Irritating bad smell from kitchen disposal

My kitchen disposal is giving off this bad musty odor. And it's murder on my sinuses. Every time I go near that thing, my nose stuffs up. I know the odor is coming out of there, because if I cover the disposal, the odor goes away--but the moment I uncover it, the smell is there.

I cleaned the disposal but the smell remained. Even using full strength Clorox only kills the odor for a couple of days, after which the odor returns. There's some black gunk under the rim of the disposal. I scrub it off and bleach that area, but the gunk returns in 48 hours.

So now I'm wondering if there's decaying material either under the rotating plate of the disposal, or perhaps even deeper into the drain pipe, from which bugs keep growing. I tried Liquid-Plumr to dislodge any gunk in the drain, and the drain flows freely. But that didn't help the odor either. Or maybe there's bad stuff in the dishwasher drain hose that feeds into the disposal???

Any ideas?

Before I replace the disposal, I want to be sure the problem is there and not in the drain itself.

Reply to
Steven L.
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Unfortunately, the only thing you can do is disassemble the drain pipes under the sink, especially the trap and clean everything out. I recently had something like this happen only to discover several of the pipes under my sink were 50% clogged. I used a hole saw on a long arbor to clean them out after taking them apart.

Could you have debris stuck in your disposal, yes, it can happen, but you have to take it apart to fix it.

Reply to
Lab Lover

This is the John Candy method of disposer cleaning, not only is it easy but it's fun too:

Turn the faucet on full blast. Turn the disposer on. With the water and the disposer running, squirt approx 1/4 cup Dawn liquid dish soap into the disposer. You'll notice it foams up...a lot!

Repeat as needed until the smell is gone.

Reply to
Uncle Buck

Caution: If you take any plumbing apart...wear rubber gloves.

There is a guy her in town who cut his hand while disassembling plumbing and got an infection so severe he suffered brain damage.

He's recovered now but had a rough journey.

Reply to
philo 

I don't have a disposer, but that sounds like fun. Hottest water you can get off the faucet?

That Uncle Buck movie, I thought was a lot of fun. The people all were on different levels, and John Candy "stepped up" and did what was needed. Whether it was combing hair, keeping a boyfriend in control, dealing with the school principal, or punching a drunken clown.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

"Steven L." wrote in news:Xrednc- t0OYNKnzPnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com:

If you don't drink coffee, you surely know somebody who does. Run a cup or two of used coffee grounds through the disposal, and see if that helps. Other classic disposal cleaning methods are eggshells and ice, but IME nothing beats coffee grounds.

All disposals have bad smells occasionally -- but that problem has almost disappeared in my kitchen since we switched about two years ago to a reusable coffee filter. Now, every day, after dumping the grounds in the wastebasket, I rinse what's left in the filter basket down the disposal. So every day, my disposal is grinding up 2 or 3 tablespoons of used coffee grounds. And it *never* smells bad any more unless I forget to run it after putting something down it.

Reply to
Doug Miller

I vote for a couple of gallons of boiling water, not just hot water, poured down the drain followed by a whole gallon of clorox. Do all this while the disposal is running.

Reply to
hrhofmann

first run a lot of ice cubes thru the disposal, then very hot water and finally bleach

the ice tends to clean the blades of the unit

Reply to
bob haller

On Thursday, January 23, 2014 10:51:51 PM UTC-5, snipped-for-privacy@sbcglobal.net wrot e:

ed down the drain followed by a whole gallon of clorox. Do all this while the disposal is running.

Yes, this.

My last house was built in the late 40's and the cast iron pipes would star t running slow every now and then. A pot full of BOILING water thrown down the sink, tub, and laundry sink would sort it. Just greasy buildup from e veryday stuffs. We didn't have a disposer but we did have a dishwasher.

nate

Reply to
N8N

Disposals don't puree, they just chop, so there are likely sizeable chunks left to rot. Reach a hand down to pick out the chunks, then run some citrus peel through the disposal without water, then with hot water.

Reply to
Norminn

When I was a kid, I worked at McDonalds. we used to clean the coffee decanters with ice cubes and a bit of table salt. Slosh the ice cubes around, and that scrubbed the inside with the salt crystals. I don't know if this would apply here.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

We found any meat type stuff goes down there, in no time smells like a rendering plant, so....

Run hot water thru, then stop with the water and pour straight bleach in, turn off/let rest 10 minutes, then continue flushing with hot water. Makes the sink odor go away!

And, be fast on that rinse cycle, else you'll rust the "expletive deleted" out of your chopper blades.

Reply to
RobertMacy

I clean coffee cup and the Brewmaster with bleach. Just put a bit of bleach into a cup and all the stains just disappear, don't even need to rub the surfaces.

Learned supposed to work using healthy mix of soda dissolved in water, but since bleach worked so well haven't tried that.

Reply to
RobertMacy

Ours did that. I discovered that the pipes below it had a horizontal clean out stub that sloped slightly the wrong way. Over the years bits of waste had accumulated in that short section of pipe until it was full of a brown smelly sludge. Seems those bacteria would quickly infest the trap water a nd start smelling bad. Even if I ran a bunch of hot soapy water down it, o nly a few hours later the stink would be back. Apparently the workers had a hard time getting the cabinet in and had pushed the drain pipe some comin g up from the floor to make it all fit. That caused the clean out slope to be wrong. I cut the drain pipe out, cleaned it all, and reinstalled with the proper slopes and the problem went away.

Reply to
jamesgang

There is some troubleshooting advise from Insinkerator on this page.

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For the record, we're in the habit of giving the disposal a little shot of straight dishwashing detergent at the end of every 'grind cycle' while still running and water flowing. Foam will weal up a little, then quickly disperse.

We also let the water run a good 30 seconds at the end of every cycle.

Also see the 'operating instructions', and 'user-maintenance' instructions on pages 9 and 10 of this Insinkerator instruction manual.

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Good luck!

Erik

Reply to
Erik

I don't see how to do that without the running disposal splashing the Clorox out all over my kitchen. That can be dangerous as well as damaging to anything the Clorox comes in contact with.

Reply to
Steven L.

I've tried that already.

The odor returns in just 48 hours.

Reply to
Steven L.

Just take the thing apart and localize the problem, it might not even be the disposal.

Short cuts usually only serve to prolong the agony and increase your costs.

Reply to
Lab Lover

You have stuff kicking out of your disposal when you run it? Wow!

Reply to
krw

I don't see how to do that without the running disposal splashing the Clorox out all over my kitchen. That can be dangerous as well as damaging to anything the Clorox comes in contact with.

I have used a number of regular kitchen sink garbage disposals. None of them ever splashed anything back up at me, so there is something seriously wrong if your disposal splashes back.

Reply to
hrhofmann

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