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The most common plumbing problem that I get calls for is often the most simple. Someone’s
garbage disposal has jammed up, and they don’t know how to fix it. But this is extremely
simple, and will save you a lot of money if you can fix it yourself. First thing you
want to notice is if you turn the switch on, if you hear any noise at all. If you hear
humming, but not turning, then you need to use your little wrench to go right up under
the center of the garbage disposal and turn this a few times this way to loosen up whatever
has jammed the garbage disposal unit on the inside. These come with every garbage disposal
unit. If you don’t have one, you can pick one up at the home center and it’s for a
couple of bucks and it will save you a lot of money. But you want to make sure that you
have the switch off when you do all this because you don’t want to dislodge it and have it
suddenly start turning. So once you’ve done that and you’ve loosened up some, turn
the switch. If it still doesn’t work - if you don’t hear any humming at all, then
you probably need to hit the reset button, which on every garbage disposal is at the
very center. It’s a very small red button. All you need to do is press it and that will
reset the unit so that it will work. Most often what has gotten lodged in the garbage
disposal is a lot of starchy material like rice - you don’t want to put a whole pot
of rice down the garbage disposal. Also, anything really hard like broccoli stems or celery
- the strings in the celery will tie up the unit and you don’t want that. You may want
to remove the color around the opening around the opening of the drain, and reach in there
with the power off and have to remove some of the material because the garbage disposal
is simply not equipped to handle a large amount of starchy material.