What to do when your waste disposal stops working.

Have you ever been working away in your kitchen, ready to get rid of the last few scraps after cleaning the dishes when you hit the waste disposal button and NOTHING happens?! Lots of us have been in this frustrating situation many a time, staring at the sink and thinking either 'I need to get someone in to fix that'...or 'oh well, I guess we'll just use it as a normal sink now and flag the waste disposal part!'

Sometimes though there is a middle ground to be found. Often, when something makes it's way into your waste disposal that shouldn't (a sneaky fork or cork!), the unit will 'trip' and turn itself off so that you can't do any more damage to it by turning it on again. It might also trip if you've run it for a long time, or if there is something wrong with it.

The good news is that if your disposal unit has just 'tripped' - it may very well be able to be reset and used again with minimal hassle.

1. First things first, turn the unit off at the wall (unplug it if you can) and grab a torch, shine it down the sink hole and see if there is anything floating around in there that shouldn't be. We'd recommend not putting your hand in there, but a long set of tongs might come in handy to retrieve that stray fork or stubborn piece of food that tripped the disposal to start with.
2. Once any obvious blockage is removed, plug the unit back in, make sure it's still turned off at the wall, and have a look at the base/bottom of the unit (housed under the sink) to find a little button (often red) that has 'popped' out a few mm. Press that button and the unit will reset itself.
3. If the problem has been solved, you'll be able to turn the unit on at the wall at it should start running smoothly again. If it's a bigger issue - you'll be able to tell by the vibration and noise coming from the unit, OR the unit will just trip itself again. If that happens...call Butler & Hewitt and we can help out with a service or replacement.

Either way, we hope this little step through will save a few headaches the next time your waste disposal turns off.

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