down into pieces a person can carry, sized to whatever the exit actually is: a three-foot gate, a deck gap, a run of stairs.
- Strip the frame and plumbing. Timber or steel frame, pump housing, jets, pipework and insulation, all separated as they come out.
- Carry it out. Out of the deck surround, along the side yard, down the steps, to the truck. No crane, no railing lift, and no charge for the stairs or the grade.
- Haul, sort and sweep. Metal to scrap, clean wood separated, shell to disposal, and the pad or deck left swept.
What we don't do: alter, rebuild or re-deck your structure, cap plumbing, or perform electrical work. We remove the tub and its own cabinet and frame — a carpenter or electrician handles what stays behind.
What happens to your hot tub after pickup
Let's be honest about this one, because plenty of pages in this industry aren't: the shell goes to disposal. A cut acrylic-and-polyurethane-foam spa shell has no meaningful recycling market, and claiming otherwise would be greenwashing.
What is diverted is real and worth stating. The frame's metal goes to scrap, and the clean wood from a timber cabinet is separated out rather than tipped as mixed garbage — in King County, clean wood tips at roughly $115 a ton against $243.38 a ton for garbage. Seattle's SMC 21.36 rules require that kind of source separation anyway, tagging loads that show up more than 10% contaminated. And because Washington's 3.6% refuse tax rides on the disposal portion of a job, every pound we divert sits outside that tax base as well. Compliance, cost and your flat price all pull the same direction — which is exactly why we can quote a hot tub sight-unseen and hold the number.
Where Seattle hot tubs actually sit
The hillside side yard. Magnolia's bluff lots, Queen Anne's slopes, West Seattle's view homes and Newcastle's hillside subdivisions all produce the same geometry: a tub on a back deck, a side yard barely wide enough to pass a wheelbarrow, a gate, and a flight of steps down to the street. This is why we cut rather than roll — 40-pound sections go where a 7-foot shell never will.
The inset Eastside deck. On the plateau — Sammamish, Issaquah, Redmond — and on Mercer Island, big decks are commonly built around the tub, with a bench or skirt on three sides. You cannot lift it out; it has to come apart in place. We cut it down inside the surround and carry it out through the gap, leaving your deck structure alone.
The HOA that won't let you stage it. Master-planned Eastside communities and island associations restrict curbside staging and often require vendor check-in. Even the self-haul route quietly assumes a curb you're not permitted to use. We load from the yard, so nothing ever sits out front.
Rain-country rot. This is the Pacific Northwest, and damp is what finally kills an abandoned tub — and often the decking around it. Under a neglected cover you tend to find standing water, moss, a soft skirt and a frame that's given up. Rotten, waterlogged tubs are heavier and messier than dry ones, and they're most of what we take. It doesn't change the price.
When people call us for hot tub removal
- It stopped working. The heater or pump failed, the repair quote came back close to the price of a new tub, and it's been sitting cold ever since.
- The deck is being rebuilt. PNW damp takes decks eventually, and the tub has to be out before the carpenter can start.
- Selling the house. A dead spa reads as deferred maintenance in listing photos, and buyers ask about it during inspection.
- It came with the property. Inherited with the purchase, never used, quietly rotting behind the house.
- The energy bill. Keeping several hundred gallons at temperature year-round for a tub nobody uses is a monthly charge for nothing.
- Converting the space. Hot tub out, patio, planters, seating area or hot-tub-shaped hole in the deck filled in.
- Clearing the whole yard. Tub, swing set, trampoline and old patio furniture together — one photo, one price.
Why Seattle chooses JunkRabbit for spa removal
- A flat price, quoted from a photo — $390 for a standard tub, $501 for a 6-8 person, no deck surcharge, no on-site estimate on the job where on-site estimates hurt most.
- We cut it apart — the shell comes out in sections sized to your actual gate, deck gap or stairwell, not to a brochure.
- No stair fee, no hill surcharge — Magnolia bluffs, Queen Anne grades and West Seattle steps are in the number.
- Honest about the boundaries — you arrange the licensed electrical disconnect on a hard-wired tub; we don't claim work that isn't ours.
- Insured, vetted crews — and HOA-friendly: we load from the yard, so nothing gets staged at the curb.
- Correctly stated tax — no WA retail sales tax on the service, the 3.6% refuse tax on disposal, named for what it is.
What a Seattle hot tub job usually looks like
Sammamish deck
Tub inset into a cedar deck with a bench on three sides, dead for two years. Cut down inside the surround, sections carried out through the side gate — deck untouched, nothing staged at the curb for the HOA to notice. $390 flat.
Magnolia bluff
Back-yard spa on a view lot, three-foot side yard, fourteen steps to the street. Shell cut into carry-size pieces and walked out in an assembly line. No stair or hill surcharge. $390 flat.
West Seattle yard clear
Tub plus a swing set and a trampoline in one trip, before a house sale: $390 + $143 + $116, all quoted off one photo set, metal and clean wood separated at the yard.
