Grex Do-it-yourself Conference

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Grex Do-it-yourself Item 51: Food Waste Disposer
Entered by rcurl on Sat Mar 6 05:50:00 UTC 2010:

Maintaining and fixing Food Waste Disposers.

13 responses total.

#1 of 13 by rcurl on Sat Mar 6 05:55:20 2010:

Our kitchen disposer is breaking down. If one reaches in (with the motor 
off......) one can wiggle and tilt and Grind Disc, and sometimes it jams 
against the stationary shredder. Can this be fixed?

I installed the unit (22 years ago) so know how to do that.

#2 of 13 by keesan on Sat Mar 6 15:56:44 2010:

Jim is out of town for a month.  Try the internet for suggestions.
My suggestion is a compost pile.

#3 of 13 by rcurl on Sat Mar 6 20:12:09 2010:

The machine does not compost and contains recyclable materials, and even may
be simply repaired.

I hope Jim is enjoying his visit abroad, but I'm nor asking him specifically.

#4 of 13 by tod on Thu Mar 11 21:44:11 2010:

Are you talking about a garbage disposal or a trash compactor?
If it's the garbage disposal and your flywheel is wobbling enough to hit the
shredder ring then it is possible the motor is loose.  Those are insulated
and I wouldn't mess with taking it out to fix when you can buy a newer
model for probably $30 or $40.  One thing you might want to try is running
seeing if your model has overload protection or auto-reverse.  If not, that
should be what you want.  Auto reverse will keep it from jamming up.

#5 of 13 by rcurl on Thu Mar 11 23:07:49 2010:

Its a sink garbage disposal (called a disposer then). I found a web forum that
described the same symptom, apparently due to a rusted-out retaining nut for
the cutting disc. It says it has autoreverse, but I've never noticed it auto
reversing. When it jams I don't leave the power on - does autoreverse operate
instantly or after a pause? I plan on replacing the unit. It cost $100 in 1988
- I don't think I can get an equivalent one for much less than that now.

#6 of 13 by ball on Tue May 11 05:10:48 2010:

    We compost the things that can be composted.  Other
mostly-solid food waste goes into the rubbish bin ("garbage
can").  Somehow we /still/ managed to break the disposal
unit and block the kitchen drain, so I'm US$ 95 poorer today
for failing to fix it myself. :-(

#7 of 13 by keesan on Tue May 11 16:16:02 2010:

All of our food waste can be composted.  What don't you compost?
We also compost the neighbors' leaves and grass.

#8 of 13 by rcurl on Tue May 11 21:43:45 2010:

Meat and fat wastes are not desirable for composting.

#9 of 13 by keesan on Tue May 11 21:57:23 2010:

Get a dog or cat?

#10 of 13 by ball on Fri Nov 5 03:00:59 2010:

...and compost it? ;-)

#11 of 13 by ball on Fri Nov 5 03:06:13 2010:

I was hoping to rake today the few leaves we have and add those to the
compost pile.  We didn't get around to that but I added a little
material anyway.  I'm debating whether to start a new, even larger
compost pile and turn the two existing piles over into it or whether to
just leave those to rot down over the winter.  I like compost: It's free
and it helps the garden.  Compost is treasure.

#12 of 13 by keesan on Fri Nov 5 03:22:20 2010:

Composting happens in warm weather.  The worms and bacteria take the winter
off.

#13 of 13 by ball on Wed Nov 10 05:58:15 2010:

    It was nice out today and my two modest compost heaps
wouldn't have coped with the leaves I raked up from the
front lawn, so I took the opportunity to turn the existing
heaps over into a single larger heap with the leaves worked
in.  The bottom of each heap was warm enough to steam
gently and looked like it was coming along well.  Hopefully
the new heap will have time to fire up before winter grips
it.

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