We got something stuck in the Insinkerator. From the sound of it, I think it's a small metal object. I can turn it using the hex-tool inserted into the bottom of the unit, and it works for a few minutes then locks up again.
Can I fix it by taking it apart from the bottom, leaving the unit in place? Or do I have to take the unit out and take it apart? Can I even fix it at all?
Thanks a heap,
-Zz
Flashlight, long needle nosed pliers or some sort of clamping device, patience.
If you can move it with the wrench, it is not stuck but flying around. It may be tiny. Take a very careful look around, especially the outer edges of the grinding plate.
Free up the obstruction & shop vac it out.
cheers Bob
From above only!
This happened to me:( one of the internal flales or whatever they are called broke partially loose.
If thats you problem just replace the disposer
This exact same thing happened to our garbage disposal this past summer: a child had dropped the pop tab from a soda can down there, and it jammed the disposal. I had to feel around to find it and remove it with my fingers.
Or maybe a magnet on a stick. They sell them like that.
You can't get at it from the bottom, but you could turn the house upside down and shake it out. If not the house, the disposal.
It would be more convenient to wait until the earth rotates so my house is pointing down, and then shake the earth a bit.
I think that's what I'll do.
A new one could have been installed in the time it took to read all these replies. And the problem would be history.
s
Buy a long pair of hemostats the next time you're at the swap meet. And a little flashlight. I also find it handy to have a ratchet with a long extension so that I can turn the bottom plate from the top while I'm looking for the offending particle. Some disposals do not have a nut on top, others do. Having it dark in the room helps some, too.
Steve
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh? Spend a hundred bucks for something that takes a minute to fix? And, you'd have to be the slowest reader on the planet to take that long to read five posts.
Steve
I fixed my sister's disposal with a flashlight and very long needle nose pliers. Seems a penny got into it and locked the rotor.
I once found a dime in ours.
Jeff
Rueful chuckle. BTDT, multiple times. In the apartment I lived in before buying this place, there was a tiny 'breakfast bar' counter right over the sink. It happened to be the natural place to empty my pockets after work. Sometimes the coins would bounce out of the little metal dish I used to stage pocket change in. Recurring 'aw shit' moments of a minor nature. Got pretty good at getting the coins out from the top. If everything was dry, a folded-inside-out wrap of duct tape on the end of stick worked rather well.
This house doesn't even have a disposal, and much to my surprise, after the first 2-3 months, I didn't even miss it. (It dates from the days when they wouldn't put disposals on septic tank houses....) If I stay here long enough to redo kitchen, I may add one.
-- aem sends...
I'm jealous! :)
I lost a dime.
Mine had a profile of Franklin Roosevelt on it.
Did the one you found have that?
If so, I could send you postage to send it to me.
Interesting. My mother bought us a house in 1957 that had a septic tank and a garbage disposal. We'd never had one before and didn't know it wasn't supposed to make very loud bearing noises. But it sounded wrong so she never used it.
It also had an incinerator, and she would dry out the vegetable and other wet garbage until it would burn with the newspapers, so as not to have to run the gas that heat the incinerator, not even the pilot light.
All that was left was 3 or 4 vegetable cans a week, and my mother opened the cans at both ends, then crushed the cans and they took up barely any space. I think the garbage collection was private and our next door neighbor had offered that she could put stuff in his garbage, so it was just those crushed cans.
My father had died and this is how she saved money, and avoided waste.
The house had a dishwasher too, and we'd never had one, didn't know anyone who had, and didn't know that steam wasn't supposed to come out from three sides when it was running. She didn't use that either.
But the house was great anyhow.
Had a patio built over the septic tank, with a 3 foot circle above the tank for access. I know one's not supposed to do that, but we don't know that then. But she got in and got out 10 years later without having to rip up the patio.
Use one of them spring-loaded claw grabber thingies.
Jerry
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