<p>I have one for the first time in my life, in the house we just moved into. I may have done bad things to it a few minutes ago. What are the do’s and don’t’s?</p>
<p>What did you do?</p>
<p>Do I have to tell you?? It’s embarrassing.</p>
<p>I put artichoke leaves into it. Many artichoke leaves.</p>
<p>Sorry, VeryHappy - I feel your pain. I have extensive experience with uncooperative disposals, but the only repair I’ve ever personally done is taking apart the pipes underneath the sink and cleaning them out. Sometimes that got things flowing again, and sometimes it didn’t.</p>
<p>Don’ts: lots of peels of any kind (potato/carrot - and I guess artichoke leaves are kind of similar). They contract into a huge mass.</p>
<p>Be careful with the Thanksgiving leftovers and meal prep discards. I’ve read several times now that Thanksgiving and the day after are bonanzas for plumbers because so many people overstress their disposals. I hope yours is up and running again soon!</p>
<p>We once broke a disposal with a single shrimp tail.</p>
<p>Avoid putting onion skins down the garbage disposer. I didn’t know that and caused quite the excitement at the first feast at our new house.</p>
<p>So give me the positives: What CAN I put down it?? And what can I do now to kind of fix it? It’s draining VERY slowly.</p>
<p>And I suspect that the current disposal is a few decades old, so there is no instruction book that the seller left behind.</p>
<p>My advice is to replace it with a super duper one then you could put anything down it. When we had a house, I bought a very powerful one, my friend put it in for me. After that, I was able to put almost anything down it.</p>
<p>We finally learned not to put potato peel down ours. Doesn’t hurt the disposal - blocks the darn drains every time.</p>
<p>Well, at least it’s draining slowly - that’s a good sign. What happens when you run it - does it seem to be processing, does it make the same sound it made initially, or won’t it go on at all? </p>
<p>I recommend not packing the thing and then turning it on. Instead, I send just a bit through at a time, while it’s running. And no peels.</p>
<p>It seems to be processing, but the water is going down v e r y s l o w l y .</p>
<p>We’ll be redoing the kitchen shortly so I’m planning to buy the mother of all garbage disposals at that time. Any recommendations??</p>
<p>Could be that your drains are blocked and that is why it is draining slowly. We have done that several times. Do you have a plumbing snake thingy (attaches to an electric drill and you put it through the pipes to clear the blockage).</p>
<p>The most important thing is to run the thing for a while when you turn it on. If you pulse it on and off, as many people do, you create a ball of crud that blocks your drain. Run it with water for a minute. The disposal pushes water down the drain. Give it time to get the stuff all the way down. If you live in a house, you can see the drain pipe in your basement. You want that stuff flowing toward the street, so you want it to flow out of whatever little drain connects to your sink and into the larger drain in your basement. If you live in an apartment of some sort, your drain connects to a stack that runs somewhere up and down in the wall. You want to make sure the stuff gets into that stack or it will plug. </p>
<p>The “power” of a disposal isn’t that important unless you intend to dispose of a body.</p>
<p>We have the largest Insinkerator they made when we built our house. It’s a batch feed. I think it can handle most anything but I don’t put certain things down it…including banana peels. Artichokes would be a no go but then we don’t eat those! </p>
<p>Ours can handle chicken bones, any kind of fruit pit or seeds, general “food debris”, rinds, orange/ grapefruit peels, most veggie stuff. Peels from things like cucumbers, carrots, and even one or two potatoes…just not a five pound bag all at once, egg shells, the stuff you rinse off plates, any kind of bread product, egg shells, coffee grinds.</p>
<p>I run the cold water for a minute or two AFTER I know the stuff is gone to flush the drain. </p>
<p>The only time ours has clogged up was with a five pound bag of potatoes
I was peeling, I never did that again!</p>
<p>[Amazon.com:</a> Customer Reviews: InSinkErator Evolution Pro Excel 1 HP Garbage Disposer, Stainless Steel](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/InSinkErator-Evolution-Pro-Excel-Stainless/product-reviews/B000GGTI5G/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/InSinkErator-Evolution-Pro-Excel-Stainless/product-reviews/B000GGTI5G/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1)</p>
<p>You want to get one with the highest HP. It is only $2-300. Builders tend to skim on this and that’s why people have problem with their disposal - don’t throw this and that down the disposal.</p>
<p>Use cold water when you are using the disposal. We used to throw lemon peels down every once in a while to keep it fresh.</p>
<p>Ditto with Thumper and oldfort…my family ‘broke’ two garbage disposals in the course of a year and my wonderful appliance repair guy (not H who has a builder license and should know better) said he was bringing me an “industrial” Insinkerator (this was over 15 years ago) and it’s going strong. There is not much I “can’t” put in that thing. Agree about not pulsing and just letting it run for more than the minimal amount of time…also if it’s jammed, blades not turning you can jimmy it with an Allen Wrench underneath the sink. If the blades are turning i vote for letting it run for awhile and see if you can clear the blockage.</p>
<p>I would suggest you get the best model you can get. We just had a new sink put in. We sort of thought of getting a new disposal, but our plumber told us that IF ours needed repairs at any point to get them done. Ours is all metal. Apparently most put onto homes now have a lot of plastic (not the blades, but other parts). Ours was about $400 when we built this house…it’s a batch feed which is not common in home installations. The switch is actually in the seal to the disposal, not on the wall. We got it for safety reasons…ours cannot be run open…the switch is in the seal which is closed to turn the thing on…no feeding things gradually, but at least I knew my kids couldn’t grind their fingers! And it had higher horsepower than the ones with the switch on the wall.</p>
<p>20 months ago, new house with the first disposal either of us ever had. Wife clogged it up almost immediately. Then she blamed me for not telling her that she should have the water running while using it. Meh. The big allen wrench thing works.</p>
<p>Try this web site:</p>
<p>[Should</a> You Use Hot or Cold Water When Using the Garbage Disposal? | eHow.com](<a href=“http://www.ehow.com/info_8641913_should-water-using-garbage-disposal.html]Should”>http://www.ehow.com/info_8641913_should-water-using-garbage-disposal.html)</p>
<p>-“So give me the positives: What CAN I put down it??” - We use ours very sparingly. </p>
<p>Due to the design of our house, the drain is not idea. There is a 90% turn (probably common) and then very little pitch as the drain heads to the street connection at the front of the house. Clearing the drain can cost hundreds of dollars, so it’s just not worth the risk of using it.</p>