Yeah man residential hazmat pickup is always a pain. Its not even the carriers being difficult on purpose — most of their insurance policies flat out prohibit residential hazmat pickups unless theyve pre-approved it. The surcharge usually covers the extra liability and the fact that they gotta send a guy whos specifically trained for residential hazmat.

One thing that helped me — I started using a local freight terminal as my pickup address. Basically just rent dock space for a day at a nearby logistics warehouse. Costs like $50-75 but saved me hundreds on the residential surcharge. The carrier just drops the empty pallet there and you pick up the same way.

Worth looking into if you do this more than once.