Disposal Preferences

[bwoods]

and now the GE

Here is the series wound motor General Electric Pirahnna...

sorry about the photo quality

Virtues: grinds everything and quickly!

Cons: Under no or light load, it is quite loud. If you have never had one. Put a vacuum cleaner under you sink. Close the cabinet door and turn it on. You have now heard a series would 8000 rpm GE disposer.

In 1971, when my family got their first GE disposer (to replace the Westinghose we had in the sixties), the instructions from GE even said that when the motor speeded up and sounded like a vacuum cleaner motor, it was done grinding. And they were right.

Series wound motors (sometimes called Universal motors) are the same as found in vacuum cleaners and blenders. They speed up and slow down with load.

Under increasing load, the GE actually gets less noisey, motor-wise, as the rpms drop rapidly. But remember, in a series motor, torque is inversely proportional to rpms, so as it slows down, current draw goes up and torque, or power increases. So "When the going gets tough, the tough get going" is the motto of a series wound motor.

If it weren't for built in limitations, a series motor, would theoretically draw infinite amps at stall and fight the load (or stall) until it won, or it would destroy itself trying. Never to give up. Fortunately, the built-in cutout breaker, will come in to action and prevent motor burn out.

A series motor, is like a prize fighter in the ring who won't give up and would rather keep fighting, even if it means death. The protective breaker on the motor is like a best friend who jumps into the ring and pulls the fighter out. Saying, "It's not worth it, you'll be killed. Cool down and go back it later."

An induction motor's goal in life is to keep its rpms as close to maximum, because that's where it has most of its fighting (torque) ability. If the speed drops much below, it will stall. The starting winding may kick in and try to get it back up to speed. If it is a capacitor start motor, this may kick in with the starting winding and solve the problem, if this won't work the motor stays stopped and overheats. At this point, the cut-out breaker, or other protective circuitry, will intervene.

In the fighting ring realm, an induction motor is a fighter who, if can't give his full potential, stops, just quits. His "friend", the starting circuit, runs into the ring, lifts him up and says, "keep going!" This may go on until the fighter is greatly over heated and in danger of hurting himself.

At this point, his REAL friend, the cut-out breaker steps in and says, "That's enough, both of you! I am putting a stop to this!" and pulls them both out of the ring before either one gets hurt.

So which is better? Neither. They both have their advantages and disadvantages.
It just depends on which is right for you.

 

[bwoods]

a little clearer picture.

 

[arbilab]

Watermelon rind? Paper napkins? Banana peel? Corn cob? BONES? Guess I never had the pleasure of a real industrial disposer. Any of those go in a plastic bag and to the outside trash.

Other than the 8000r GE, I quit even grinding citrus rind, just took too long. My BOL ISE gets leftover rice, spaghetti, egg shells, carrot skin, and a STRAY potato skin because the last time I put a WHOLE potato skin down it it clogged dreadfully.

Oh, to clear paper hung on the flippers, drop a couple ice cubes down it. A load of citrus rind removes smells, "lemon fresh". So does a dusting of scouring powder and a load of ice cubes. In a stainless chamber it will POLISH it like new.

 

[bwoods]

A good disposal will take watermelon rinds about as fast as you can put them in. Even ISE says says their units will take bones.

Bones produce small sharp particles that scour the chamber, and the plumbing lines. Banana peels are nothing. Paper towels disintegrate quickly with the water and churning of the turntable.

When I was a kid, even our low end Westinghouse (a 1967 model) did melon rinds, bones, paper towels. It did have trouble with corn husks, however.

Corn husks are about the only thing, I consistently don't put in. They take a long time. If its just for one ear, yes I'll put the husk in. But if I am husking a lot of corn, No, I throw the husk outside in the woods and let nature take care of them.

Corn cobs. Easy to grind. Just break the cob in half before putting it in. Otherwise, if you have unit with a small grinding chamber it may not hold the entire length of the cob and it might stick out.

The GE 8000 is about the fastest I have encountered with cobs.

