When I was growing up, these seemed to be ubiquitous and I never liked them. They seemed overcomplicated for the purpose, and created a gross and smelly area under the sink that needed more cleaning.
I haven’t had one in years, as a simple sink mesh does the same job. But I don’t really know how other people are. Are under sink garbage disposals still common, and commonly actually used by people here?
Most garbage disposals just cause more trouble that they’re worth since they turn small chunks of food into paste and that’s more likely to stick to the insides of drains and cause more clogs than the small chunks, as long as your drains are properly maintained. And a halfway decent strainer will keep out the larger pieces. It’s also not good for your city drains and makes sewage processing more expensive. Better to use composting for your food scraps if you can.
I had one in most of the apartments I lived in, but I was always having problems with them and needing to contact the landlord to fix it (some of this was my fault but still). Now that I have my own place I’m not going to install one, I don’t want to spend money if the result is mostly to get to maintain yet another thing, just to avoid shaking a drain trap over the trash every once in a while.
I have never not had one
I’ve always had one in every place I live. Even the shitty apartment I had one was installed.
I had one once, here in Australia, in a house my family lived in for a few years. It was novelty as I’d never seen one before or since.I seem to recall thinking it was very useful but for some reason, even though there’s really no chance of it happening, I always had like intrusive thoughts of sticking my fingers in there. Also my grandpa stayed with us for a little while and he kept throwing nectarine cores in there which it really couldn’t handle even though we asked him not to. It also used to make a deafening noise like the awakening of Cthulhu at rhe best of times, hearing it sound like it was about to spectacularly break was really distressing. I don’t know how legal it was to have that thing, they just don’t seem to exist here in Australia so it was very odd that this place had it.
I use it all the time. Dump dishes into trash, rinse everything that sticks off in sink, grind up all the food bits from that in the disposal, put dishes in dish washer.
It’s only gonna get gross and smelly under your sink if something is wrong with the disposal. And if you’re not throwing a shit ton of garbage down it, just the little bits that wash off when doing dishes, it’s not likely to break or get clogged.
Lol what? They are ubiquitous as ever.
I worked in apartment maintenance for a bit. That is a requirement for low income housing, at least in California. If it doesn’t have one or it stops working for any reason, the tenant can claim unlivable living conditions and not pay rent until it’s fixed. This is true for many types of problems but you asked about garbage disposals. Also the property could potentially lose the designation of low income housing which means losing the federal/state subsidy. Most tenants don’t know about this and choose to move out instead after a few rent increases. On the other hand there is a list of “problem tenants” that landlords share and if you end up on it then good luck finding a new place to rent.
My condo has one. I use it.
I found a solid metal strainer, not mesh for my sink. Holds up forever and much easier to clean. Even if you have a disposal, its not great to just dump everything down the drain [citation needed]. You especially want to catch things like small bones and forks.
The disposals seem common enough, a lot older/outdated homes don’t have them. I have no idea what they’re putting into new houses and renovations.
Never had an under the sink mess like you describe, maybe yours just had a small leak?
They shouldn’t make a gross smelly area under your sink. It sounds like yours was leaking.
Or had a backflow issue
They were never a thing in Europe.
The sewage treatment is not built to handle that kind of stuff. The sewage pipes aren’t too happy about it, either. I might flush some carbs down the toilet. The poop-munching bacteria at the treatment plant get a nice growth boost from it. Grease not only clogs your own pipes, but causes issues for the whole city. I think it’s possible to get fined for it if you’d get caught starting a year or two back.
Food waste goes in the trash or compost. If it goes in the trash it’s burned at industrial temperatures to burn clean. The heat is used for district heating networks.
Yeah, grease and oil kills plumbing
The sewage treatment is not built to handle that kind of stuff.
They’re also not built to handle it in the US, but lower standards solve that problem pretty handily
I went out of my way to get one installed in a house that didn’t have one. So, yeah.
If yours is making a mess under the sink, it’s either broken or installed wrong.
My house had the cheapest garbage disposal which I quickly broke. When I went to replace it, I found that replacing them is incredibly easy and the mid-tier model (about $120) said it could handle small beef bones and peach pits. I’ve been very happy with that, and all my food waste goes in. I don’t have a lot of room for compost, but the city purports to be generating electricity from the sewage, so I hope it isn’t wasted. It also means that my trash doesn’t smell, which is nice.
Are they easy to self-install? I still have a bit of new owner “shit I’m responsible for everything, better not fuck it up” mentality.
Easy to replace? sure. A couple hours if your handy.
But installing one for the first time will require electrical in addition to the and plumbing work. It’s a pretty big job for a DIYer.
Yeah, they’re pretty easy as long as you already have the outlet under the sink. The hardest part is maneuvering the drain pipe into place. Once you have it in place there’s just two or three nuts you need to tighten. If you’re really worried about it, you can stick a bucket under it for a couple days it to check for leaks. I’d say it’s a pretty good project to get an intro to plumbing. In the worst case if you get in over your head, you can call a plumber to come in and finish it, and they’ll get it done within half an hour.
That was reassuring, thabk you. I didn’t specify, but it’s already set up for one with an under sink outlet connecting to a switch by the sink. So it shouldn’t require any new electrical work.
Almost impossible to get a condo in my area without one. I do use a mesh but I know from experience I have to run it once a month or it might rust out or something. Washing machine drains to it to.
Washing machine drains to it to.
I hope you mean the dishwasher…
Depending on where they are, a washing machine in the kitchen might be a thing. It’s very common in the UK, for example.
There are portable washing machines that hook to a kitchen tap and drain to the sink, had one when renting a place with no laundry on-site and just hung dry everything. So much better than going to a laundromat weekly, and paid for itself too.
yeah sorry. dishwasher.
