Garbage Disposal Repair & Installation in Englewood, CO

A disposal tells you what is wrong by how it fails

A garbage disposal has a small number of failure modes, and each points at a different fix. A unit that hums but will not turn is jammed, and often freed rather than replaced. One that is silent has usually tripped its reset or lost power, or the motor is done. And one that leaks is failing at a specific seam, which decides whether it is a fixable connection or a replacement. Knowing which of those you have saves you from replacing a disposal that only needed unjamming.

Because a disposal sits at the top of the kitchen drain, its problems and the drain's problems get tangled together. A disposal that seems weak is sometimes fine, and the real issue is the line below it, so we check the whole path rather than just the unit.

Repair, unjam, or replace

A jam is frequently a same-visit fix. A tripped reset is trivial. A worn or leaking unit, or a motor that has burned out, is a replacement, and swapping a disposal is a clean, quick job when we are already at the sink. Whichever it is, we check the drain connection and trap while we are there, because a leak at the disposal's discharge or a partly clogged trap is easy to catch in the moment and annoying to call back for later.

What a disposal should never see

Half the disposals we replace early were fed things a disposal cannot handle: fibrous scraps, coffee grounds, and grease, the same grease that then coats the drain below and shows up later as a clogged kitchen line. Treating a disposal as a garbage can shortens its life and clogs the pipe it empties into, so what you keep out of it matters as much as the unit itself. While we are under the sink we also check the shutoff valves and supply connections, the same fixture work covered under faucet and fixture service.

Getting a disposal to last

A garbage disposal lasts far longer when it is used for what it is, which is a way to clear small food scraps from a plate, not a substitute for the trash. Grease and coffee grounds coat the drain below it, fibrous and starchy scraps like celery, onion skins and potato peels jam the impellers, and bones and hard pits simply are not what it is built for. Running cold water while it works and for a few seconds after helps flush what it grinds through the trap. Treated that way, a disposal runs for years; treated as a garbage can, it jams, leaks, and clogs the line it empties into. When we install one, we will tell you what it can and cannot handle.

Questions we hear about garbage disposal repair & installation