When used correctly, a garbage disposal is both a great way to reduce the amount of trash you produce and lessen the chances of your kitchen sink clogging. Garbage disposals work by using spinning impellers to create centrifugal force. This force pushes food scraps against a stationary grinding ring, causing everything to get pulverized so it then easily gets washed down the drain. While useful, garbage disposals are prone to getting jammed in certain situations.
A jam means that one of the impellers is stuck, resulting in the motor not being able to spin the disc the impellers are connected to. In this article, we’ll look at what can cause a garbage disposal to jam up, and what steps you can take to fix the problem whenever this happens.
Steps for Unjamming a Garbage Disposal
You’ll be able to tell immediately if your garbage disposal is jammed as you’ll hear the motor humming but not the sound of the impellers spinning. Any time this happens, it’s crucial that you immediately turn the disposal off. If a garbage disposal runs for even 30 seconds or so when it’s jammed, the motor can overheat and burn out.
It’s not possible to repair a garbage disposal motor as it’s within a sealed compartment. That means your only choice will be to hire plumbers to remove the garbage disposal and install a new one.
You can usually unjam a garbage disposal yourself quite easily. However, it often requires you to get down on the floor in front of the sink cabinet so you can see the underside of the disposal. If you’re not able to do this or just aren’t comfortable messing with the disposal yourself, a plumber will usually be able to unjam it for you in only a few minutes.
Turn the Power Off
After turning the disposal off, the next step is to unplug the power cord. If the unit is hardwired instead of corded, you’ll need to shut off the circuit breaker for the disposal. The reason you want to make sure to shut off the power to the disposal is that you’ll often need to use something like needle-nose pliers to reach inside the disposal and remove whatever caused it to jam. By shutting off the power, you can be certain you don’t accidentally turn it on when you’re trying to unjam it and cause serious damage or destroy the unit.
Look Inside the Disposal for Any Obstructions
After making fully certain the power is off, use a flashlight to look down the drain into the disposal for any obvious obstruction. If you can see an obstruction, you may be able to unjam the disposal just by using the pliers to remove the object. As long as you shut the power off, you can even remove the object by hand since there aren’t any blades or sharp objects inside the unit that could hurt you. If you can’t see what’s jamming the unit or aren’t able to remove it, you’ll need to manually spin the disposal to free the object.
Manually Spin the Disposal
All garbage disposals come with a special Allen wrench or hex key that fits into a hole on the bottom side of the unit and is specifically used for unjamming the unit. If you can’t find the key, a standard 1/4-inch Allen wrench should fit. After putting the wrench in the slot, turn it back and forth several times. Turning the wrench causes the impellers to spin, which will usually free whatever object caused them to jam.
Test the Disposal
Once the impellers spin freely, you’ll want to use your flashlight again and check if you can now see the object. If so, you’ll want to remove it before plugging the disposal back in or turning the circuit breaker back on. If you still can’t see anything, you’re usually ok to turn the power back on and try to run the disposal since it should no longer be jammed.
Before turning the disposal on, you want to make sure you have cold water running. Running a garbage disposal without the cold water on is an easy way to quickly destroy it. That’s because the water acts as a lubricant, reducing friction and preventing the unit from overheating. If the disposal now runs properly and you can hear the impellers spinning, you can start using it again as you normally would.
If you can’t get the impellers to spin with the wrench or you still don’t hear the impellers spinning when you turn the disposal back on, you’ll need to have a plumber inspect the unit. In this situation, it’s likely that the disposal isn’t actually jammed but instead is worn out and can’t spin the impellers anymore.
What Can Cause a Garbage Disposal to Jam Up?
You can obviously cause your garbage disposal to jam if you accidentally drop something like a knife or fork down the drain, which is why you want to be careful whenever you have the disposal running. Nonetheless, jams more commonly happen due to improper use, meaning trying to put certain food items down the disposal that it’s not designed to handle.
The main thing you should always avoid to prevent your garbage disposal from jamming is putting anything overly hard into it. Hard items include fruit pits and stones, nut shells and seafood shells. All of these items are too hard for a garbage disposal to easily grind up and will often get pinned between one of the spinning impellers and the grinding ring, resulting in the impeller getting stuck and the disposal jamming. Smaller, softer bones like those from chicken or fish typically won’t jam your garbage disposal. However, bones like beef and pork are also too hard to grind up and can result in a jam, which may require the help of an expert who can repair plumbing fixtures.
Fibrous fruits and vegetables, like celery, banana peels, asparagus, corn husks, artichokes and certain types of squash, can also cause a garbage disposal to jam. What happens is that the tough, stringy fibers end up getting wrapped around the impellers and making it so that they can’t spin. The same thing can happen if you put raw meat into a garbage disposal as it’s also too stringy and fibrous to get ground up well.
There are also other things that you shouldn’t put in your garbage disposal, not because they can cause it to jam but instead because they’re likely to cause a clog. This includes fat and grease, eggshells, onion peels, coffee grounds, nuts and seeds. Anything starchy like potatoes, pasta, rice and other grains just gets ground up into a thick, sticky paste that will usually result in a fairly significant clog.
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