Delivery, Installation and Haul-Away

Purpose

The delivery that fails does not fail at the connection, it fails at a doorway, a stair turn or a countertop overhang that nobody measured, with a wrapped appliance on a dolly in a hallway and a customer watching. At that point every option is bad: leave it in the garage, cut trim, or take it back and reschedule with a second crew day already spent.

The second half carries a different risk. Hauling away the old unit means taking possession of somebody else's appliance, and if it holds refrigerant, that possession carries a disposal duty that does not end when it leaves your truck. This SOP puts the measurements before the load and the disposal chain after it.

Scope

Covers residential major appliance delivery and set-in-place, the site survey that precedes it, and removal and lawful disposal of the replaced unit. Applies whether the appliance was bought from you, bought from a retailer that does not install, or supplied by the customer.

Does not cover the utility connection details themselves, which are owned by the water supply line connection standard for anything water-fed and by the appliance-specific howto articles for gas and electrical terminations. Does not cover built-in units set into finished cabinetry, where the removal is the hard part and the cabinetry is at risk, which has its own SOP. Does not cover commercial kitchen equipment, which moves on different rigging and lands under different codes.

Roles and responsibilities

Procedure

1. Take the opening and the path measurements at booking, over the phone or from photographs, and record them as numbers. Acceptance: appliance width, depth including handles and door swing, and height, against the narrowest doorway, the narrowest hall turn, the stair width and any countertop overhang, with roughly two inches of clearance on the controlling dimension. Wrong looks like "it should fit, the old one did", which ignores that counter-depth refrigerators have grown and that handles are often removable while the case is not. Stop rule: any dimension inside the clearance, or unmeasured, gets a survey visit or a photograph before the truck is loaded. This is a desk step and it is the one that prevents the failure this SOP exists for.

2. Confirm the utilities the new appliance needs exist and match, before delivery day. Acceptance: for an electric range, a 240 V receptacle whose configuration matches the cord you are bringing, three-wire or four-wire, identified from the customer's photo; for gas, an accessible shutoff and the gas type, natural or propane, matching the appliance's orifice set; for anything water-fed, an accessible quarter-turn stop. Wrong looks like arriving with a four-wire cord to a three-wire receptacle, or a natural gas range going to a propane house. Stop rule: mismatch found before delivery, resolve it as a separate quoted item. Mismatch found on the day, set the appliance and do not connect, because converting a range to propane needs the manufacturer's conversion kit and is not a field improvisation.

3. On arrival, walk the whole path from truck to final position before anything comes off the truck, laying protection as you walk it. Acceptance: path physically clear, doorway trim protected, floor covered on any finished surface, and the final position confirmed with the customer while the appliance is still outside. Wrong looks like discovering a threshold or a tight turn with a loaded dolly already balanced. Stop rule: path blocked and the customer cannot clear it, reschedule rather than moving the customer's furniture, because furniture you move is furniture you own the damage on. Hazard: stair descent with a loaded appliance dolly is where crush and back injuries concentrate, so the heavier person takes the downhill end, the strap is tensioned before the first step, and neither person walks backwards down a stair they have not just walked up empty.

4. Uncrate outside or in the garage, inspect for transit damage, and photograph any damage before the appliance enters the house. Acceptance: photographs of all visible faces, dents and scratches logged, model and serial captured from the plate. Wrong looks like uncrating in the kitchen, where a panel scuff becomes an argument about whether the crew caused it. Stop rule: significant damage found, do not install, photograph, call the office, and offer the customer the choice of a replacement unit or a documented discount decision made by the office rather than by the crew.

5. Remove the old appliance before the new one comes in, isolating every utility first and proving isolation. Acceptance: gas shutoff closed and the appliance confirmed dead by attempting ignition, or the branch breaker off with the circuit proved dead using a meter checked on a known live source before and after, and the water stop closed with the line bled at the appliance end. Wrong looks like pulling a dryer with the gas valve stiff and assumed closed. Stop rule: a shutoff that will not close, or a gas odor at any point, means everyone leaves the house immediately without touching a switch, without a light, and without using a phone inside, and the gas utility is called from outside. Hazard, separately: old electric ranges and dryers frequently have a bonded neutral strap on a three-wire cord, so treat the frame as potentially energized until the breaker is proved off, not merely switched off.

6. Set the new appliance, level it in both axes, and fit every restraint the manufacturer requires. Acceptance: a level read across the front and side, doors that stay where you put them rather than swinging, and the anti-tip bracket fitted and engaged for a freestanding range, verified by tilting the front of the appliance up against it. Wrong looks like a bracket in the packaging and a range that a child standing on an open oven door can bring down on themselves. Stop rule: the wall behind the range will not take the bracket, floor-anchor it per the manufacturer's alternative, and do not leave a range unrestrained under any circumstances or any schedule pressure. Hazard: a range is unstable in exactly the moment it is being walked into a cabinet run, so keep the oven door closed and locked until it is anchored.

