Care & Feeding of your Garbage Disposal

With the holiday times here, we are getting a lot more calls for clogged kitchen sinks. Most of these calls are due to a garbage disposal being used, or cared for, incorrectly. Let’s go over a few things about proper operation of your garbage disposal.

First, let’s just call it a disposal. Calling it a garbage disposal gives people the false impression that they can put anything in there, just like the trash can. This is not true. Here are the top 3 rules to using a disposal properly, and thereby helping to prevent the need to call a plumber (like AB&R Plumbing) to fix it.

1) Both the disposal and the water have to be running.
It doesn’t matter which one you turn on first, but the water needs to be running full blast and the disposal needs to be on. Some people claim that it matters whether you use all cold, all hot or a mixture; I have never found this to be true. What is true is, the more water the better.

2) Never put more in the disposal at one time than you would comfortably put in your mouth (if you ate this stuff).
And you wondered why I called this blog the care & “feeding” of your disposal! Seriously though, if you only put small portions into the disposal at a time, it will work much better, last longer and be much less likely to clog. It may take a little longer to finish your food preparations or cleanup, but it will take a lot longer if you have to wait for the plumber to come fix it!

3) Let the disposal finish one “bite” before feeding it another.
What I mean by this is, let the noise go back to the same sound you get when it is running empty. Let the water run for a little while longer and then “feed” it another bite. When you are finished, let the disposal run about 15 seconds longer than you think you have to and let the water run 10 seconds longer than that.

If you follow these 3 simple rules, you will eliminate most of the problems people have with their disposals. (By the way, 2 of the worst things you can put down a disposal are coffee grounds and potato peels. Neither one will hurt the disposal, but they both are the most frequent cause of clogs. Just though you might want to know!)

Let’s all work together to help make this holiday season, and the entire year, a joyous, happy time, free from the hassles of clogged disposals and interrupted plans.

Merry Christmas!