Unclogging Your Garbage Disposal
We know that garbage disposals have the word ‘garbage’ in them. That is why it is so much easier to think that it’s okay to jam all the potato peels, leftover food chunks and cauliflower leaves down there instead of just throwing them out or in the bin. We are not judging, but if you keep this up, sooner rather than later, you might have to find the SOS button for emergency plumber London needing immediate rescue.
Okay, so maybe that is a tad bit melodramatic. But seriously, continuously doing this might cause your garbage disposal to clog up faster than you can finish clearing up the dinner table. Thankfully clogged up garbage disposals are not that difficult to free up. All you need to do is follow the following instructions and chances are the problem will be solved in no time at all.
First off, and this is definitely the most important of the instructions, shut off the power from the main circuit breaker. Maybe we should have that in capital letters. We are dealing with the notoriously lethal combination of electricity and water here people, fatalities have occurred before.
Once this is done, take a flashlight and look down the disposal unit. See if you can locate the cause of the blockage. Never put your hand down there as tempting as this may be. Use a wooden spoon or even a broom handle. These are just in case you can not find the Allen wrench that came with the disposal unit. Get underneath the unit and put your selected tool through the hole you see there. Then turn clockwise until the point where you find resistance. Once you find that point, turn the wrench anti-clockwise again till you get to the resistance point again. That is where the offending piece of whatever you put down there is. You need to take it out. This can be achieved by just repeatedly knocking at that spot till the offender falls off or if it’s something you can see, get a pair of pliers and pull it out. After that, you should feel no further resistance.
Speaking of further resistance, if for some reason the water is backing up on your garbage disposal but after following all the above steps you did not feel any resistance in the first place, this means it’s not the disposal unit that’s clogged but the pipes. Don’t worry, you don’t have to move or burn the house down. All you need to do is get a plunger. Preferably a new one or one that is dedicated to kitchen duty and not the one you use for your toilet. Place it over the disposal sink and apply pressure downwards, you know how this works. Repeat and keep running cold water until it does not back up anymore.
There, that’s about it. Press the reset button underneath your garbage disposal unit and try it out. If symptoms persist, don’t hesitate to call that ‘Emergency Plumber London’ SOS number we talked about earlier.
Other related articles are: How Garbage Disposals Interact With Plumbing
