Have you ever been in your kitchen and there's just a horrible, reeking smell? You've taken out the trash, you've thrown out bad food in the fridge ... what could it be?
As you saw in the post How Does a Garbage Disposal Work?, when you put food waste down the drain and then turn on your disposal, the food is pushed against the shredder ring by centrifugal force, is essentially liquefied, and is pushed out of the waste pipe. Sometimes the food gets thrown onto the sides of the garbage disposal and on the undersides of the rubber splash guard, and starts to rot. We won’t lie to you, those rotting food particles can start to stink!
At Landmark Home Warranty, part of our contract stipulates that we don’t cover for smells or noise coming from your home appliances. That goes for garbage disposals too, so that’s why it’s important to learn how to clean your garbage disposal to get rid of that funky smell.
HOW TO GET RID OF YOUR GARBAGE DISPOSALS SMELLS
First things first, there is a lot of advice out there about how to clean those rotting food particles off of the sides of your garbage disposal. Don’t put drain cleaner down your drain, as it can be corrosive to the parts within. Here are some quick DIY tips to fix dirty garbage disposals or rid those nasty smells from your sink basin.
1. USE ICE
Take 2 cups of ice, and 1 cup of salt and put it in the garbage disposal. Then, run cold water, and turn on the garbage disposal for 5 to 10 seconds at a time until the ice has been crushed. If you want to, you can use frozen vinegar cubes.
2. USE BAKING SODA AND VINEGAR
You can also use baking soda and vinegar to clean our the disposal. Let the vinegar and baking soda foam for a few minutes, and then rinse it down the drain with running water. This will have hopefully cleaned the sludge off of the sides of your disposal.
3. USE LEMON PEELS
Take extremely small slices of lemon rind and grind them up to freshen the smell.
4. CLEAN THE UNDERSIDE OF THE SPLASH GUARD
Don’t forget that the undersides of your splash guard need to be cleaned as well. You can lift up the undersides of the guard and clean it with an old toothbrush.
A HOME WARRANTY CAN SAVE YOU MONEY ON PROBLEMATIC GARBAGE DISPOSALS
Even though Landmark Home Warranty doesn't cover for smells, that doesn't mean that home warranties aren't a smart purchase. A home warranty company covers when a garbage disposal breaks down from normal wear and tear. Home warranties provide amazing savings on other home appliances and systems. If you are interested in getting protection for your home systems and appliances, you can go to Landmark Home Warranty's website at www.landmarkhw.com and compare our home warranty plans. You can customize your home warranty plan to only cover your home's systems and select appliances that need protection to save even more money!
