Maintaining a Garbage Disposal
A garbage disposal is one of the most important and one of the most dangerous appliances in any home, as a plumbing company we always recommend allowing professional technicians to maintain and repair your garbage disposal at all times. This can be an important way of making sure your garbage disposal does not become jammed, smell strongly of rotting food or fail to grind all the food disposed of within it.
How Can a Plumber Help?
There are many reasons why a garbage disposal will begin to smell badly, from blunt blades not chopping and grinding food correctly to problems with the mechanism not working correctly. Plumbers, like ourselves, are well versed in repairing and caring for garbage disposals and making sure it is done in a safe way.
A common problem with bad smells coming from a garbage disposal is a buildup of food or oils that are not ground up and chopped by the blades. Our plumbing service has the ability to access the disposal safely and remove any food buildup and make sure the smells are not coming from a blockage further down the drain. Accessing the garbage disposal safely is the main problem for homeowners, reset buttons and hand cranking options are available beneath the disposal system in a bid to keep the system running correctly.
What Shouldn’t I Put Into My Disposer?
Over many years of experience as a plumber I have seen many items placed into a garbage disposal incorrectly, one of the major ways of avoiding problems is to use cold water when running the system. This will allow any grease or oil on the food to become solid and be ground by the disposal easily for removal into the drains.
It is never a good idea to place food that expands with water into a disposal, pasta and rice often expands in the drainage system of a property and blocks pipes. Potato peelings can also cause problems with blockages, a few peelings are fine to put in the disposal, but not a large number. Animal bones are difficult to grind and can blunt the blades of a garbage disposal, while coffee grounds do assist in removing odors, but can block pipes further along the drainage system.
If your home is in need of garbage disposal services, call Albert Nahman Plumbing & Heating at (510) 876-9725 for the best services in the Berkeley area.
