Professional Garbage Disposal Repair in Houston

Your home’s garbage disposal is a relatively simple machine. A motor circulates a set of rotating blades inside of an enclosure beneath your kitchen sink, which grinds food and other waste material placed into your sink drain. Before calling the garbage disposal repair in Houston experts at Nick’s Plumbing Service, read this information page to determine if you need a service call.

Garbage disposals have their own collection of problems and issues that a homeowner may encounter. If you notice that your kitchen sink drain is backing up, and you suspect your disposal is the culprit, NEVER put your hand into the drain or the disposal’s grinding chamber.

A possible simple fix to what appears to be a broken garbage disposal is to check to see if the unit has overheated (due to overuse/overfilling) and the internal circuit breaker has tripped. Usually, you can check under the disposal and locate a (typically red) reset button. If nothing changes after attempting the reset, check the circuit breaker for your disposal in your circuit box.

If your disposal is humming but is not grinding the material in the drain, it could be jammed. Again, DO NOT put your hand into the disposal chamber. You may very well loosen what has caused the unit to jam, and in the process, expose yourself to injury when the jam is dislodged, and the blades begin to rotate again.

Leaking garbage disposals usually aren’t caused by the unit itself, as they are self-contained, but the pipes connected to the disposal can develop leaks and will need attention from a garbage disposal repair in Houston technician.

Seeing as how the garbage disposal is installed on the busiest sink in the home (the kitchen), and the amount of use that it gets, eventually, even the best disposal units will wear out. Replacing a garbage disposal is a job best left to the experienced, licensed garbage disposal repair in Houston experts of Nick’s Plumbing Service.

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What are some signs I need to replace my garbage disposal unit?

If you have a unit that runs quietly and is working efficiently, as it chews up quickly what you feed it, then it’s in good shape. Yet, if it’s turned on and not grinding or there is a horrible smell coming from the sink, you might have a problem.

It’s not making any noise, but it’s turned on.

First and foremost, DO NOT put your hands into the garbage disposal unit to check if the blades are moving. This goes without saying at all times. But especially if you’re trying to troubleshoot a problem. We would advise that you make sure the unit is plugged in. If it is plugged in, hit the reset button, which is most often found at the bottom of the unit and red. It should be popped out-press it.

If that does not get things moving, take a look at your circuit breaker and make sure it hasn’t tripped. If it’s turned off in the electrical service panel. If the breaker has not tripped and the reset button has not popped out, then the unit itself could be damaged altogether. In that case, we recommend that you replace your garbage disposal unit with a new one. Unless you are a trained electrician and are willing to take the unit apart to find the problem?

Leaking Garbage Disposal

Suppose water or any other liquid is leaking from your garbage disposal unit. In that case, it could signal an easy or far more severe repair. The first place to check for a leak would be at the sink’s drain hole, also known as the sink flange. In that case, it can either be that the rings need to be tightened or that the plumber’s putty was not of the highest quality and needs to be reapplied.

A more complicated situation might arise when the garbage disposal unit gets a hole in the actual case. This can happen when a sharp object gets stuck in there, such as a knife or a sharp bone. Cracks and holes are quite common in older garbage disposals.

Leaks can also happen at the discharge drainpipe and dishwasher connection. The dishwasher connection may need the clamp tightened. In the case of the drainpipe, the bolts might just need to be tightened.

Yet with these types of bolt tightenings and washer leaks, we recommend that you contact a professional such as Nick’s Plumbing Service. We have the correct tools to perform the task and ensure they’re done accurately.

Smelly Garbage Disposal

A smelly or foul odor emanating from the garbage disposal that won’t go away is a sign it’s time to replace your disposal unit. As the part of your garbage disposal unit wear out, the blades get increasingly duller. As that happens, more and more food gets trapped, and it starts to decompose in the unit. The smell wasn’t too bad at first, and slices of lemon would make it go away at first. Eventually, there wasn’t enough lemon at the grocery store to mask that smell, and you started noticing it every time you came back into the home. This isn’t a case of simply replacing parts of the garbage disposal unit. You need to replace your unit altogether. That’s where Nick’s Plumbing Service can help. Give us a call, and we can help get you fitted with a new garbage disposal unit.

Garbage Disposal Unit is Jammed

If your garbage disposal unit has been making a mild humming noise instead of its usual healthy roar when it eats your food, something might be blocked. Un-jamming, a garbage disposal unit, is something that depends on the brand that you own. Each one has a unique off function when they’re stuck to the point of stalling the motor. Today’s garbage disposal units are designed so that anyone can remove the blockage safely. Underneath the unit is located a small slot, and each one comes equipped with a tiny wrench to match it. If you’ve lost the wrench that came with the unit, call the store where you bought it, they should sell replacement wrench for as little as $3-$5. You can also you an Allen wrench as well on certain brands of garbage disposal units.

