The other day, I made the unfortunate decision to pour some tomato and cucumber salad gone bad down the garbage disposal. Of course, I clogged the disposal. My attempts to unclog it with a plunger (reserved only for the kitchen sink, fyi) were futile, so I decided to counsult my personal plumber, the internet. It couldn't be that hard, right? Plus, I surely was not going to subject myself to the embarrassment (not to mention the fee) of a real plumber just for a garbage disposal clog.
After finding a step-by-step instructional guide on ehow (seriously, how did my parents manage to raise three kids and keep up a house without the internet??) that assured me of a simplistic fix, I adjusted my pants for optimum plumber crackage and got to work.
The article stated that most garbage disposal clogs will be located in a curved pipe that is connected to a straight pipe coming down from the sink (like my technical terms?) You could easily remove the curved pipe, get rid of the gunk inside, then reattach the pipe. Surely I could get this done in the hour before I needed to be at work, right? What the article didn't say, because they assumed someone doing this would have at least an eighth of an ounce of plumbing common sense, was that even if the faucet was not turned on, there would be water stopped up behind the clog, so you would need a bucket of some kind to catch the gushing geyser sure to come when you loosen the pipe. So, you can guess what happened when I loosened the pipe without taking necessary bucket precautions. Lots of yelling, some words I am not proud of, then a mad dash to the mudroom for buckets and old towels.
After the waterfall ceased, I checked the curved pipe and indeed, it was full of cucumber rinds and eggshells (which I learned you are not supposed to put down a disposal because they tend to stick to the sides of the pipes, thus adding to clog issues. Ah. Point taken.)I cleared the pipe, and after some issues reattaching it, (couldn't find the rubber seal at first, had the pipe on crooked, etc.)I am happy to say that we have a clog-free disposal and leak-free pipes. And all it cost me was my sanity for about 30 minutes.
2 comments:
Thanks for the egg shell tip...
Great job! I personally would have left it to my personal plumber - James but that is awesome you tackled it yourself! I always put egg shells down, I had no idea you shouldn't. However, I learned that you shouldn't put onion 'skin' down the disposal for the same reason... some of my family puts cantelope rind down it... I can't imagine the racket that would make!
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