Of course my garbage disposal had to break THIS way

[Clot]

:)

[Clot]

How do you display your environmental concerns?

[willshak]

mike wrote the following:

A lot of people have slide out garbage cans in the cabinet right under the sink. Me, I have a trash compactor in the cabinet on the right side of the sink cabinet. Scrape the dishes in the compactor and then put the dishes in the dishwasher, or wash them by hand. I used to get the compactor bags that were pretty expensive, but for the last year or so, I have been using the Glad Force Flex tall kitchen bags in it. Never had a puncture yet, but I don't throw glass in it since we have a recycle pickup where I live.

[JawBone]

: So what do you think? Is this fixable, or is a replacement disposal : the only viable way to go? If I do end up getting a plan to fix the : unit, it seems like pulling teh disposal from the sink will be the : only way to get down into the guts where the bolt meets the motor.

Years ago, when my car's alternator or starter acted up, I replaced a diode or brushes. Can't even buy small parts anymore. Go to a parts place and they'll gladly sell a remanufactured or new 'assembly'. Time is money. Get a new unit and be done with it in an hour.

[aemeijers]

Who peels stuff in the sink? I peel right over the garbage can, and do the cutting on a cutting board. The parts I don't wanna eat, I just tip the cutting board into the trash can. I never have large scraps on the plates to worry about- when you live alone, you only make a plateful at a time, and finish what you put on the plate.

I thought I would miss a disposal after having one for 25 years out on my own, but I've been here almost five years and don't even notice it any more. And the drains here are less-than-optimal, so I don't wanna stress them (or the septic) any more than I have to.

[krw]

Chicken bones?

We have city sewers (made sure of that). I wouldn't be without a garbage disposal anymore. I don't like food rotting in the garbage and I don't have to worry about animals getting into the garbage. There's no food to attract them.

[aemeijers]

[e-mail] wrote: (snip)

I take your point, but I don't cook anything with bones in it at home. Like I said, I live alone, and I hate leftovers. Chicken is those 5-lb bags of the pre-deboned breasts. 1 breast makes a good salad topper or sandwich filler. Because my drains clog easily, I don't pour chicken grease down the drain either- I wipe the pan out with a paper towel, and put it in the trash.

If I do ever have anything on the plate I decide isn't edible after all, I just scrape it in the trash, or off the back of the deck for the animals. If I suspect the trash can will then be smelly or attract bugs, I carry it out and empty it. Not a big deal.

[Steve B]

"aemeijers" wrote

My attitude about them changed recently when we had to have our leach field entirely replaced. $$$$ Now, mostly everything goes in the garbage can. If I was on city sewage, tho, I'd run more stuff through it.

You mention peeling. What used to stop mine up every time was a lot of potato peels.

Steve

[Steve B]

"aemeijers" wrote

Where I live now, trash is only picked up once a week, rather than twice. It is a challenge sometimes. And sometimes, we need to make a clandestine trip to the dumpsters behind the store. In the summertime, stuff can really get skanky in a week.

Plus, I have to haul two of the large "cans" 1/2 mile to the pick up point. Living in rural America has its perks, but garbage pickup is not one of them. At least not here.

Steve XXtreme SW Utah

Visit my blog at

[Ed Pawlowski]

"Steve B" wrote

You do have a compost pile though right? That takes care of a large portion of the vegatative type of garbage.

We have a disposal but rarely use it. Compost pile first, trash second, the disposal takes care of the little bit that gets rinsed of a dish or otherwise gets into the sink. I take the trash away as needed though, I have access to a dumpster.

[HeyBub]

I heard a trash compactor described as a device that can "with the help of modern inventiveness, turn twenty-five pounds of garbage into twenty-five pounds of garbage."

Ain't technology grand?

[HeyBub]

Usually with an extended middle finger. Why do you ask?

[HeyBub]

I used to have an organic garbage disposal.

It was called "dog."

Mine, like the OP's, died, and I'm now back to using the artificial, electrical, dog.

[keith]

I do something far more useful. I vote (98%) Republican.

[DerbyDad03]

re: "Who peels stuff in the sink?"

My wife. It hurts her back to lean over the can, which you kind of have to do to keep the peelings from flying all over the place.

She'll typically toss most of the peelings in the can and then flush the rest into the disposer.

As long as she keeps cooking the way she does, she can peel stuff any d*mn place she wants!

[SMS]

Almost certainly the "spinning bolt" is a threaded motor shaft.

Go to Costco and get a new disposal. Your time is worth something too. It takes only an hour or so to remove and replace a disposal.

And of course ignore all the people that tell you to forgo a disposal. Disposals are keeping massive amounts of garbage out of landfills, and they keep the kitchen much more sanitary. They also prevent clogs in drain pipes which can be difficult and expensive to fix.

A composter is another way to reduce the amount of garbage you dump into landfills.

The only time you might not want to have a disposal is if you're using a septic tank rather than being on sewers. It will need to be emptied more frequently if you use a disposal.

I'd say that anyone against having a garbage disposal is a Fox News wathing communist.

[Jules Richardson]

Agreed. It's *just* possible that something could be done to fix it (extending the broken shaft, moving the motor mounting points etc.) but extremely unlikely - and if it broke once, it suggests there's something wrong with the design (the shaft's of poor quality or just under-spec for the job) and so it might just fail in the same way again.

Where I used to live, we had two garbage cans, one for landfill stuff and one for compostable - each was picked up on alternate weeks. Maybe the OP has such a scheme running locally...

cheers

Jules

[Colbyt]

Thank God I don't live in your stinky community. I can only imagine how skanky that garbage must smell.

[The Ranger]

My initial reaction to whether it's worth fixing or not is your price-to-pain quotient. You don't mention the size of disposal your using nor the brand. If all you use it for is simple grinding, then a cheap, on-sale model du jour would be the easiest, and ultimately cheapest, route to take.

My BIL, He Who Can Fix Anything Mechanical, would never agree to purchasing a new one because his hobby is fixing the unfixable. He's willing to search out parts, tear things down, and rebuild a new machine simply because he enjoys it. He'll spend a whole weekend rebuilding something without thought to cost in resources and time because that's his hobby.

For my money, and time, the armature was sheered off which means replacing a significant piece inside the housing and motor area, which also means tearing everything apart without breaking it, and THEN putting it back together after you have all the tiny pieces layed out and organized (or labeled), with the same precision as the robots that assembled it prior, properly sealed everything, and hopefully tested it before putting it back under the sink and running water through it.

The call is ultimately yours.

The Ranger

[Jules Richardson]

Yeah, I remember when the scheme first came in (previously they used to collect once a week, with no separation according to type) and there was a huge outcry about how it was going to stink, and what a poor service it was.

As it turns out, it really wasn't much of an issue - it was *slightly* noticable at the end of the two weeks at the height of summer, but other than that not a problem. My only worry was what would happen if there was any problem with the system such that a pickup didn't happen though, as then it'd be a month and that would probably be horrible! :-)

All our compostable waste goes on the compost pile here - recycleables go to the drop-off point behind the nearby gas station whenever we need to and happen to be passing anyway (we don't make special trips). All other garbage we haul ourselves in the truck whenever we need to - usually takes about 3 weeks to fill a 55 gal garbage can (and just costs about $50/year in gas)

cheers

Jules