Using the garbage disposal wrench, insert it through the drain hole until it hits the bottom of the disposal. Then turn it slightly so that it locks on to the shredder plate of the unit. Turn the wrench back and forth so that it locks on to the shredder plate of the unit. Once the shredder plate starts rotating freely, remove the wrench from the disposal unit. Keep some cold water running and CAREFULLY turn on the disposal unit to wash away debris left in the disposal unit.

Garbage Disposal Unit is Draining Slowly

If you’ve given your disposal plenty of time to drain and still try to rid itself of the food, liquid, and debris, it’s safe to say that it’s plugged. First and foremost, as previously stated, DO NOT put your hands down inside the unit to see if something is stuck around the blades. Those blades are incredibly sharp and could do irreparable damage to your fingers and hand. Make sure everything is turned off before you ever stick your hand down into a garbage disposal unit.

Instead, we recommend either a commercial drain cleaner or vinegar and baking soda to dislodge the blockage in your pipes. If that doesn’t work, then give us a call at Nick’s Plumbing Service. We know how to properly remove the bolts, disconnect the drain trap, and look for any obstructions or clogs. Our trained plumbers will have the proper equipment on hand to clear the blockage with the most modern and useful tools.

List of Items You Should Never Put Down a Garbage Disposal:

  • Coffee Grinds
  • Beans
  • Onion Skins
  • Corn Husks
  • Bones
  • Flower Clippings
  • Popcorn Kernels
  • Egg Shells
  • Celery
  • Fruit Pits
  • Metals
  • Rice
  • Rutabaga Peels
  • Cooking Oils
  • Pasta
  • Potato Peels
  • Artichokes
  • Rutabaga Peels
  • Dental Floss
  • Shrimp Shells
  • Cooking Grease

What to do When You Have Garbage Disposal Problems

If your garbage disposal breaks or jams, there are a few things you may want to check out before calling a Houston plumber. If the garbage disposal is not making its running sound, it could be an electrical problem. Make sure that the unit is plugged in and the switch that powers the unit is on. Check to see the circuit breaker has not tripped, and then press the reset button on the very bottom of the garbage disposal unit. If the garbage disposal still will not operate it is likely beyond repair.

It is very important that you have a good quality garbage disposal. A garbage disposal main purpose is handling food waste. If your garbage disposal has been nothing but headaches to deal with, then you should consider upgrading to a better model. Garbage disposals have different horse powers, and it can be difficult to discern which model is right for your home. There are so many models to choose from, and the plumber experts from Nick’s Plumbing Service can offer the best advice for your particular needs.

Best Garbage Disposal Repair in Houston

Nick’s Plumbing has provided the best garbage disposal repair in Houston for years. Our highly experienced team of plumbers can guide you through any issue from garbage disposal repair to garbage disposal installations and more. When you call Nick’s Plumbing, we answer our phones with live, intelligent staff that are all highly trained and knowledgeable about Houston plumbing issues. Call today to schedule a garbage disposal repair service appointment.

More on Gabage Diposal Repair & Replacement on The Potty Mouth Guys Show

Nick’s Plumbing Live Video Transcription:

On today’s show, it’s all about garbage disposal repair in Houston and garbage disposal replacement in Houston,

John Richard Saad, back for another week, another episode. Today we’re going to be talking about the garbage disposal. That chewy machine that’s supposed to take all my stuff. Take the leftovers from the kitchen sink and just eat it, throw it in there, scraping. Before we get too big into this, anytime we talk about garbage disposals, me and Richard always likes to talk about proper use because a lot of times it is misused. And we’ve, we’ve talked about this on several shows and we’re going to again the day because we are talking about garbage disposal is our topic. And uh, so what are some things that we absolutely do not want to put down the garbage disposal, chicken bones, no chicken bones, chicken bone, things that are stringing stringy salaries of vegetables that stringy potato pills have skin. Oh yeah. Think about things that stick together whenever you’re pilling Oh, pasta.

Pasta is a bad one. Ooh, that’s a bad one. Can you imagine what. Think about this pasta on your dish, right? And Rice, rice to it’s comes in a small little, what do you call it again? A piece of rice. There we go and it’s small and you put water and heat it up and it, and it gets bigger. Well that’s what it does in your pipes. And then it coagulates together. That’s the word on our show that everybody loves. I love that word because it’s true. It starts packing in tooling. That’s right. And it stops up the pipes and it sorts of. The disposal cause all sorts of problems for you. Um, you want to put regular waist down there, you know, there’s things that tend to stick together. They’re stringy of what it all cost. And of course I know, I think it goes without saying that you don’t put items that shouldn’t go down in the kitchen sink and people don’t know people well, they actually put a lot more than what I think we think.

