The Lifetime of a Garbage Disposal

[billroper]

According to the websites that I visited yesterday, the average lifetime of a garbage disposal is 10 to 12 years. Since our house is going on 14 years old, this would explain why our builder-installed disposal is stubbornly refusing to grind potato skins fine enough to go through the pipe without clogging it up. Sunday night was the second time that this happened and it took both daisy_knotwise and I (again!) to get it unclogged after the application of a whole bunch of drain cleaner. (It's a dual sink, so Gretchen held one plunger in place as a stopper while I plunged the open side with great vigor.)

I took this as a hint. The original garbage disposal was a InSinkErator 1/3 hp Badger 1. Tonight, I purchased a InSinkErator 1 hp Excel model which I'm hoping will eat pretty much anything we want to throw at it. Supposedly, a replacement garbage disposal is easily installed by one person. However, it apparently is very useful to have a second person handy to help hold the thing up while doing the installation. (The recommended alternative appears to be building a stack of books to hold it up. Thank you, but no. I like my books.) I considered having it professionally installed if it didn't cost too much, but I carefully checked with samwinolj to see if he were available to help in case of obscenely high installation costs.

$150 was well into the obscene range, so I've officially asked Sam for the favor.

We'll see if $150 still seems obscene when we finish. :)

Comments

[kevinnickerson.livejournal.com]

I think I put in the Compact when we redid the kitchen, or possibly the Essential. It's not a hard task, certainly not worth $150 to pay someone else. Then again, it wasn't the first time I've installed a disposal. As you suspect, the hardest part is that it's darn heavy and you're working in a small space. As to someone helping, I'm dubious that it's possible to do so in the standard under sink area. Once you get it positioned, it's possible to hold it in place by bracing one arm against the floor. That frees your other hand for the locking ring. BTW, a long Phillips screwdriver is handy for leverage in turning the ring.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

I wonder if it's feasible to find a stick the right length to tie a rope to, insert into the top, turn sideways and use to hold up the thing from the top? The rope going through the sink drain and the helper holding from the top, possibly even tying it to a board positioned across the sink?

I dunno, I think I remember installing one once for someone. I don't think we've ever been in a place that had one, though maybe we did in the old apartment or something. I'm just thinking if you have to hold it up from underneath AND work down there, it'd be pretty cramped.

[bedlamhouse]

The last one I installed actually had you put in the sink connection and a hanging ring before you mounted the disposal itself, you then essentially lifted the disposal onto the ring and tightened it. No holding in place needed.

[kevinnickerson.livejournal.com]

They all mount that way. The problem is that they're on the edge of being too heavy to lift the disposal with one hand, leaving you with zero hands to turn the locking ring.

The ideal disposal mounting technician is very small, can lift a 50lb weight one handed at arms length, and maneuver it precisely. I've yet to meet this person.

Bill also bought the largest, most powerful, and therefor probably heaviest unit.

[bedlamhouse]

I had a 3/4 HP and was able to hang it after lifting with both hands, then turn the locking ring. As long as no small animals, children, or body parts are under the unit if it falls, that was sufficient.

[kevinnickerson.livejournal.com]

Sure, and I have too. The secret, as I said above, is to use both hands to get it in place, and then move to holding with one arm braced on the floor. Once you have an 1/8" of lock in the ring you're home.

I just don't see that a second person can be used at all.

[kevinnickerson.livejournal.com]

It's an interesting theory, but I think I see a flaw. You've now got someone straddling the person on the floor, trying to hold up a heavy item. The item is at a minimum 12" from the trunk of their body making for poor leverage.

The person on the floor is moving the unit around, bumping the first persons legs, and hoping like H that the stick doesn't dislodge and drop the unit on their nose.

The board doesn't help much, the person on the bottom still has to lift the unit the last inch. One inch, or a foot, they're still lifting it.

[bedlamhouse]

It isn't just the horsepower, it is the fineness of the grinding grate that is used for thin things like vegetable peelings and skins.

I have yet to find a disposal that handles onion skins happily on a consistent basis, no matter the oomph of it.

Use plenty of water and try to always mix bigger chunks of things with skinny/small things. We try to keep a few lemon or orange peels around for just such purposes.

Very soon we'll be trying to compost yet again, so we'll be able to reserve all those peelings for the garden.

[rono-60103.livejournal.com]

FWIW: I installed a disposal in our kitchen in Bartlett (this was before the remodel, the contractors reinstalled it into the new sink) pretty much by my self.

While I'm not a complete home-repair novice, I'm pretty much a non-rank amateur, and plumbing is not my specialty (I'm pretty good with electrical stuff). (When we did the bathroom in Bartlett, ironically less than a year before moving, Tara didn't let me uninstall the toilet).

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

Even if you like your books, maybe a stack of old phone books, or newspapers for recycling, or a few bricks with a phone book on top might help ... I've always been impressed by those cantilever robot-y things that drywall people have so one person can hold up and secure panels on ceilings and walls by themselves.

Here in London we're given small green boxes to put our potato skins etc. in that are collected by the council's recycling people, so they would really want us *not* to have garbage disposals ... they also give out plastic composting bins for free and i have one at the bottom of my garden which I hardly ever use (sadly)

[kizoku42.livejournal.com]

It isn't even close to worth $150. Mine is a 1/2 horsepower and is the 2nd or 3rd I've put in. A little awkward, but not too heavy. I hope you haven't overdone it with the 1.0 hp job you bought but you shouldn't really have a problem so long as there is room for it under there. I really doubt you can get a second person in there, but you shouldn't need them either.

Scissord Jack

[(Anonymous)]

One or more of your cars probably has a scissors jack:

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/254578304/1_5_ton_hydraulic_scissor_jack/showimage.html

. . . which is just perfect, size and power-wise, to hold up any conceivable garbage disposal -- it'll hold up your car.

Sam'l B.

[ifics.livejournal.com]

Disposals don't grind, the beat the food up. And to install it, you hold it up with your knee, then turn the lock ring. I am an apartment maintenance and have installed disposals many many times.