When it’s time to make Thanksgiving dinner, everyone hopes the meal goes off without a hitch. However, if your Westfield garbage disposal starts to experience problems during the meal’s preparation, things can change in a hurry.
While most people use their disposals properly, many others fail to understand what their disposals are made to do in the kitchen. As a result, the vast majority of problems are ones that shouldn’t happen. To ensure your disposal isn’t one that stops working in the middle of the Thanksgiving meal, here are several tips that can keep the disposal in great shape.
Keep Your Garbage Disposal Running Smoothly
Just because it’s called a garbage disposal does not mean it is made to handle all types of garbage. To the contrary, the disposal is made to handle biodegradable foods only.
Be Careful What You Put Down the Disposal
However, many people ignore this and instead use their disposal for all kinds of trash, which can cause enough damage to result in the disposal being replaced. In many cases, plumbers report finding glass jars, metal cans, plastic bottles, newspapers, and more inside broken disposals. When this happens, expect a large bill for a service call as well as having to purchase a new disposal and have it installed.
Don’t Run Hot Water While the Disposal is Running
While many people believe running hot water down a drain is always a good thing, that’s not the case with their garbage disposals. When hot water is run while the disposal is grinding, grease will begin to liquefy and accumulate in the drain and pipes, resulting in clogs that can be very difficult to remove.
Plumbers usually need to be summoned to take care of this, and it can take some time to get everything cleared once again. In addition to the pipes being clogged, the grease can also accumulate in between the blades and gears, resulting in even more problems.
Avoid Drain Cleaners
Many of our Westfield clients believe garbage disposals are just like sinks that use drain cleaner to remove clogs. However, when drain cleaners are used in disposals, they usually do much more harm than good. Due to their corrosive nature, they can damage blades, gears, and motors to the point where repairs may not be enough to save the disposal. If this happens, plan on purchasing a new one and paying a plumber to install it. To get a disposal clean, natural cleaners such as Borax work much better.
Don’t get clogged up this Thanksgiving in your Westfield, IN home, call (317) 420-4006today at L.E. Isley & Sons, Inc. Plumbing.