The misunderstandings about garbage disposals start with the name—garbage disposals aren’t meant to handle actual garbage! These common, everyday devices found in most kitchens have many basic misconceptions swirling around them. Poor advice on the internet has made these errors more common: you’ll hear a piece of advice one way (always pour hot water down the drain when running the disposal) and then the other (nope, pour cold water down the disposal).
We want you to have a garbage disposal in Stowe, VT that runs flawlessly for years. To help, we’ve listed common misunderstandings about these devices. When you know the truth, you can take better care of your garbage disposal.
It’s okay if you don’t think much about your garbage disposal on a daily basis. It’s an important functional item in your kitchen that you use almost every day without any trouble. But you need to know that your garbage disposal isn’t invincible. It’s not “the last garbage disposal you’ll ever need to buy.” 
When a drain clogs up or becomes so slow it might as well be clogged, it’s an annoyance. Sometimes a plunger can fix it, other times you need to summon one of our plumbers. Although regular drain cleaning and maintenance for your plumbing can reduce the number of clogged drains you face, there’s no way to prevent all of them.
Drain cleaning is a job we recommend homeowners schedule both to clear up clogged drains and as a regular maintenance task once a year. Drain cleaning helps keep one half of your plumbing system—the sewage and drainage side—working at top condition so you won’t have to worry about it. Nobody wants to fret about draining wastewater out of their house!
If the “drain snake” you’re thinking of when you ask this question is a hand-cranked drain auger purchased from a store, then it might be enough to take care of a clog in a sink or shower drain. It isn’t a total solution, however, and in many cases it provides only a brief fix and will leave you with a clogged up drain only a few weeks later—or less.
Do you know what the busiest day of year is for professional plumbers? The day after Thanksgiving. The toughest shopping day of the year is also when many homeowners discover they’ve got a plumbing nightmare. This makes sense: the house is packed with guests—more than a home experiences during the December holidays, most likely—and the kitchen plumbing, especially the sink and garbage disposal, are under assault from food preparation. Most parts of the plumbing get used to their fullest, increasing the chances that something will go wrong.
Cooking grease, as well as fats and oils left over from cooking, should never go down the kitchen drains. Ever, if you can possibly help it! It’s unavoidable for some grease to go down the drains when you’re cleaning up, but if you have grease in a pan or skillet after you’ve finished cooking, don’t tip it over and send it down the kitchen drain.
You never want bad odors wafting through your house, but especially not during times when you have guests staying over. And one common source of unpleasant odors in your house is the garbage disposal. Although you should never be placing actual garbage down the garbage disposal (and every plumber wishes these devices had different, less misleading names), you can still end up with a disposal giving off a “garbage” smell.
The end of the year is when you’ll probably entertain more houseguests than any other time. You want the inside of your home to be a welcoming place, clean and tidy. You absolutely don’t want strange, foul odors of sewage wafting through the rooms!
