garbage eater

We call them garbage disposals here.  I will pretty much put any food item down there and have lost a few shot glasses to them as well.  Watch out for celery though...it clogged ours up really bad because of how fibery it is.

Edited by pntbl freak - 24 February 2010 at 8:55am

JohnnyCanuck wrote: The best was an 18" english cucumber

i had one in my old condo, and it stunk, I had to take it a part a few times and clean the crap out of it. But ya there very convenient.

Edited by FROG MAN - 24 February 2010 at 10:40am

Eh, we got rid of our's a few years back.  Compost, garbage, or recycling for anything that can't get down the drain has been working fine ever since (and for that matter, since before then).  We never used it, but it developed a leak so it was easier to just fit a straight pipe instead of replacing it.

haha, I hear ya.  There is no room and for the size it's quite awkward, I stuck my bony knee under it and screwed the fitting on.  I'm going to replace the corrugated pipe that came with it with a straight pipe.  

Neighborhood pets.

I-beam?

I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW!

Is this really a thread.

ThatGuitarGuy wrote: SSOK wrote: I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW! Rig the switch to some sort of IR beam device like at cash regesters, then reverse the polarity. So when the beam is broken, device activates. Then put cheese on the blades overnight.   Also, perhaps im just an idiot, but I definitely would turn the sucker on while water is pouring into it Actually, aren't you SUPPOSED to run water down the drain while the thing is running?  My parents always did on theirs while I was growing up, so I just assumed you were supposed to, so I do now.Is this wrong?

You are correct Guitar Guy. You are supposed to run water while operating the disposal for two reasons. One, it flushes the debris on down the drain rather than letting it become sludge which can gum up the grinding wheel. Two, it is essentially a grind-wheel and thus, needs cooling while in operation due to the heat build up from friction.

While there are little blades in a garbage disposal unit, they are only there to break up large pieces of food into more manageable ones. The grind wheel then takes over and grinds everything into a pulp which is then carried away by the flow of water.

Rice CAN go down a disposal so long as you make sure to put it down while it is running, and give it sufficient water and time to do the job completely. The problem with rice is that when it dries out, it gets hard and can lock the grind wheel up, essentially gluing it to the housing walls. The people who put rice down it and have it seize up on them either didn't use enough water or didn't give the disposal enough time to do its job. You should always allow a disposal to run 15 to 30 more seconds after it has finished grinding something up, and then allow the water to flow an additional 20-30 seconds after you've turned it off to fully flush the system.