Disposal cleaning 101

[MikE2]

It has become apparent to me that maybe 1/4 of 1% of people actually clean their garbage disposals. The others live with the nasty sludge and stink in there. So because I'm a good guy I'm gonna run you all through the proper way to clean a disposal. Its easy, and fun too.



First of all if your disposal has a removable spash grommet, remove it. If yours is the type where the splash gromet is also the seal for the disposal its not removable. You can still clean it, but its a little harder to do.






You will also need a full bucket of ice. This is the minamum ammount you will want, I would prefer to have more. If your disposal has never been cleaned before you're probably going to want more.






Now what you're gonna want to do is jam the whole disposal full of ice cubes and leave yourself some extras in the sink to pack in there once they crush up.






Turn the disposal on to start crushing the cubes and at the same time turn the COLD water on and with a suitable tool keep packing cubes in to the disposal.
Now is when you will see the first of the gunk comming up.






Whats going to happen is the drain holes on the sides of the disposal will pack full of ice and not allow any water to drain. This is exactally what needs to happen to clean the disposal properly. If the water drained out it would not freeze the gunk in the disposal. Frozen gunk and slime comes out easilly in big chunks. Hot gunk and slime stays in a greasy kinda-liquid state and will not clean out of the disposal. This is also why its very important to use only COLD water. The ice cubes crushing and banging around in there will loosen up and remove all the gunk.





So let that sink keep filling up with cold water, and add more cubes too as needed to keep that drain frozen and plugged. If you don't add cubes it will last probably a minute untill it melts them out and drains. Add cubes as needed to have it so the disposal is running at least 3 to 5 minutes with the frozen slush in there.









After its been a few minutes of the disposal swirling that icy slush around its probably OK to stop adding ice and let it drain out.





Keep running COLD water down the disposal while its draining to rinse it out.





(If your disposal has never been cleaned like that before you're probably going to want to start back at the beginning again to clean it again. Better get a 20 lb bag of ice from the gas station...)





So now most the big chunks of crap are gone and out the drain. Now we're going to clean it again, kind the same way we did before, except we're going to use some soap this time.
So once again, pack the disposal full of cubes, turn it on and keep packing them in.






Once the disposal has all it can take, turn the COLD water on and give the disposal a good shot of soap.






Let it run while you add cubes to keep the drain plugged up and clean everything out. Dump all you have in there with the COLD water and keep packing them down.






You will probably notice this time with the disposal being cleaner it thaws the ice out and opens the drain up much faster. Thats not a problem. Its actually good. It means you did a good job cleaning it. When the sink finally does drain again let the water run right in to the disposal. This will splash it all over inside there and rinse the last of the soap and junk out. After doing that for a minute, stop the disposal and let the COLD water continue to run. If your disposal was really nasty this is very important to do to clean the plumbing out while everything is still frozen. Its even a good idea to stop the drain with a stopper and let the whole sink fill up so you can pull the plug and drain it all at once. A good rush of water like that should clean everything out pretty well.








Then when you're all done take a look inside at the clean and stink free disposal.









Keep up with doing that every 4 months or so and it will never stink. Its also much easier to clean when you keep up on it.

[Doba]

If I hadn't just replaced mine this would come in handy. I'll have to remember this for sure. Thanks for the tip, it's something I never knew.

[FourXFord]

I used ice but not that much... thanks for the info... I think im gonna go get a bag of ice right now

[ScorpionBoy]

thanks Mike, that is great info.

[locopny]

does this work on dirty sheets?

J/K Mike. I usually grind up a lemon in there once in awhile to aid stink abatement.
If nothing else it looks like a fun way to spend a 1/2 hour or so.

[Dustin]

**** yeah dude I replaced mine not too long enough and now its starting to stink. I was wondering how to clean that thing

[Fireguy50]

I just installed a 1hp InSinkErator Evolution Excel.
The old Maytag had a bad bearing after 7 years, it was NASTY in there.

Question 1) Typically I get lazy and put drain cleaner in disposals, any harm? does it miss the sludge?

Question 2) can the new 1hp unit really take bones like in the sales brochure?

[Broncogirl89]

Thanks, good write up, and I will be giving it a shot tomorrow, or I guess today.

[FordBroncoLover]

This was very informative. And kinda gross.

[90Beater]

Great job Mike! Very informative and worth reading. If you did this regularly I wouldn't be dissapointed. I am a pretty handy person but you can never stop learning.

Oh and my disposal could definately use it. I got the permanent grommet though.

[richards96bronco]

Thanks Mike mine is full of the slime going to go out and get a bag of ice.

[imlikeojnow]

im going to buy 2 20 lb bags of ice today

[MikE2]

Originally Posted by locopny

J/K Mike. I usually grind up a lemon in there once in awhile to aid stink abatement.
If nothing else it looks like a fun way to spend a 1/2 hour or so.

The lemon can help, but actually cleaning the shit out of there works much better. Throw the lemon in after you clean it if you want to.
And it doesn't take a half hour, maybe 7 to 10 minutes at the most.

Originally Posted by Fireguy50

I just installed a 1hp InSinkErator Evolution Excel.
The old Maytag had a bad bearing after 7 years, it was NASTY in there.

Question 1) Typically I get lazy and put drain cleaner in disposals, any harm? does it miss the sludge?

Question 2) can the new 1hp unit really take bones like in the sales brochure?

You missed the sludge with the drain cleaners. The problem is all the nasty shit builds up on the top of the disposal chamber and in places the drain cleaner won't get to because it just runs down the drain. I have also seen drain cleaner make disposals start to leak, but usually thats only because the seal was shot anyways and it cleaned off some of the slime that was holding the water back.
Yes you can put bones in the disposal, I have a 1/2 horse and I can put bones in that one too, but I still wouldn't do it. You're better off to just throw them in the garbage. It won't hurt the disposal, but all that junk running down the drain never does any good.

[Burl Swift]

I wouldn't do this if you often need to have your kitchen waste line cleaned out though. Not in the trap, but actually down the line.

Back in the day when I was a drain cleaner I had to go to a number of houses to clean their kitchen line out after they did this. Sometimes you can dislodge enough crap out of your disposal to cause issues further down the line, especially if your one of those people who put EVERYTHING in their disposal.

If you've never had kitchen waste line issues then this probably wont cause any problems. And if you do then I suggest you get your line hydrojetted and regularly use enzymes to keep it from gumming up again. Once your line is good to go then definitly do Mikes procedure, it definitily works.

One thing to remember people is that a garbage disposal is not there to replace your trash can, if you can throw it in the garbage then do it.

[badass1tonf100]

learned something new today

[92builtbronco]

I just did this and DAMN, it's like new!

It was like I was making a black/brown crap snowcone! (I even asked my roomate if he wanted some) Thanks Mike!

[Broncogirl89]

Oh man, I did it too this evening, wow, it was gross, but it worked.

[Datz The Bronco]

Good info mike!

[Chemfrk]

Mike,

thanks,

I regularly do hot soapy water flushes a few times a week, especially afet using the disposal alot,

the ice trick definately worked,, cleaned everything up real nice..

[MikE2]

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