A few moving-in questions

[sffleague]

We've just moved to a house and a couple of (hopefully) minor things have popped up.

The sink garbage disposal is a Sinkmaster. It checked out fine at inspection and the sellers say they had no problem with it (despite the fact that there were some whole grapes and a few baked beans in there that hadn't been ground up). But when you flip the switch on the wall, all you hear is a sound that would indicate it's getting power (kind of a low buzz), but no grinding. Is there a switch somewhere that needs to be reset that I'm missing?

The other thing is on the refrigerator, a Kenmore. When we had it installed at our old home, the Sears people came and did the whole thing. There is a water supply line there from the previous owners fridge, so we assumed you just hook it to our fridge and away you go. But no water is coming out. Again, there has to be something easy we're missing. I thought maybe it was a water main that needed to be turned on, but that doesn't appear to be the case.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. I'm sure these are dumb questions, but it seems our brains are so frazzled from all the hubub of moving that we can't see the obvious!

[e-mail]

[Richard J Kinch]

Reach in a see if you can turn the impeller. It could be stuck on a bit of stuff, or just from sitting idle. Use a tool to spin it if you can't do it by hand.

[Richard J Kinch]

I should add, do all this with the power OFF.

[Travis Jordan]

Look at the end of the icemaker water line (usually under the kitchen sink) to see if there is a small "T" valve that needs to be opened.

[JerryL]

PLEASE MAKE SURE THE POWER IS OFF WHEN YOU DO THIS. Also, there's a way to turn the shaft from the bottom of the grinder. It takes either a wrench, socket or allen wrench.

[Pop Rivet]

N ope, the only dumb questions are the ones that never get asked! Been there, done that, and then some!

minor things

But when you flip the switch on

getting

switch

No, if it's buzzing (humming), it's "working", or trying to. There is no reason to have more switches than the one you nare using to turn it on with. It's either plugged with something that's keeping the impeller from spinning or the motor's shot. If you decide to work on it, do NOT depend on the switch to protect you! Pop the breaker that runs it, and still touch all wires to ground and each other to be certain they are dead as you remove them. Better to see a pretty arc than to discover they're wired weirdly by some well meaning home owner. Try opening the breaker and using a piece of wood (broom handle, etc.) down the drain - see if you can spin the impeller in either direction. If it loosens, spin it a bit and see if there's still somethning in there that will catch again. If not, you're probably home free. It could jus be a piece of bone, but ... something tells me ... .

we had it

the whole

previous owners

away you go.

something easy

needed to be

Usually there is a copper tube that goes down thru the floor to a supply pipe somewhere and at that junction point there is usually a shutoff. It might not look like a shutoff to you if you don't know what a pepcock is - they're small, and look like just sort of a wing nut. It might be turned off. In fact, they HAD to turn it off to remove their refrigerator! If it hasn't been used in years, it might be plugged up at the point where the pepcock is. That's going to take more work and probabloy replacing the run.

Pop

dumb

all the hubub

[ahedge]

can you figure out where the supply line pipe comes from? Often starts under the kitchen sink, and there is a shut-off valve there. It's funny looking, the handle looks like a nail or a piece of fat wire...

Also try disconnectimg from the fridge side and blowing into the pipe: if the air goes thru it's open somewhere...

Good luck

Art

[xrongor]

just to be clear, the switch is not good enough. kill the power at the panel.

randy

[Charlie Bress]

I'll bet that sucker is not hardwired into the supply, but plugged in to an outlet. Don't look for switches and breakers and do spark tests. Just unplug it!

Charlie

[sffleague]

Thanks to everyone for your help. It took some doing but we were able to unjam the disposal and get it running! As for the fridge, we did find a supply on/off under the kitchen floor, accessible by removing a few ceiling tiles in the basement. Got the water going, then found that there's some sort of leak in the fridge that we'll need to call someone out to look at. The fridge has been in storage for more than a year so it's hard to know if something came loose during the move or what.

But anyway, all of your help did the trick. Thanks!