May 9, 2014

How To: Replacing Our Kitchen Sink Garbage Disposal

Today we've got a quick and dirty update for you (emphasis on dirty). The last time we checked in, our kitchen sink looked something like this:


This past weekend Tim replaced the garbage disposal underneath the kitchen sink and while not the most pleasant or visual of updates, we thought it might be worth sharing for those also thinking about trying to replace something like this yourselves!

The backstory is — we first noticed our disposal was on its last leg several weeks ago, but about a week ago it completely stopped working on us. After clearing out everything under sink, Tim was able to get a good look at things, determining it was a lot worse (and grosser) than we imagined:


We could see immediately that there were cracks and spillage coming from the front of the disposal, so a full replacement was in order. 

To remove the bad disposal Tim first turned off all the water and electrical leading to this sink. He then disconnected the back pipe, unwired the device and twisted the barrel out of the supporting bracket:


It was then that we realized things were much much worse than we imagined. The back of the disposal not only had cracks but was rusting apart in lower areas. Not good:


Enter the Badger Insinkerator (imagine me saying it with my best 1980's WWF voice):


Tim actually took the old disposal to our local hardware store to compare with the basic versions they had available, which is when he decided on this one. We liked that it is a 3/4 horse power up from the 1/3 strength the older disposal packed. Tim gave it an arr-arr-arr in the store!

We were lucky in one aspect — the bracket from the older disposal was in great shape, so all he had to do was secure this new barrel in place, rewire it, then reconnect the supporting pipe:


Time to test! After turning the water and electric back on and crossing our fingers, we tossed a couple lemon wedges down the drain and hoped for the best:


Everything worked fine! Better than fine — we were shocked that no further tweaks needed to be made. All that was left to do was re-organize the kitchen sink and call this project complete!


It turned out to be such a simple update we both wondered why we didn't get to it sooner — but as they say, we live and learn.

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