Big beef bones, no. I throw out in the woods for whatever animals might like to pick them clean. Consume reports used to test disposers with beef bones in the seventies. However, I think it just takes too long and too much water.

Chicken bones and turkey bones are no problem for even the cheapest of disposers. All, I have ever had, can handle pork chop bones, but some are slower at it.

Once again, the GE 8000, with its Carbaloy cutter, seems to be the winner with these, too. Although this new KitchenAid certainly has no trouble with them (as is fairly quiet about it). They just take a tad longer.

 

[jakeseacrest]

bwoods my Aunt had a batch feed GE Disposall from around 73-74 that I used to use alot when I when a kid and she would babysit. It had an orange foam covering over the unit that felt like a nerf football. I was always amazed that she would pack the chamber full and just let it run for 2-3 minutes to make sure all was gone. It just died about 2-3 years ago which she replaced with an ISE-17. All those years and she never had a clog or breakdown with that machine.

 

[whirlcool]

Thanks for the discertation about food disposers. It was very informative. I especially liked your analogy to a fight ring. That made it all very easy to understand.

We are going to be in the market for a new food disposer in the next few months.
Our last house had a ancient GE. It worked ok as long as you didn't put too much into it and when you turned it on it not only shook the countertop and cabinets above, but the ceiling fixture in the kitchen would swing back and forth a little.

The one we have now is a 1/4 horsepower WhirlAway. It'll do chopped vegtables and coffee grinds, but that's about it. Karen put in a small corn cob awhile back and all it did was bounce around the chamber for a very long time. We had to manually remove it. While it doesn't shake as bad as the GE we had it is very noisy and does shake quite a bit. It's about 14 years old.

So who makes the best FD's now? And how do you decide how much power you will need in your disposer?

 

[jakeseacrest]

I've always had 1/3 and 1/2 hp at my parents house. We had a septic tank so we didn't overload the disposer too much. My parents had got one in 1991 mainly for the small bits that ended up in the sink and the fact that if we had leftover soup, stew, or sauces my mom would dump them in the toilet! Once I moved out on my own I got a 1hp which may or may not be overkill. I do put everything but beef and pork bones down the sink, but I think I may be good with a 3/4 hp for the next one.

 

[bwoods]

Thanks, Allen. On your Whirlaway (which is now made by Annaheim), I bet your grinding ring is wore down, that's why the corn cob wouldn't grind.

I think it's the consumer's preference on horsepower. Since I use mine pretty extensively, I went with the 1hp. But I lived with a 1/2 horsepower Maytag and GE's that rarely jammed. But if you use it a lot, the larger h/p will theoretically last longer as heavy loads do not heat up the motor as much as they would a smaller unit.

If I you can't find a vintage GE or Maytag on Ebay (many times never used, still in original box), then I personally think the 3/4 hp and higher ISE are the best out there.

They are heavier built that Annaheim units, all stainless hopper, turntable and grind ring. Built from scratch in the U.S., have a long warranty and easy to get parts for.

If you have a lot of money to spend, you might get the Viking version of the ISE. It still uses some of the design features of the original Hobart KitchenAid.
When Viking first bought the design from Hobart, it was a near clone. When Viking quit making them, and started contracting ISE, it got hybridized. But it's a good hybrid with the best of both worlds of ISE and Hobart Kitchen/Aid.

For a little less you can get the straight ISE Evolution 1hp, or ISE KitchenAid 1hp, both great machines.

Some like the Annaheim units (under the GE name and Sinkmaster and Waste King names). I've had several. They are light weight. I don't know if this is still true, but the chamber under the turntable used to be plastic lined. It scratched from ground up food wastes anad held food particles in the scratches which caused to frequently have very bad breath. Used a lot of bleach to freshen them up. Also, bits of food sometimes lodged under one of the impellers keeping it from swinging back toward the grinding ring throwing the unit out of balance.

