Help! I put fish tank gravel down my garbage disposal and now it won’t turn on!?
by Aquaboy on Tuesday, June 29th, 2010 | 7 Comments
Please Help! I put gravel from a fish tank down my sink’s garbage disposal! It won’t even go on now!
Get a shop vac and try to suck that stuff out.
you will need to remove the garbage disposal unit from the sink, take it out side and wash it out with a garden hose. Try to turn the blades back and forth to get all the gravel out. Keep washing it until the blades turn freely.
Good luck
if shop vac does not work try pushing the button on the bottom of the g d if still not working turn switch off and use wrench made for the unit
goodluck
Duh. unless you have a high end unit, they are not meant for roughage like that. Vacuum the stones out.
If you only have a few bits of gravel down there, you may be able to fix this w/o removing the unit or sucking the stones out with a vacuum cleaner.
Get a broomstick or other length of wood or some long object and try to turn the rotor at the bottom backwards. If you can loosen it up, remove the broomstick, cover the opening, stand back and turn the unit on – it may be able to chip its way through small bits of gravel (there aren’t any really sharp edges in there that will be dulled significantly by this). If it won’t run at all, you may need to reset the breaker (usually a small red button somewhere on the unit). If it jams while it’s running, quickly shut off the switch to prevent tripping the breaker and repeat the above steps. Again, if it’s only a few grains of gravel, you’ll probably get it running without too much trouble.
bet u dont make that mistake again
Push down on rubber guard and look in disposal with flash light.Remove as much gravel as you can with long needle nose pliers.Under disposal there is hole in the center that a large allen wrench fits in to ( most disposals come with a wrench that fits ).Turn wrench to loosen or unjam disposal. Turning wrench spins grind wheel that is stuck.Look in disposal again with flashlight,remove as much gravel as you can.Make sure little red button under disposal is not kicked out.Push until it clicks into place.Hold plate or bucket over opening and turn disposal on.Keep repeating these steps until you can turn disposal on and not hear gravel rattling around.In severe cases you may have to take disposal out and turn upside down.