Bed frame disposal in Indianapolis

The short answer

Minimum visit $75. A $68 metal frame on its own bills at the minimum; paired with the mattress it held, it is $68 + $103 = $171 for a queen.

Know which frame you actually have

The price difference is about material and how it comes apart, not about how it looks in the room.

Standard metal or platform — $68. A steel rail frame on casters, or a simple slatted platform. Light, bolts out in minutes, stacks flat. This is the majority of what comes out of student rentals around Butler and the near west side.

Solid, upholstered or storage — $126 up to queen, $152 for king. A solid-wood sleigh or panel bed, an upholstered headboard-and-rail set, or a platform with drawers underneath. Heavy, usually assembled in place, and the drawer boxes have to come out before anything moves.

Adjustable base — $118. A motorised base is not a frame with a motor bolted on; it is a dense mechanism with a power supply and a control box, and it weighs more than the mattress that sits on it.

If you are unsure, describe the material and the size when you book and it gets priced from the published list, not guessed at on your driveway.

The Indianapolis stair problem

Frames are the item most often assembled in a room they cannot leave intact, and our older housing makes that worse than average.

The bungalows and foursquares across Irvington, Bates-Hendricks, Garfield Park, Herron-Morton and the near northside have stair openings and bedroom doorways sized for 1920s furniture. A king platform frame with a storage base does not come down those stairs assembled — it comes down as a headboard, two rails, a footboard and a stack of slats.

That is fine. It is part of the job, and it does not change the price. What it does change is your plan if you were intending to sell it: a buyer who arrives expecting to carry a king frame down a Fountain Square double's rear stair in one piece is a buyer who leaves without it.

Bunk beds and the kids' room

Bunk beds are the frame people most often get stuck with. A standard bunk is $123 and a solid-wood or loft bunk is $148.

They are bolted, they are tall, and in a bedroom under a bungalow's sloped upstairs ceiling — very common in Broad Ripple, Irvington and the Meridian-Kessler side streets — there is often not enough headroom to tip the frame without hitting the ceiling. Everything comes apart in place.

A kids' room cleared completely: bunk bed $123 + twin mattress $82 + twin mattress $82 + dresser standard $126 = $413. Above the 3/8 truck rung of $338, so you would take $338 instead.

Selling or donating a frame first

Frames are among the better resale prospects in central Indiana, and worth trying if yours is solid wood.

Sells: solid-wood sleigh, panel and four-poster beds, good upholstered frames in neutral fabric, quality platform beds. There are people furnishing old houses across Fountain Square, Bates-Hendricks and the near northside who want exactly this.

Does not sell: basic metal rail frames, which are worth less than the gas to collect them. Flat-pack platform beds, which rarely survive disassembly. Bunk beds, because of safety-standard changes and because nobody wants to reassemble one.

Donation: possible for clean, complete frames with all their hardware. The word doing the work there is complete — a frame missing its center support or its bolts is refused everywhere, and hardware for an eight-year-old flat-pack bed is not findable.

Set-out, and why frames are deceptive

A metal frame looks like the easiest thing in the world to put at the curb, and in some cases it is — check your address's bulk rules, because Indianapolis blocks are not all served by the same hauler and the accepted-items list differs.

Two warnings specific to frames. First, a steel frame in an alley will be gone within hours, which sounds convenient but means the rails are gone and the slats are left. Second, a disassembled wooden frame looks exactly like loose lumber, and loose lumber is frequently not an accepted bulk item. Bundle it or expect it to be left behind.

Typical bedrooms, added up

• Student rental near the IU Indianapolis campus: metal frame $68 + twin mattress $82 = $150.
• Guest room in a Broad Ripple double: solid frame twin-to-queen $126 + mattress and box spring set $143 = $269.
• Primary bedroom upgrade in Fishers: king solid frame $152 + king mattress $114 + box spring $92 = $358.
• Replacing a base in Carmel: adjustable bed base $118 + queen mattress $103 = $221.
• Nursery cleared in Greenwood: crib $67 + baby gear $33 = $100.

When to book it

Two peaks in this market. Late July into August, when the whole metro turns leases over and Butler and IU Indianapolis move-in lands — frames and mattresses are the two most common abandoned items in that two weeks. And the first two weeks of January, when the new bed that was ordered in December finally arrives and the old one has to leave.

Book the removal for the day before the delivery, not the day after. Otherwise the old frame spends a month in the garage, and by March it is part of a larger problem.

Frequently asked questions