Like all mechanical things, garbage disposals don’t last forever.
But with a little TLC and some proactive maintenance, you can keep it working at full capacity for a good long time.
Here’s how:
- Feed it a little at a time. Take care to keep utensils and your hands out of the drain.
- Keep corn husks, lettuce, onion skins, and other fibrous foods out of the drain to avoid clogging it.
- To keep your unit smelling fresh and clean, cut a lemon into small pieces and drop the fruit into the disposal along with some baking soda or distilled white vinegar. Turn on the cold-water faucet and then the disposal. The unit will clean itself as it grinds up the mixture.
- Place ice cubes and/or egg shells in your disposal before turning it on to help keep the blades sharp. Ice cubes with lemon slices frozen inside them can help you freshen and sharpen at the same time.
- Use a strong flow of cold water and keep it running at least 30 seconds after the grinding noise has stopped. This helps to flush food as far down the drain line as possible.
- Do not put uncooked meat fat or liquid fats into your disposer.
Still, even with all the “TLC” in the world, sooner or later you’re bound to run into a problem. Here are the usual warning signs:
- If the disposal won’t run, check the circuit breaker or fuse and replace or reset it as necessary. Also, check to see if the unit’s overload switch has tripped. Find the reset button at the bottom of the disposal unit and push it.
- If the motor hums but the disposal doesn’t run, you may have a jammed impeller, and that’s a repairable problem.
- If the disposal runs intermittently, the switch or stopper may be defective. If so, it needs to be replaced.
- A leaky garbage disposal isn’t necessarily a sign of rust. The cause might be as simple as a loose connection which can readily be tightened.
- How about that all-too-familiar racket a disposal can sometimes make? When you hear it, chances are you’re trying to grind up something your disposal wishes you wouldn’t. The result could be a damaged blade, impeller, or motor. While it can probably be repaired, it might cost you less to replace it.
Has your garbage disposal seen better days? If so, contact Eagle Service Company today. We’ll fix it if we can. Or, if replacement seems like the better idea, you can count on expert workmanship with you 100% satisfaction guaranteed.