7. Connect, then run a full function test with the customer present and a leak check on every fluid connection. Acceptance: for gas, every joint tested with a leak solution or an electronic detector at operating pressure with no bubbling and no detector response; for water, a witnessed dwell at full pressure with dry paper towel under each joint; for electric, the appliance drawing current and heating or turning on the actual cycle rather than merely lighting up. Wrong looks like a burner lit and called good with no test on the connector. Stop rule: any leak or any detector response means shut off, correct, and re-test from the beginning of the check, not from the joint you fixed.

8. Take the old appliance only once you know where it is going, and treat any refrigerant-bearing unit as a regulated item. Acceptance: refrigerant recovered by a technician certified under 40 CFR part 82 subpart F, or the unit delivered intact to a recycler who does that and issues a receipt. Wrong looks like a refrigerator dropped at a scrap yard with the line set cut, which vents the charge. Stop rule: no documented destination, no haul-away, and the customer hears that before the crew leaves. Hazard: an R-600a isobutane charge is flammable, so the lines are not cut, crushed or torch-cut by anyone in your chain and the unit goes to a recycler who knows it is there. Doors come off or get strapped shut on any unit stored even briefly, because an intact latching door on a stored appliance is a child entrapment hazard.

9. Close the visit with the demonstration and the paperwork, at the appliance. Acceptance: the customer has operated the primary function themselves once, knows where the shutoff is, and has signed the completion, and the crew has recorded serials for both the new and the removed appliance. Wrong looks like a verbal handover to whoever answered the door. Stop rule: no adult present who can authorize, do not leave a connected gas or water appliance running unattended, and log the incomplete handover for the office to close by phone.

The record this produces

• Survey sheet: measured opening, path constraints, utility configuration, all captured before the load.
• Condition evidence: uncrating photographs of the new unit, and photographs of the existing connections before removal.
• Install evidence: level confirmed, restraint fitted and how it was anchored, leak check result per connection, function test result.
• Disposal chain: removed unit's model and serial, refrigerant status, recycler name and receipt reference.
• Customer: signed completion, demonstration confirmed, any declined item.

Dispatch reads the survey sheet when scheduling the crew size. The office reads the disposal chain when a customer asks months later what happened to their old unit, or when a regulator does. The claims side reads the condition photographs the day a customer reports a scratched panel.

Worked pass: a counter-depth refrigerator that failed the path check and was recovered

Booking captured step 1 properly: refrigerator 35.75 in wide with handles fitted, front door opening 36 in, hallway turn measured 35.5 in at the narrowest point. The turn is under the appliance width, so step 1's stop rule fired at booking. The office asked for photographs, confirmed the handles were removable and that removing them brought the case to 33.5 in, and scheduled with a note that handles come off in the garage.

Step 2 confirmed a standard receptacle and an accessible water stop for the ice maker. On the day, step 3's path walk found something the photographs had not shown: a floor register in the hall turn, raised proud of the finished floor. The crew laid a plywood offcut over it rather than rolling a loaded dolly across a register grille that would have collapsed.

Step 4 is where the pass fails. Uncrating in the garage found a dented lower door corner on the hinge side, not visible in shipping until the packaging came off. The step 4 stop rule was taken: do not install, photograph all faces, call the office. The office reached the customer with two options and the customer chose to accept the unit with a documented allowance rather than wait for a replacement, and that decision was made by the office and recorded, not by the crew in the driveway.

The rest ran clean. Handles off, through the turn with 2.0 in to spare on the case width, handles refitted, levelled, water connected and given a witnessed dwell with dry towel under the joint. The old side-by-side went out with its doors strapped, was logged with its serial, and went to the recycler on the shop's standing account with a receipt against the job.

The three saves came from different steps and none came from skill at the appliance. The clearance save was arithmetic done at booking, days early. The register save was a fifteen-second walk with an empty dolly. The damage save came from uncrating in a place where the answer could still be no.

On a customer-supplied appliance from a marketplace seller, step 4's stop rule has nowhere to escalate to, so the photographs get taken and the customer signs the condition record before the unit enters the house.

References

• 40 CFR part 82 subpart F (refrigerant recovery before appliance disposal; the last person in the disposal chain has a verification duty)
• Manufacturer installation instructions for the specific model, which govern anti-tip restraint, clearances and connection method
• 29 CFR 1910.333(b)(2) for electrical work practices during disconnection of the existing appliance
• See related: water supply line connection standard SOP; built-in appliance removal in finished cabinetry SOP; end-of-visit operation demonstration SOP