Steps to remove broken glass pieces from garbage disposals

Garbage disposals are capable of grinding many things efficiently. Dishes and glasses can at times break when they are handled in the sink. Sadly, these broken pieces can’t make their way to the sink’s garbage disposal. It can jam the mechanism and make it stop working. Thus, we need to very carefully fish the pieces out with acute precision and sheer focus.

The steps to procure glass pieces from the sink are mentioned below:

• Turn off the power supply: Before doing anything, we must first turn off the power supply to the disposal.We can turn off the power of the disposal itself, but just to be safe, we must also switch off the breaker at the panel too.

• Start fishing: It is advisable not to stick our hands into the drain with the hope of pulling out the glass pieces. On doing so, we could eventually end up hurting ourselves. Instead we must grab a pair of needle nose pliers and began pulling out as many number of pieces as possible. Most of the bigger pieces remain at the top of the drain’s opening.

• Use a vacuum or bust: Next thing is to bring a vacuum cleaner. We must use the long head attachment and began sucking out glass from the drain opening. If the hose is too large we can create a temporary hose with cross linked polythene tubing also known as PEX tubes or other flexible tubes to attach it with the nozzle of the vacuum. The pieces will need to be sucked out if the opening of the nozzle isn’t wide enough.

• Turn the blades: To remove the final remains of the glass pieces we need to turn the blades of the disposal. We must do this by using a hex key underneath the disposal or by using a broom handle or a stick through the opening to turn the blades. We must keep repeating the step. We must move the vacuum hose or PEX around until we no longer hear any glass sounds and the vacuum is no more sucking up anymore glass particles.

• Reset the disposal: If the disposal fails to run even after taking the glass pieces out we must reset it. We must turn off the power switch, locate the reset button which is at the bottom of the disposal unit, push the button and then turn on the power switch again.

• Dislodge the disposal blades: If a piece of glass has been wedged in the blades and become lodged, we must turn off our disposal, insert an Allen wrench into the socket of the bottom surface of our disposal and turn on our wrench. When the blades become free again, we must remove the wrench and turn on the power switch again.

• Remove the garbage disposal: If none of the solution mentioned above works, then we must use product manual to remove the garbage disposal from the sink. If necessary we must ask for the help of a family member or friend, as garbage disposals are usually quite heavy. Ones we remove the disposal, we must carefully remove any remaining broken pieces of glass. We must then put the disposal back and reinstall it following the instructions of the manual. This alternative way is sure to help us even more.

Things we’ll need in order to remove the broken glass pieces are

• Needle nose pliers (If glass chunks are fairly large, hinge kitchen tongs may be easier to use)
• Allen-wrench(If we don’t have the correct size of Allen-wrench, a flat blade screwdriver can sometimes be substituted)
• Broom or stick
• Wet dry vacuum cleaner
• Old plate
• Garbage disposal product manual

We are sure we all must have faced this problem at some point of time. Avoiding such issues are inevitable but if we know how to deal with such situations it makes life a hell lot easier. With this we hope we’ve helped you people know more about the process and also provide with the necessary tips and equipment.