Like so many aspects of life, your garbage disposal might slip your mind quite often despite your regular use. While this handy appliance simplifies cleanup, without regular garbage disposal maintenance, it could quickly become an unwelcome source of frustration that causes clogs, jams, or total breakdown. At Best Plumber near me, we’ve put together some essential garbage disposal care strategies so your disposal remains reliable for many years ahead. Now, let’s dive into them to avoid costly repairs and ensure smooth operations!
Essential Tips To Refresh And Preserve Your Garbage Disposal System
First and foremost, familiarize yourself with the use guidelines from your garbage disposal manufacturer. If this is your first garbage disposal installation, take time to read its manual. This will give you an understanding of its proper operation and maintenance, which will also extend its lifetime and keep it running efficiently for as long as possible.
Regular Garbage Disposal Use
Frequent garbage disposal use is one key step towards maintaining its efficiency. It helps prevent it from rusting or collecting dirt that causes unpleasant odors, blockages, and pests. It will also help your garbage disposal run more effectively for longer!
Avoid Feeding Inappropriate Items To The Disposal
Proper garbage disposal care also involves understanding its limits to not accidentally cause any damage to it. Here are a few key items that need to be diverted back out for proper operation of the unit:
- Grease, oils, and fats (FOG): Grease, oils, and fats can solidify in pipes to clog.
- Fibrous vegetables: Celery stalks, cornhusks, and onion skins can tangle with disposal blades, causing jamming or jammed operation of disposal units.
- Hard materials: Bones, fruit pits, or shells may damage both blades and motor.
- Non-food items: Glass, plastic, metal, and paper should never go into garbage disposal.
Utilize Appropriate Portion Sizes
One of the key pieces of advice when it comes to using and caring for garbage disposal is breaking up large, bulky, fibrous, or stringy materials into smaller portions for disposal. While your garbage disposal was designed for food waste disposal, overfilling could result in clogs and damage; using smaller portions is key in protecting clogs and relieving strain on its motor; we advise breaking it up no larger than handful size at one time for best results.
Maintain Cold Water While Utilizing Your Disposal
When operating your garbage disposal, always run cold water before, during, and after operation. Our garbage disposal tips mentioned avoiding direct deposits of fats, oils, or grease into the disposal, but some could get through on food items being dumped into it.
Most people would assume warm or hot water is best for maintaining their garbage disposal. However, this can cause oils and fats to dissipate quickly into a solution, potentially clogging and damaging pipes leading away from it over time. By contrast, cold water solidifies any fats, making it easier for blades to grind up the matter so it can be more quickly flushed away via drains and wasters. Running cold water for 15 seconds before and after grinding food waste helps ensure all particles have been flushed thoroughly out of your disposal, down your drain system, and washed down the drain system, thus protecting against potential issues related to oils/fats dispersion/solidification issues clogging/damaging!
How To Prevent Rusting On Your Garbage Disposal?
Rust forms over time in any combination of water and metal. Rust weakens metal blades and can even cause them to come loose, damaging your motor and creating an immense mess for you to clean up later. Here are a few strategies on how you can keep your garbage disposal from Rusting:
- Regular usage: Running your disposal with water at least once daily to wash all debris down the drain and keep pools of liquid from pooling in your sink is crucial for efficient use and prevention of pooled liquid.
- Proper Cleaning: Regularly maintain and clean your disposal using one or more methods outlined here.
- Drying: While it might sound counterintuitive, running your disposal in the evening to air dry overnight when not being used will reduce any risk of mold, mildew, or rust buildup in its components.
By following these steps, you can avoid the headache that rusty garbage disposals cause and ensure that they continue running at peak performance.
Conclusion
Your garbage disposal can be the unsung hero of your kitchen, and following these maintenance steps can extend its lifespan for many years to come. Simply running cold water regularly through it while avoiding inappropriate items (and cleaning every two weeks!) are simple tips you can implement to extend its longevity and keep things running smoothly in the kitchen.