But garbage disposal. You’re supposed to scrape a highly recommend scraping off in the Trashcan, renting off in the sink and getting the particulates into the garbage disposal, not the whole chicken. That’s right. Okay. So now let’s dive in to the repair replacement of garbage disposals. So let’s start off with types. So there’s a tons of types. We’re only going to talk about the most famous three, right, because they come in three different sizes and that’s the types they are. And that’s the ones that we’re going to talk about. Right? They have a one third we don’t talk about because it’s, I noticed his garbage disposal and it is garbage. It’s a builder’s gray, which really garbage. It is. It’s, it’s not worth buying. It’s worse than builders maybe, but they do use. Yeah, that’s what they use because it’s cheap. We’re going to talk about a half horsepower, three quarter horsepower, one horsepower disposal.

Um, obviously each one’s more powerful. Half three quarter or one half horsepower is probably the most popular. I would think. A lot of people upgrade from their builder’s grade to that. And um, I tend to stick with it. The biggest differences in those, what are they? Half a horsepower tends to be steel, right? You usually don’t get stainless steel on them. That’s try. Your teeth are not going to be the same as, let’s say, the one horsepower. Absolutely. And they’re just made cheaper. Yeah. That’s all it is. The guts on the inside the motors cheaper. Everything is cheaper than half horsepower. That’s right. Once we start moving up to the three quarter horsepower, you’re getting into multiple options. That’s right. You’ll be able to get stainless steel parts, stainless steel grinders. Um, you can still kind of get a cheaper one though. That does have steel parts, right?

The motors are more strong. The motors are built better. Grind chambers, a little bigger. Grind Chamber is bigger. Then you go to the one horsepower and typically the one horse power all comes with stainless, has everything in it is stainless steels and motor is top of the class in garbage disposal motors. It’s quiet, quiet. It’s got auto reversing. It helps from getting it stuck. Yeah. Jam Jam sensors. It’s got everything. It’s like the Ferrari. Yeah, that’s right. Absolutely. It’s just like everything else in the world, right? The, the, the bigger and better that you go, the more bells and whistles you’re going to get. So you go from a pretty basic model to one that has all sorts of things that help it maintain itself. Correct. And that’s why the warranties, right? That’s one that we didn’t touch on or a lot different than half horsepower.

Consider the two, three quarter horsepower because with the three year your creme de la Creme Ferrari one horsepower comes with a seven year warranty. Big Difference. Yeah. They absolutely believe in that product. So I mean that’s a, you know, double the middle and through over three times, you know, the beginner one now. Now in saying that costs are gonna go. Oh come on. Yeah, a lot higher for the Ferrari then what it is for the half horsepower of absolutely, you know, but in the middle, which is the three quarter horsepower horsepowers, they make about four different styles of where the material is different in there. Yeah. And they’re. And they’re great. That’s what I put into my house three quarter and I went with the all stainless steel. I am not the guy that’s going to put a lot down my sink, right? Because I know better.

I just don’t. But if I’m an average person that, okay, I’m sticking some things down the sink. You need to go with a three quarter and I shove everything under the sink. You. Yeah, I tried to do my son, but he climbed out of everything I can down there and he made a bad grade. I shove all sorts of things. I’m really bad about it. I really am. Um, but, so, so in saying that, what happens, what can happen when you shut bunch of food down the garbage disposal that you shouldn’t be a, it’s going to do that word. What’s that word? Coagulate. Yeah. Into the pipe and it’s going to stop it up. It’s going to a good. Yeah, it’s good. Um, it’s gonna push that down and then a lot of times it gets stuck somewhere between there and the city main. Um, and it’s going to create problems, you know, a lot of times it can also do the same thing inside of the disposal and jam it up.

So it’s not going to spend what leads us into what kind of issues do we run in and disposals. Yeah. So let’s talk about that a little bit more and let’s just say it does stop working and I put too much food and it quit working or let’s say I didn’t put any food in it and it quit working. What do you do? Oh, okay. So a couple of different things. Um, when you say it quit working, we get a couple of different items. Is it like you flipped switch and nothing happens? Yeah. Let’s just say nothing happens. Nothing happens. First thing you want to do, you want to eliminate, okay, is an electrical problem, right? Is a switch actually working? If it is, um, and this is actually pretty interesting, I had this phone call, right? We, we talk about every week we say, hey, call us if you did a problem.

And this happened yesterday. Lady calls in and says, Hey, I need someone to come out my disposal. Flip switched. Nothing happens. I said, well, low before book a call, let’s try something very simple. There’s a reset button directly on the bottom, itty bitty red reset button. Just almost like you’re GFC. I button. I said, have you tried to push nice. I didn’t even know that was there. So she went down that he sees it. She pushed it and I heard her immediately turn it mean here at spinning. She was. I never knew that was there. What happened? I said, well, sometimes you know, if something happens with the power and it trips it for whatever reason and you just got to reset it and a lot of times that fixes the problem whenever you flip it and there’s nothing happening. Nine Times out of 10 you do that.

