Why Your Garburator Has Stopped Working
With the holiday season rapidly approaching, many Canadian homeowners will likely be entertaining houseguests, throwing dinners and parties, and even having family members stay in their homes. For these festive events, it is obviously ideal for all home appliances to be up and running smoothly. Unfortunately, this can never be fully counted on. Take the garburator, for instance; having a faulty garburator during the holiday season could prove majorly inconvenient, yet there is never any telling when a family’s garburator will go on the fritz.
The good news is there are only so many things that can cause a garburator to break down. Knowing the problem can help you deduce the solution. As such, we’ve put together a list of some of the most common causes of garburator breakdown.
Electrical Issues
Your garburator runs on electricity, of course, so a garburator that ceases functioning may not really be broken at all; it may be an electrical problem. Specifically, the culprit could be a blown fuse. Before you attempt to troubleshoot the garburator any further, you might just check the breaker box, as resetting the switch is obviously an easy fix.
Motor Problems
If that fails, you might consider that the garburator’s motor has overheated. It is not recommended that you ever stick your hand down a garburator, even to check the motor for heat. Instead, you might just wait 20 minutes for the motor to cool off, press the reset button, and then try again. Once more, this is potentially a fairly easy fix.
Bad Blades
The next step is to check the flywheel, which can sometimes get jammed, especially if you’ve accidentally lost something large—like a bottle cap—down the drain. Again, don’t stick your hand down into the garburator, but rather use the handle of a wooden spoon to try to move the flywheel, potentially shaking loose whatever has caused the clog.
Alternatively, the blades of the garburator may have become so thick with rust and mineral deposits that they no longer turn as they should. To clean them, flush some white vinegar down the drain, running the garburator for a good 30 seconds or more. If this fails, adding in just a dash of baking soda to your white vinegar can help.
Garburator Replacement
With all of that said, there may not be an easy fix to the problem with your garburator. These appliances are not built to last forever, and over time garburators simply stop working. If none of these tips seem to fix the problem, it may be time to call us at Unclog.it; we are happy to remove faulty garburators and install new ones for homeowners throughout the Vancouver area!
