Garbage Disposal Repair & Installation in San Jose, CA
Disposals fail in a small number of predictable ways, and two of them you can sort out yourself in about five minutes. We would rather tell you that than charge you to drive out and press a button.
If it hums but does not turn, it is jammed rather than dead: the motor is getting power and something is wedged. Switch it off properly at the wall, then look on the underside for a hex socket in the center. There is usually a small Allen wrench clipped to the side of the unit for exactly this. Work it back and forth to free whatever is in there, then press the red reset button on the bottom. If it is completely silent instead, start with that reset button, then check the breaker.
What is not a DIY job is a disposal leaking from the body of the unit rather than from a connection. That means the housing has corroded through, and no amount of tightening fixes a hole. Those get replaced. We will also happily install a disposal you bought yourself. Just open the box and check the mounting hardware is in it before we come out.
When people call us about this
- Hums when switched on but the grinding plate does not turn
- Completely silent, no response at the switch
- Water leaking from the underside of the unit itself
- Persistent smell that cleaning does not shift
- Drains slowly into the disposal, or backs up into the second sink bowl
Questions we get asked
Is it worth repairing or should I just replace it?+
It depends where the fault is. A jam, a tripped reset, a failed switch, or a leaking connection at the drain flange are all repairs and none of them are expensive. A unit leaking from the body of the housing is finished, because that is corrosion through the shell and there is nothing to tighten. Age is the other factor. Most residential disposals run somewhere around eight to fifteen years depending on how hard they have worked, so a fault on a unit already past that is usually the beginning of a pattern rather than a one-off. We will tell you which side of that line yours is on.
What should I keep out of it?+
The things that cause us the most call-outs are fibrous vegetable waste like celery and artichoke leaves, which wrap around the plate rather than breaking up; starchy items such as pasta and rice, which swell and turn to paste; coffee grounds, which accumulate into a sludge further down the line; and grease, which is the single worst thing you can put down any drain because it cools and coats the pipe. Bones and fruit pits are the classic jam. Running cold water rather than hot while it works helps, because cold keeps fats solid enough to be carried away.
Why does the other side of my sink fill up when I run it?+
That is a blockage downstream of both bowls, in the shared drain line, not a disposal fault. The disposal is doing its job and pushing water into a pipe that cannot take it away fast enough, so it finds the path of least resistance and comes up the other side. Replacing the disposal will not fix it. What you need is the drain line cleared, and if it keeps recurring, a look at why. On a kitchen line the usual culprit is a grease coating on the pipe wall, which is what jetting removes.
Further reading: The Toilet That Runs at Night, and Three Other Things You Can Fix Yourself.
Describe it to us and we will tell you what it is.
Phone consultations do not cost anything. If it turns out to be something you can sort out yourself, we will say so.
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Garbage Disposal Repair & Installation across the South Bay
We cover San Jose and the cities around it. Pick your area for what tends to go wrong in houses like yours.