My son's Sinkmaster 750 disposal was stuck and he asked me to look at it. It definitely was frozen but loosened up after using a crow bar and a water pipe. I feel that it had rusted because of non use. It is only 4 years old but is only used on weekends. Is there something he can add to keep it from rusting? Will silicone oil or vegetable oil work? It was a real struggle to free it up.
For what it's worth, I've always had Insinkerator brand disposers (we even had one in the house i grew up in), and over all those years I've never ever seen one rust stuck. They're well under $90.
I don't have one now, and don't miss it, though.
Replace or remove are two options to consider.
I'm not sure you want to be dumping much in the way of oil down the drain, but I can't imagine a little vegi oil would hurt much and may work well.
-- Todd H.
I would just give it a quick run every day . like 10 seconds or so.
No. Just use it more often.
And at the very bottom center is an allen wrench socket for 'unsticking' it when it hangs. Better than a crowbar.
I think mine is stainless. It's an insinkerator. I took it apart when I replaced the sink, it wasn't corroded... but it was grimey and kinda stinky.
I use mine once a week on average as well, I have no trouble and don't ever have to lube it. Not saying that you have an inferior unit, just an inferior impeller thing...maybe you could just replace the impeller piece rather than the whole unit.
Again, not sure if mine is stainless... it just wasn't rusted. They may all very well be carbon steel.
My garbage disposal was stuck last summer. I got it free with a pry bar. It worked for a couple of seconds, then seized again. This was after work, second shift. I took it off from under the sink. I found a nickel wedged between the rotor and the housing. It's clearance is less than a nickel's thickness. It took me about 10 minute's to pry it out. My wife come's home as I'm reinstalling it and want's to know what's wrong? I tell her the disposal was jammed with a nickel. Then she tell's me she had ants in her purse and she cleaned it in the sink. I now have a disposal strainer. Dollar at Ace Hardware.
Ours quit working effectively awhile back. Took it out and disassembled it and found that little balls of solder had gotten into it. The balls are small and soft enough to get under the "beaters" (or whatever the swinging things are called) and cause them to not move. Removing all the solder proved to be nearly impossible so a new disposal was installed and a new house rule about not letting the soldering iron droppings get into it was promulgated.
Not a problem in my house!
Now, if you have any Argentines in your house, tell 'em to keep the yerba mate out of the disposer.
Jerry
IIRC 80% of sink disposals in the US are made by Insinkerator, under several or quite a few brand names, including house names.
If it has a hex hole in the bottom center, it is probably Insinkerator. Off brands are maybe 5% cheaper but might have a year's shorter warranty (2 instead of 3. Don't recall the high end warrantees.)
OTOH, with my 1 step from the bottom disposal, I couldn't really get any pry-bars in, so maybe yours is made by someone else.
The wrench that fits the hex hole in the bottom is very convenient, but not very long. But I could turn it pretty hard. The problem was that the disposal itself started turning and I was afraid I would break the outlet pipe or the drain. And the torque was limited by the fact that the whole thing started turning.
Both of mine have rusted shut. But I don't use them for grinding up waste I *put* in the sink, only for things that accidentally fall in the drain. Once every month or two. They still lasted about 10 years each. No wear. Just rust. :) With this new one, I plan to run it I guess once a week. No need to use water if one is running it only for
5 seconds.I lost a washing machine once because I didn't use it often enough. The main bearing inside the agitator rusted shut.
When my first one froze up, I tried to take it apart. Other than obvious trim, the top of the intake chamber, I don't think I got a single part off.
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