My ISE (as I mentioned above) will do this with paper towels, but usually a flip of the switch takes care of it. I've had things lodge under the Annaheim impeller for days before it would break free. But other than stinking and vibrating the whole sink and cabinet due to imbalance, they grind things well and have a fast 2800 rpm motor. Some say they have reliability problems, but I never had one long enought to find that out. They are cheaply made and very light weight. They feel like a toy compared to a large ISE. But yet, they are a good value for the dollar.

But for a real, heavy long lasting monster under the sink, I would go with a 3/4 or 1 hp ISE

 

[tolivac]

Disagree strongly on the paper items in a disposer---DON'T do this--you WILL clog your plumbing eventually.And if you have a septic tank as I do-it will fill up with the paper pulp that won't decompose.Paper is a TRASH item and should go into the trash can-or the paper shredder.Use your paper shredder to dispose of sensitive paper documents-NOT your disposer or toilet.Or another way to rid of sensitive paper items-burn them.Clogged plumbing is not a wives tale-can be expensive-the line from your house to the sewer is the frequent clog point for paper-this happens with restuarants that shred paper items in their disposers.And I don't want to have my septic tank pumpted any more than I have to-so far not yet.

 

[bwoods]

I agree, if you have septic tank, this could put a lot of pulp in it and increase frequency of having your tank pumped.

But to say grinding up paper waste "will" clog your plumbing is absolutely not true.

The instructions for a Kenmore disposer I had even said that one could grind up paper napkins.

Just because one item is edible, and one is not, makes no difference to the disposer. Paper waste grind up quite easily and disperse as small aprticles in the water. As I mentined earlier, if paper stops up your plumbing, then you havae a problem with your plumbing. It is not the disposers fault and its not the napkin or papaer towels fault.

It is a wives tale that you cannot put paper, corn cobs, bones, pits, etc. down a disposer.

The whole idea of a disposer, developed back in the 1930's was to devise a mechanism to get rid of materials, from the public trash, that provide a media for bacterial growth, and a breeding ground for disease breeding organisms such as flies, maggots, mice and rats.

To put paper towels in the trash, that are wet, or grease saturated, or laden with milk or other food products and let them sit in your trash is to invite pathogenic organisms and pests.

I grew up with a disposer (and the first, a WEstinghouse, was not a good one) since the 1960's. We have always put paper towels, napkins as well as other wives tale food articles in it. The only time I have ever encountered a stoppage was when I was grinding a sink full of corn husks after a large shucking.

So that is one of the few items I don't put down the disposal unless it is for maybe one ear.

So yes, all of you, please put your soiled paper towels and napkins in your disposer as well as other kitchen wastes. You will see it is not even a remote challenge for the disposer. Trash can stink and provide growth media and food for disease bearing organisms because people don't have or don't properly use a garbage disposer.

Flies, maggots, rats, mice are all too prevalent in our environment and they feed of garbage that people put in their trash cans. That's why disposals were invented.

If I use a paper towel for window cleaning, or wipe the dash of my car off sor something like that, yes I put in it the trash.

When a towels is saturated with bacon grease, spilled milk or cream, I am not about to put that in my trash can where it has the opportunity to get rancid putrify and attract vermin.

If one cares more about listening to a wives tales, than practicing cleanliness, then they really don't need a disposer anyway.

 

[tolivac]

I have seen too many clogged lines due to people trying to dispose of various paper waste via disposers and toilets.Paper pulp can solidify further down the waste line.So-its not a good idea.In most areas trash pickup is every three days.Better to let the compaction trash truck deal with the paper waste.It can handle it better than your plumbing.Disposers are strong enough to shred paper items-but most plumbing systems are not designed to accept or handle them-shredded or not.I don't use paper towels for the most part-for the real messy items use a sponge that can be rinsed out instead.Have done this for years and have had no sanitation problems.Paper waste IS NOT proper use of your disposer.You must be lucky and have oversized plumbing for your home.Many of us do not.Again for me anyway-paper waste goes in the trash.You can shred ANY food waste item in the disposer-but stay away from the soft or hard paper.what you can grind in the disposer is really limited by your plumbing-sewage system--not the disposer.In general Toilet paper is the ONLY paper waste that should go into a plumbing system.Beleive I know too many plumbers in the know on this!

