Cole’s Corner #1: YOU CAN’T PUT THAT IN YOUR GARBAGE DISPOSAL!

Cole and Tanner are journeyman plumbers here at Champion Plumbing and they’re here to share their expertise with you! Join us for new episodes every Friday! In this week’s episode, Cole and Tanner talk garbage disposals: what you can and can’t put in them, how to fix simple issues, and when to call us! Do you have any plumbing questions for Cole & Tanner?

Leave a comment below or email us at [email protected]
Visit us online at https://www.championplumbing.net/.

Watch our Video and You’ll Learn:

You Will What To And Not To Put In Garbage Disposal Drain.
Learn How Garbage Disposal Drain Work.
What To Do If You Are Having Trouble With Garbage Disposal Drain.

Enjoy this transcript below!

Troy: Hey everybody, Troy with Champion Plumbing out of Eagan Minnesota. This is our very first exciting episode of Cole’s Corner, where we’re going to go and pick the brain of a plumber without having to pay the service fee.

Cole: All right. Hi everyone. I’m Cole. Welcome to Cole’s Corner, episode one. Today we’re going to talk about garbage disposal. The one we have here is a Wolverine Brass called The Beast. Half horsepower. They make a smaller size horsepower. They make a bigger one. This is the middle one that’s going to work for pretty much any home. This one right here, if we install it, backs it up with a three-year warranty on product and also on labor. Any issues in that three years, we’ll come and take care of y’all. If we need to replace a certain part, most likely we’ll probably just take it out, throw a new one in and then we can warranty it.

It does come with a new basket strainer for your sink. If you have a duplex sink, it would go on the left or the right. Sometimes one side or the other might actually work better because of your drain pipe coming in from the wall, but we can adjust that if we have to. But the new stopper actually has a spatula built into it where you could actually scrape your food into the strainer here. I think this is the only one that actually I’ve seen that does have it.

Tanner: Also, not just a plastic cap. It’s nice brushed nickel finish on the top.

Cole: Yes. Also, you can use this to push your food down in the disposal, because please don’t put your fingers down there. That would not be good.

So Tanner, if this locks up or hums, what do we do? Do we call a plumber right away, or is there some little tips you can tell us?

Tanner: If it is humming and it’s not spinning, that means it’s locked up. And you can use this Allen wrench, and it goes right in the middle bottom, just sticks in the bottom there. You can turn it manually.

Cole: Do all disposals have an Allen wrench to manually turn it?

Tanner: Not all of them. Ours do. Some of them you have to stick a foreign object, like a piece of wood in the top, and try to move it from there. But luckily ours is a lot easier where you can do it this way. If you ever [inaudible 00:02:01] switch and there’s no noise at all, there’s a reset button right there. Press that.

Troy: That’s an important tip. You don’t need to call the plumber if you flip the switch and nothing happens. Check for those things that Tanner was just talking about. Check the reset button, check to see if it’s jammed. It could save you some money.

Cole: And then obviously with the disposal, the main thing you don’t want to put down it is grease. Not only for your disposal but for your drain. You’re going to end up having to call a sewer company out, unclog that drain.

Celery, anything stringy, you don’t really want to put down this. It ends up binding up, down below like a school of fish line, and then it’s not going to work properly.

Egg shells, they end up sticking at the bottom, I’ve noticed, and people can’t get them out, and they start to get a smell in your disposal. Basically in orange peels, the citrus, you can put them in here and grind them up and they’ll actually deodorize it, make it smell better.

Troy: What about drain cleaner? Should they put drain cleaner down their disposal?

Cole: I haven’t really seen much research on the drain cleaner. I wouldn’t.

Half a cup of baking soda with cold water running down it, that will help. But drain cleaner, if you’re going to do that at your house and you only have a single bowl sink, I would probably hire your sewer company out to take a look at it. If it needs to be drain cleaned, or if they want to put any additive in it, they can put it down the lines, and not down the disposal.

One other thing you shouldn’t put down too, is uncooked pasta, because once it’s in here the water will make it expand, and therefore your noodle is going to be three times as big and you’re going to get a clog in there. Tanner, so I see there’s an outlet here that you plug into the wall. I’ve been to houses where they’re hardwired in. Do we have to call an electrician, or what would we do? Do you have a different style?

Tanner: We do have a different style. You can just pull this cord out, and then that gives you access to the wires behind it, and we can put the hard wires in the house to directly to it.

Cole: So just because ours has a cord, they don’t necessarily need to have a cord ours to work in their home?

Tanner: Correct. I’m going to ask before, do you fill it full and then turn on or turn it on and then dump food in? It is a very good idea to turn it on with water on and dump food down it not jam it full then turn it on.

Cole: And what temperature water? Cool water or hot water?

Troy: Cool water.

Tanner: One other features do-over for a dishwasher? There is a port for it. If you don’t have a dishwasher, that’s fine. It comes with the factory plug. If you have a dishwasher, we can take the plug out and hook it up to it. So your dishwasher will actually drain into here and then through the rest of the drain of the house. So if any more food particles come off your dishwasher, this can grind them up.

Cole: So if you have the need for a new garbage disposal or any plumbing needs, go ahead, give us a call. 651-362-2622, look us up on the web, ChampionPlumbing.net. Subscribed to YouTube. We’re going to be doing a lot more videos at Cole’s corner. Also, you can always message us if you have questions about something and we can make an episode of that so everyone else knows about it.

Troy: If you have questions or you have other video ideas, please feel free to put a comment in there and we’ll address it with one of our upcoming videos.