The garbage disposal is a very simple machine. It consists of a heavy duty electric motor, a few gears, the housing, flanges, and of course, the teeth and blades which do the work. Despite being quite robust, garbage disposals can and do get clogged or jammed from time to time. Since they generally are attached to a very important part of the house that being the kitchen sink, downtime is something one likes to keep at a minimum. Here are some tips to keep handy for when the disposal is in need of repairs.

Garbage Disposal Repair

Of the range of issues that can hit a garbage disposal, some are easily fixed, while others will need some advanced training. It will be up to you to decide what you are and are not capable of dealing with, but for the sake of safety, you should never take on any unnecessary risk if you do not need to. Here are a few of the more common issues you may run into:

Overheating - If you flip your switch and the garbage disposal simply will not even hum, then you are probably dealing with an overheating problem because of overfilling, and it has probably tripped itself off. Check under the unit and press the red "reset" button. If this doesn't work, then check the circuit breaker box - Has anything been tripped? This is a common problem so check it out first.

Jamming - If the unit is giving you a humming noise but it still simply is not working, then the most likely culprit is that the unit has become jammed, meaning that the impellers have become stuck. The first step is to never, ever, ever put your hand down into the grinding chamber. Do not reach down there hoping for the best, it's not going to work and you'll likely get hurt in the process.

Turn the circuit breakers off to make sure that the unit is completely stopped. Remove the bottom housing and dislodge whatever blockage has occurred from underneath. This really is not a difficult fix to do on your own. If you are not sure about what you are doing however, it might be wise for you to consult a professional to make sure that you get the job done right the first time without getting hurt.

Final Option - If neither of these two options seems to be doing the trick, then the fix at hand is something more serious than you are going to be able to handle on your own. At this point the cheapest option is simply going to be to buy a brand new garbage disposal unit. Fixing a broken garbage disposal can be costly, so if its in your budget to simply buy a new one, do so and you will be saving yourself time and money in the process.

Photo credits: jsgphoto

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Categories:

Garbage Disposal, Handy Man, Repair

Tags:

circuit breaker, circuit breakers, downtime, flanges, garbage disposal repair, garbage disposals, gears, heavy duty, impellers, kitchen sink, likely culprit, reset button, sake, teeth, unnecessary risk