 

[bwoods]

Please use your disposer to rid of food wastes soiled paper towels as this eliminates one more potential path for pathogens and vermin, in the enviornment.
This is the purposse of home garbage disposal units.

My opinions are based on actual operating experience and not conjecture. Yes, being and engineer I do approach things idfferently than most. Before I state opinions, I try to base them on my experience or the research/experience of others who are technically (or otherwise) competant.

I would never recommend something, to my friends, on this site that would be detrimental to them in any way.

My operating history of paper napkins/towels is forty-four years. The first house was built in the 1950's, and non have had oversized plumbing.

Garbage diposers are to me, like candy bars to others, hehe. I buy them on impulse and love to run them through their tests and compare results. I buy new, and when possible, buy vintage ones I from Ebay, thrift stores and Habitat for Humanity stores. I cannot imagine how many I have had--more than I care to admit.

Never once has a paper towel or nakpin caused any problem, or even a remote challenge to any disposer, vintage or new that I have used.

And, I do admit, I guess do to laziness , I often grind up paper towels that are not soiled with food. Jst as a reflex action, I tend to automatically stick all paper towels in the dipsoer, even if I have just wiped the countertop down.

In cases like that, it is not necessary and is a waste of water. However, when cooking bacon, etc. in the microwave, yes these grease soaked towels are always disposed, properly, in the disposal. As well as when I wipe up milk or other liquid food wastes.

Before developing an opinon, that one should not put food soiled paper towels in a disposer. One should be scientific enough to try it before they say it will not work.

If there darin does stop up, it was most likely partially blocked and should have been cleaned out anyway. And it would have stopped up anyway regardless of the wastes.

No small papaer paraticles held in suspension by water are going to clog any properly operating drain. If it does, the drain is at fault, not the disposer.

I havae never had a house, condo or apartment with oversized plumbing and there is no such thing as "luck". Something works or it doesn't.

If any of you have doubts. Take a sheet or paer towel and put it down the disposer as a scientific experiment. You will see that it is handled properly and disposed of with no fanfare.

I am not recommending you take a giant hand wad of three of for towels aat once and was them up and stick them in the hole, hehe.

The only cavaeat is, and this is not with paper towels, but just in general. Is
cheap plubmers who use undersink union designed for disposers where the drain line of the disposer goes to the other side of the sink's, drain line and forces the waste to make a sharp 90 degree turn within a 1 and a half inch pipe.

Too much volume of waste, regardles of what it is, can clog the line as you are forcing the entire output of the disposer through small bend less than half the diameter of a pipe.

A disposer whoudl be output with a "Y" fitting with a gradual transition (no 90 degree turn) and with the full One and a half inch diameter piping all the way.

Disposers are made to have waste exit from the rear of the machine and so the logo is always on the front.

You all have probably seen theses abominable installations where a so-called "plumber" turns the unit 90 degree and shoot the output into one of these constrictor unions under the sik bowl. Lowes and Home Deppot should quick selling theses cheap and quick devices, which arae designed for ease of installation as opposed to functionability.

No matter what you grind, whether it be paper towels, or leftover meat or potato peels, they are going to have a hard time making a 90 turn in a constricted enviorment and, turust me, will clog. So take the time and do pipes right if you had one of these ill-gotten installations jobs.

If you can't change it, make sure you put food wastes in only in very small quantitites with plenty of water.

It's a pet peave of mine to see such sloppy, cheap and careless installation done by so called plumbers. I havaae seen it over and over in apartments and even in new homes. Often seems builders and plumbers often just don't care what the homeowner has to deal with as long as they can do a quick and cheap job and get on to the next job.