Representative job types and real prices from our Seattle list — not customer testimonials. We publish star ratings only when they come from a verified Google Business Profile.
Hot tub removal questions, answered
How much does hot tub removal cost in Seattle?
$390 flat for a standard tub and $501 for a 6-8 person spa, quoted from a photo — cut-apart, carry-out, haul and disposal included, deck surround included. Other yard items on the same trip price at their own numbers (swing set $143, trampoline $116, patio table $89, pool table $603). The $100 minimum never comes into play on a job this size.
Does Seattle pick up hot tubs?
No. SPU's $30-per-item special-items pickup is curbside-only household bulky goods and won't take a spa (seattle.gov/specialitems). King County will accept the pieces as garbage at $243.38/ton, $40.25 minimum load, +$25 unsecured — after you've cut it up and driven it there yourself.
Do I need to disconnect it first?
Drain it if you can. Hard-wired 240V tubs need a licensed electrician for the disconnect and that's the homeowner's to arrange — we're a hauling crew, not electricians. Plug-in units: just unplug.
It's built into my deck — is that a problem?
No, it's the normal Eastside job. We cut the shell down inside the surround and carry the sections out. We don't alter or rebuild the deck itself.
What about a narrow, steep side yard?
That's why we cut instead of roll. Sections sized to your gate and steps, carried out by hand. No stair fee, no hill surcharge.
Where does it go?
Shell and foam to disposal — there's no real recycling market for a cut spa shell and we won't claim one. Frame metal to scrap, clean wood separated (roughly $115/ton vs $243.38/ton for garbage), which also keeps that material outside the 3.6% refuse-tax base.
Is it cheaper than a full-service franchise?
Third-party figures put a franchise full truck at roughly $700–$1,000, quoted on site only; a hot tub is a full-truck-shaped job by volume. Ours is $390, fixed before we dispatch.
Is there sales tax?
Not on the service — Washington's retail sales tax (~10.35% in Seattle) doesn't apply. The 3.6% state refuse tax (RCW 82.18) applies to disposal.
Hot tub removal across Seattle & the Eastside
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to drain or disconnect the hot tub first?
Drain it if you can — an empty tub is lighter and cleaner to cut, and most tubs drain from a spigot at the base or with a submersible pump. On the electrical side we will be straight with you: if the tub is hard-wired to a 240-volt circuit, the disconnect should be done by a licensed electrician, and that is on the homeowner to arrange. We are a junk removal crew, not an electrical contractor, and we would rather say so than imply otherwise. If it is plug-in, unplug it and we handle the rest. Everything after the disconnect — cover, cabinet, frame, plumbing, shell — is ours.
My hot tub is inset into a deck. Can you still get it out?
Yes, and it is the most common version of this job on the Eastside. Sammamish, Issaquah, Redmond and Mercer Island decks routinely have the tub dropped into a framed surround with a bench or skirt around three sides. We cut the shell down inside the surround into sections that fit through the gap and carry them out — no crane, no lifting the whole tub over a railing. We remove the tub and its own cabinet and frame; rebuilding or altering your deck structure is a carpenter's job, not ours.
What if the tub is in a steep, narrow side yard?
That is exactly why we cut rather than roll. Hillside and view lots in Magnolia, Queen Anne, West Seattle and Newcastle often leave a side yard three feet wide with a gate at the end and a run of steps down to the street. A whole shell will not go through it; 40-pound cut sections will, in an assembly line. The carry is included in the $390 — there is no stair fee and no hill surcharge in our pricing, in this city or any other.
Where does the hot tub end up?
The acrylic shell and its foam insulation go to disposal — there is no meaningful recycling market for a cut spa shell, and we will not pretend there is. What we do divert is real: the frame's metal goes to scrap and the clean wood from the cabinet is separated from garbage, which in King County tips at roughly $115 a ton against $243.38 a ton for mixed garbage. Seattle's SMC 21.36 rules require that source separation anyway, and because Washington's 3.6% refuse tax is calculated on the disposal portion of a job, everything diverted stays outside that tax base too.
Is a flat price really better than an on-site estimate?
A hot tub is precisely the job where an on-site reveal hurts most. Published third-party figures put 1-800-GOT-JUNK at roughly $700 to $1,000 for a full truck with estimates given on site only, and cost guides from Homeyou and Yelp Costs put an average Seattle junk-removal job at about $253 to $325. A spa is a full-truck-shaped job by volume, so it is the one where 'we'll take a look when we get there' can land anywhere. Ours is $390, fixed from your photo, before anyone leaves the yard.
Do you charge Washington sales tax on hot tub removal?
Washington does not apply its retail sales tax, roughly 10.35% in Seattle, to junk-removal service. The 3.6% state refuse and solid-waste collection tax under RCW 82.18 does apply, on the disposal portion of the job. It is a small, real line and we name it correctly rather than claiming there is no tax.
Ready to Get the Hot Tub Out?
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