Garbage Disposal Repair in Orland Park

A garbage disposal is an appliance that is extremely useful and often taken for granted, yet so extremely versatile and functional.  Any unwanted food that goes down the disposal gets shredded into miniscule pieces so small that it’s easy to pass. You can imagine the amount of force and power that is necessary to finely mince your food.  With the amount of energy that is required to break down food, there are mechanical issues that can arise with your garbage disposal. If you’re in need of garbage disposal repair in Orland Park give us a call and we’ll do our best to provide same day service.

Garbage disposals are very simple appliances, yet every now and then they do experience issues.  Here are a few of the common issues we see with a disposal:

Jammed garbage disposal

This is most evident when you hear the garbage disposal making a humming noise but you don’t hear it working.  This humming noise is an indication that there is something caught between the impellers and the shredding ring.  You can try to unclog the jam by first turning off the power supply at the breaker box. Don’t ever work with a live garbage disposal and don’t ever stick your fingers or hand into the garbage disposal (even if the power has been cut off).  

You’ll want to insert an offset wrench into the bottom slot of the disposal and turn it both clockwise and counterclockwise to dislodge the jam.  Afterwards you can take a thick wooden rod and poke it into the mouth of the disposal in an attempt to free up the impellers. Once that’s been done you can turn the power back on, run some water, and turn the disposal back on.  This should do the trick.

Garbage disposal doesn’t get power

There are several reasons this can be the case, but you’ll want to make sure that it truly isn’t getting any power at all.  If it hums but doesn’t chew up food then take the steps directly above to fix the problem. You’ll want to check the circuit breaker first to see if a fuse was tripped, and if so, that’s your answer.  Also check to make sure the power cable hasn’t been loosened or that the reset button at the bottom of the unit isn’t popped out, if so, push it back in and test for power.

If after all this it still isn’t running then you could have a damaged disposal or a faulty power switch in which case you can either swap out the disposal for another or have an appliance repairman fix the unit for you.

Garbage disposal clogs the drain

Before you try anything else, we do not recommend using draino or other harsh chemicals to clean your drains.  Instead, if you’re certain you have a clogged drain, your first move should be to remove the P or S drain trap (literally looks like an “S” or “P” shape) which is the line that immediately follows your disposals discharge.  The most likely scenario is that somewhere along that line there will be an obstruction. Cleaning out the drain trap should resolve the issue.  

If there isn’t a clog in the drain trap then the next likelyhood is that there is a clog in the line that connects to the wall.  You should put everything back together again and try using a plunger and some elbow grease to force the clog out. In addition, you can snake out a clog using an auger.  It’s simply a metal “snake” that you insert into your line to try to rod out the clog. Once you can feel a free flow in the line then make sure to run plenty of hot water to make sure the drain is completely clear of clogs.

If your garbage disposal is giving you problems that you just cannot resolve then give us a call and we’d be happy to schedule a time to fix your garbage disposal.  We do our best to schedule same day service and generally have all the repair parts to service the job the right way.

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