Often, when homeowners have disposer problems, it can be traced to this one little pipe under the sink. Of course disppsers get the blame, not the installer, and that is how wifes tales are often borne and spread.

A homeonwer will tell her (or his) neigbor. Oh, I put an orange peel down my disposal and the sink stopped up. So this word goes around and now people erroneously think orange peels should not be put in the disposer. Another wives tale borne. It does non and on with what ever food or waste was put in at the time of blockage.

In reality, whatever was put in would have caused the clog as it had been building up and just happend to occur when that paraticular item was put it.

I hate to generalize, and say a clog will occur with a 90 degree "disposer" union
but I will say it is quite likely and gets more likely as time goes on. Food particles of waste accumulate around the small tight deflector in the pipe, and as the disposer gets older and does not grind as finely, I will amost promise a blockage.

And, of course, the disposer gets the blame or whatever was put in the unit at the time of blockage.

I encourage all of you to fully utilize the capabilities of your appliance, and plumbing, so it will do what it is supposed to do and give you convenience and eliminate odors, flies maggots and vermin from getting into your trash receptacles.

I always try to encourage my students to be methodical and scientific and try/research something, when feasible, before they condemn something or even develop an opionin.

If you try a paper towel and your plumbing line clogs, then you needed to clean out your line and this just propted you to do something you needed to anyway.

In rality, this will probably not happen to any of you. However, if yo have one of these faulty istallations. Whether it be by a plumber or someone who bought one of these "disposer installation kits" at Lowes, Home Depot or Menard, etc. I would recommend changing it.

ONce again, not to generalize, yo could have one of theses cheap 90 degree disposer inlet pipes and never have a problem. But the potential is there and I would recommend changing it.

 

[passatdoc]

ISE Evolution Compact

My father's disposal died and we went to Lowe's in search of a replacement. We bought the ISE Evolution Compact. About $140. We used Lowe's installation service, they installed it the next day for $75. Very quiet and saves space under the sink. Stainless steel chamber. I think it's 3/4 HP.

 

[arbilab]

As an engineer I put bacon-soaked papertowels in a plastic grocery bag and dispose properly in the outdoor dumpster.

As a responsible user of the sewer system, the operating cost of which I end up paying, I only put toilet paper down the drain. Food waste does not burden the system, it breaks down under the same processes as human waste.

I understand that my disenchantment with ISE performance and noise is indexed to BOL models. But all apartment appliances are BOL and the 1970s GE did not have those drawbacks. I have also lived in houses without disposers and handling scraps, bones, rinds, peels manually wasn't all that big an inconvenience. Put in trash, take trash out.

 

[bwoods]

paper products are biodegradeable

vermin can chew through plastic bags and bags can split when other objects, in the trash is placed on them

disposing of food type waste in a trash system is not proper use of the system
paper towels are, as mentioned biodegrable and when soaked with food products are a breeding ground for bacteria and an attractant for vermin

Paper towels soaked or laced with food wastes should be properly disposed of in a garbage disposal and handled with other "organic" wastes at the public waste processing center which is designed to handle cellulose wastes as well as organic type wastes.

Remember toilet paper and paper towels are made from the same base materials

 

[combo52]

GARBAGE DISPOSERS

This has been a very interesting discussion about disposers so far. Barry is largely correct about putting paper and anything else organic in a disposer whether you are on a septic tank or not.

 

Disposers do-not clog drains, badly installed and maintained drains cause clogs. The best thing you can do if you have a septic system is to put plenty of organic waste in it as it thrives on waste to keep the bacterial action alive and thriving. Do avoid grease which includes paper towels soaked in grease from cooking bacon in the MW oven.

 

Before I address a number of points that have been made in this fun discussion let me state my experience in disposers. For over 15 years we were the only authorized ISE servicer in Washington DC for thier products and we also did service on KA WP disposers. Keep in mind that disposers are required in WDC so thier are lots of them here, in fact disposers have been common place since the 1950s in a large % of homes. I feel that I have far more experience than anyone that I know in regard disposers.

