How to Maximise the Life of Your Insinkerator & Prevent Jamming?

Maximising the life of your insinkerator and preventing jamming

An insinkerator is an appliance that can be installed in a kitchen sink drain to grind and dispose of food materials. If you are having problems with your insinkerator, Pav Plumbing can repair all types and brands of garbage disposal units. Where necessary, we can also install a replacement insinkerator unit.

Avoid Needing Insinkerator Repairs by Following the tips Below:

Also known as garbage disposal units, insinkerators are renowned for becoming jammed or stuck, but often this is a result of 'user error' or non-food items being put down the sink.

Insinkerators should only be run with cold water, never hot. Cold water causes grease and fats to harden and congeal so that they can be flushed down the drain. Hot water will instead dissolve grease and fats, which may then remain inside your garbage disposal unit and in your drains. When using your insinkerator, the cold water should be turned on first and left running until the grinding is finished and you can hear the sound of just whirling blades indicating that all food is gone. Also make sure that all food has completely cleared before stopping the machine.

Food items should be fed into the insinkerator gradually rather than all at once. Stuffing lots of vegetables etc into your garbage disposal unit all at once is likely to make it jam and shut down. Nothing that contains grease or fat should be put down your kitchen sink drain, including fish and butter or margarine. Non-food items are a complete no no for your garbage disposal unit. This may sound obvious, but materials commonly removed by plumbers repairing jammed garbage disposal units include plastic, glass, metal and aluminium foil.

Insinkerators largely clean themselves when they are run. It is worth manually cleaning your garbage disposal unit once every week or two though by inserting and grinding a handful of ice in your unit. This will remove any buildup that may have been left when grinding food materials, and often gets rid of any smell coming from your kitchen sink drain. If a smell persists after carrying out this cleaning, cutting up and grinding either a lemon or grapefruit will give the insinkerator a fresh citrus smell.