Everything will be back up and running and guess what? We saved you money. I tried. Yeah, we didn’t have to send anybody out. Saved you money. She didn’t have to wait on our guy who. I mean she saved some time, some money, so she was very happy and the that goes into the next thing. What have you turned it on and all you hear is humming. Well, same thing, right where that button is underneath that garbage disposal, you’re going to have an allen wrench. I’m fitting underneath there that you can put the key in and you start twisting it back and forth and that’ll get it loosened up. Those teeth. Sometimes we’ll get stuck, get it loosened up, hit the button again, turn the switch on or because that’s all that means is that the disposal was jammed up to get jammed up. I got a question for you.

What if I don’t have an allen wrench now? Whew. That’s a problem. Not for me though. So go to your garage or go to your cabinet. You get a broom up so you get this broom. Get the handle of the broom, put it in your sink and start turning the teeth on the disposal and make sure they’re freed up backwards and forwards. Then go underneath, go ahead and hit the button again and then hit the switch. Now, if that doesn’t work, you got problems, problems. Then it comes in the replacement time. Yeah, that means your motors gone. Yeah, and it isn’t coming back on. At that point you probably need to call us or is going to be the best option. And again, that’s after you check and make sure the power is working. Yeah. So again, yeah. Yeah. Your motors gone. So that comes into the replacement side of I need a new one.

And the options. You’ve got a bunch of options out there. You guys on, on what to get now? I would say most homes have the half horsepower. Yeah. I went with the three quarter. What do you have? I have a half. Okay. I have, I went with a three quarter stainless and it is 12 years old and I have no problems with it. That normally lasts quite a quite a good time. I should get 20 plus years but I’m not putting anything down in any way but I turned it on all the time so I’m using it all the time. But I am not. I’m, I’m again scraping off and the trash can. I’m renting off in a sink. Your bear responsible and I don’t know what that means but I’m trying, let’s put it that way. It might dispose all is a 12 years old and it’s still going strong and it should.

I don’t, I don’t. I mean probably go 20, 30 years. I don’t know, you know, the only other time that will do the other thing that we see, you know those badger or I’m sorry, the half horsepower disposals, the non stainless steel, they rust. Yeah, they rust. That’s going to be the other thing. After you use it long enough, it will eventually rust out and start to leak and that’s another call that we get frequently is that hey, if I’ve ever sold was leaking. No. Once we eliminate, if it was installed improperly and if the. If it’s an older disposal, normally it’s rusted out and at that point you’re going to be making a choice between which one do you want. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. Yeah. And I’m sorry. Oh, I was going to say solutions, right. So today shows about those solutions and if you scrape off in the trash put minimum down that disposal.

It’s gonna last half horsepower is not going to last. It’s got steel parts. Eventually it will rust out, right? It might still work, but it’s going to reduce down and start licking thinking, oh yeah. And it’s going to start leaking underneath the cabinet and you may or may not notice that. And you know, we’ve seen them as little as five years rust out. We’ve seen them as much as 10 years. Yeah. Um, and, and sometimes depending on your water quality, they’re not rusting out as quick as it within the first 10 years. Now, stainless steel, mine’s 12 years old, it still looks like today. I put it in. You can look at the teeth, you can look at everything around it and it still looks brand new. So as long as that motor goes, it’s going to last the dragon. It’s not going to rust out. Now, one horsepower, if you’re actually a connoisseur of cooking, let’s call it right.

You like to cook a bunch and you are putting a bunch of things down that sink that one horsepower is for you. It can take it and it will grind it and it will keep grinding. And it’ll last. They’re great units. They’re expensive. And you know, I’m calling it expensive, but that’s all relative, right? I mean, you’re going to get 20 plus years out of the deal. I mean, what does that really mean? A dollar a month. So really it’s not expensive, but up front they’re going to cost you a lot more, but that truly is the Ferrari and that one there is going to last and it will take bones. I wouldn’t highlight, I wouldn’t recommend though and ribs in there, but I’m talking normal chicken poems. Uh, I wouldn’t throw cal bones, let’s call it an air either. So, but uh, that one’s going to last and it’s a great unit and it chops up things very fine. So as long as you’re not putting pasta down there a typically you’ll stay away from the kitchen sink stoppages tube because it chops it up so fine before it delivers it into your piping structure.

That’s all we got. This sweet man. We really appreciate it. Nothing to add. We’re done. Yeah. Hope you learned something today. And if not, call us John’s here to help you at drive all the time. Keep grinding. Houston. I try. I’m here to help too, by the way.

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