 

A few points that have been made that I don't agree with.

 

ISE disposers do-not have copper windings, they are copper colored aluminum.

 

HP has little to due with longer life of a disposer or its grinding speed. It is mainly a selling feature, it is true that the more expensive higher HP models are often better built with more SS components which can make for a longer laster disposer.

 

A 90 degree bend in the plumbing and the direction it is pointing under the sink do not affect the tendency of clogs occurring. All disposers come with a 90 degree turn as the waste comes out of the unit to begin with.

 

No disposer has sharp blades on the turn table they grind by violence.

 

I don't see how Annaheim disposers [ which I consider junk ] can be considered good value as they are very little cheaper than comparable ISE built machines, and if you begin to factor the cost of early replacements and labor charges for such they actually end costing much more than a good disposer in the first place.

 

I was never a big fan of the GE series wound disposers, they made far to much noise, they always sounded like you were killing an animal while you were grinding heavy loads. The housings were too small to grind most bones and they did a very poor job of grinding food waste in a uniform manor so they just ended up throwing waste down the drain. I remember a friend of my moms that moved into a new apartment and had a party for a bunch of us and served water mellon. As I was putting all the water melon rinds down the disposer the straining sounds the motor made were ridiculous and the motor soon went out on the overload. We took a 20 minute break and reset the overload protector and preceded to try to finish the job this time there was a hot smell and that was the end of a brand new disposer, they came and replaced it the next week. Over the years we replaced hundreds of these units. Like most GE builder appliances DWs, disposers, washers and dryers they were pretty crappy. GEs electric ranges and refrigerators were and still are very good appliances.

 

My only other comments at this time is I prefer a batch feed disposer over a continuous feed model as the BF is far more convenient to use. I know most people have CF units and like them, but when I worked for the MT home appliance store in the late 1970s they had a double bowl sink on the show room floor. And it had a CFD in one bowl and a BFD in the other and guess which one everyone used whenever they had some leftovers or what ever to get rid of. Even thought all of them had CFDs at thier homes everyone always used the BFD. That convinced me and today I have three BFDs in my homes. One 1994 MT custom made FB-5, A real Viking BF and a ISE-17. They all have thier advantages, the ISE and Viking grind faster than the MT and the ISE has the biggest hopper. 

 

[bwoods]

No that's correct horsepower does not affect speed unless you look at it from the aspect that a high horsepower unit does not stall, or jam as frequently (which can slow you down, hehe). But, yes horsepower does make a difference in overheating and thermal cutout. Especially, as you say, with something like watermelon rinds. I have occasinally had a half horsepower unit cutout and need to let it cool for a few minutes when putting in a sink full of rinds.

I learned that just being patient solves the problem with the GE series. For example you put in once corn cob, then wait about twenty seconds, then put in another, etc. Straight feed in of bos or watermelon rinds, with no break, will cause overheating. It's grinding speed is so fast it will keep up with you, but the poor motor gets hot from working so hard.

I don't recall ever having one of my 1 horsepower units do this on rinds. All of my 1 hp units can grind watermelon rinds as fast as they are inserted (one at a time, yet continuously).

In the nineties, when GE was contracting Annaheim to make their series wound disposers, in their brief comeback period, they had a 3/4 hp model. This one never overheated under corn cob load, but there were minor differences between it and the original GE's which I didn't like.

Yes, noise is the only true disadvantage of a series wound disposer. In a larger horsepower version it overcomes the heating problem, you mentioned, but you still have that vacuum cleaner sound problem, if one does not like that. It is less noticeable when you have a heavy cast iron sink.

Yes, I have encountered some of GE series wound motor disposals oveheating, ( I have had eight of them) They pull more amps as they do under load so if you keep a load for a long time, like a sink full. But this rarely happens. You actually WANT a GE series motor to slow down, because that is when torque increases. The peak of the torque curve occurs near stall.

It's suppposed to do that. As it grinds the load it speeds back up. Overall, I have found my series GE's to be the fastest dispoers I have ever had. Especially on pork chop bones and corn cobs. Now corn cobs, if put in too quickly, will oveheat a GE Series. Once again its, because of it being a small 1/2 motor.
The unit your friend had may have been defective. My parents second disposer, after the 1967 Westinghouse bit the dust, was a GE series wound.

When it met its glory, dad bought a Sears Lady Kenmore (ISE) and kept it about a week and pulled it out. My mom didn't like it and my dad hated it because of the slow 1725 rpm motor. He didn't even try totake it back to Sears, we gave it to our church to use in the church kitchen.

He bought another GE Series wound. He wouldn't have anything else (and my dad wan't necessary a GE fan) as nothing could compare with the grinding speed. Since my mom canned all the time, the sink was always full of tomato peels, vegetable peels, you name it. Nothing took care of a sink full of vegetable wastes like a GE series. The Westinghouse and the Sears were only minor contenders, ha. My mom loved the GE Series and she sure put it through some torture with her canning. Mom rarely used prepackaged food, so there was always potato peels, onion skins, carrot ends, cantalop rinds,fruit pits or something like this going into it every night. The GE Series models are real troopers.

Speaking of pits. Most disposers bounce fruit pits (like peach pits) around the hopper for a while before the grind up. The GE series disposers are the ONLY ones I have ever had, out of inumerable brands I have performance tested, that take carae of pits nearly instantly. The Carbaloy cutter, coupled with the high speed motors, takes them down to nothing very quickly.

I have ISE KitchenAid 1hp in my kitchen now, and a GE "Pirahanna" series in my kitchenette in the lower level. If I have a lot of peach or plum pits, I take them downstairs and the GE series takes care of them in a hurry.

The ISE/KitchenAid will eventually take care of them, but somewhat more slowly and I guess I am impatient. So overall, if I had to to choose a favorite out of all of the disposers (probably 30+) I have performance tested over the years, the GE series wound is the best, overall. Not that evey single feature it has is the best.

Best virtues. Unbeatable grinding speed and can handle things most disposers only dream of. Stainless hopper, stainless turntable, stainless impellers, stainless cutter. Even in GE's bottom of the line line models. And of course, #1 in speed for pork chops bones and fruits pits over any machine I have ever had...period. (but even wild man Barry didn't put beef bones it it ).


With that being said, no it's not perfect because of only two things:

1.) very noisy motor -- which can't be helped in series (universal)motors. You can try to sound insulate, but you still have an 8000 rpm motor.


2.) GE only made them in a one third, and a half-horsepower version. But back the sixties and seventies, I don't think you get get higher in a home unit. So yes, a continuous load of very heavy materials would cause the cutoff breaker to kick in. The cooled quickly though and you were back about your business shortly.

Whether ISE's winding are copper or copper clad, I don't know. The gigantic spool they were showing, at the factory, did not say. As long as it provides it's rated horsepower, it's fine by me either way.

You made a mis-statement, John. Disposers do not have cutters on the turntable. The turntable's job is to drive the food, onto the cutter ring, at the periphery of the turntable.

The cutter is usually a circular ring at the base of the hopper, where the turntable's impellers come closest to meeting the hopper walls.

The number of "teeth" vary. The Hobart KitchenAids had the most "teeth" (or cutter bars, or "blades") I have seen.

None are razor sharp, but if you put your and in there and rub your finger along it there is a very mild sharpness, or dege, you can feel.

Now the GE Series wound are quite unique in that they had only one cutter, welded
about halfway up the stainless steel hopper. In their upper line sries wound models, there was a small square Carbaloy cutter. Once again, not sharp like a knife but you could feel the mild edge on it. One cutter is all you need, however, when you combine it with 8000 rpm.

KitchenAid (Hobart) advertised its undercutter too (beneath the turntable), to cut stingy waste like corn husk and silk, into even finer particles before the wastes exited the unit.

Remember the good old "Wham Jam Breaker" on the Original Hobart Kitchen Aid. Those were the days! Never was fortunate to own one of these, almost bought one but was waiting for Hobart to come out with a 3/4 unit, and about this time, they decided to get out of the household disposer business.

I did have the Hobart "National" branded disposer. It had the fixed impeller turntable, like the KitchenAid, but did not have the Wham Jam feature, as well as no sound insulation.

I did buy a Viking clone of the Hobart KitchenAid, before Viking contracted ISE to build them. The Wham Jam Breaker did work. On the rare occasions it did jam, you reached down and pushed the "Wham Jam" button and the turntable vibrated very rapidly, usually breaking the jam loose.

The other neat thing abaout the Viking/Hobart is it had the best auto-reversing system I had encountered. Jams occur a little more freguently with a fixed impeller system, as the impellers cannot swing away from the item lodged in the cutter blade. The Hobart design sensed the speed decrease and reversed, so normally there was no reason to even use the Wham Jam Breaker, only once in a great while. Too bad, because it was fun.

It was really cool. Sometimes it occurred so fast you rarely even realized it went to stall, reversed, and got back up to speed in about a second or fraction over. Bravo to the Hobart engineers!

 

[bwoods]

ninety-degree turn

John,

What I was talking about was a SHARP ninety degree turn within the disposal branch tailpipe, in an environment less than half the diameter of the pipe.

The tailpiece of a disposer is, of course, is ninety degrees, obviously. It's curvature achieves the ninety degrees in a wider arc and utilizes the full 1 and a half inch inner diameter of the pipe, however.

If one goes to Lowes, Home Depot or Ace, and looks at one these wretched disposal unions pipes, one will see inside is a flat divider. As soon as disposer wastes enters opening, inside the pipe, it makes an instant 90 turn with less than half of the pipe diameter. There is no gradual turn as in the tailpeice (at least by comparison). You can make a 90 degree turn in a large arc or a small arc. A large arc takes more space, and there isn't room inside the confines of less than half a pipe.

The waste water hits the deflector and cause a decrease in velocity of the stream as it has to instantly deflect. A larger diameter would compensate. Not only does it get deflected, but constricted at the same time. Natually you have a "bottle neck" effect to put in non-technically.

One of the apartment complexes I lived at, when I first started working had all the disposers installed ths way by the builder. The apartments were about nine ten years old when I moved in, and after this amount of time disposers' cutters are losing sharpness and waste material is getting more course.

The maintenance man, was beside himself trying to keep the plumbing lines operational in the large complex.

Being the maverick, I am, I changed the plumbing under the sink with new PVC and put in a Y connection with each side of the sink going into a separate trap. (The way a competent plumber would have done to begin with) One trap for the sink side and one for the disposer side.

I never encountered a clog. I did take out their old, bottom of the line, ISE Badger, and replaced with a newer ISE, also.

After I moved out, I often wondered if the maintenance man (or the management) ever realized I made the change.

 

[combo52]

90 DEGREE DRAIN TURNS

Barry it sounds like you are talking about a Y connector that is not considered a 90 degree elbow. Disposer installion instructions have always said not to use those Ys for a disposer drain or at least to remove the baffle if you do. 

 

I for got to mention that in my bar sink I have one of the WP built Through-the-sink 11,000 RPM fixed blade disposers this thing makes food waste disappear and grinds much more uniformly than the GE series disposers.

 

 

 

[petek]

Growing up we had an ISE disposer and I don't remember there every being any problem with it. When we bought our first house back in Calgary I bought one, a Badger I think because it was inexpensive (something like $70) but I had numerous backups that I attributed to the drain pipe which crossed the basement not having enough of a slope, hence the grindings just piling up along inside it. Our second house in the country had a septic field so I wasn't too keen on "adding" to its load. Now I'm still a little disposer shy about putting one in this house after all the grief that other one gave me.. plus I'd have to have some electrical work done, no power under the sink

BTW does anyone refer to them as garburators? That's the term most people here use