Yes!! I agree with Wes. Caustic soda is a very strong alkali and can damage your disposer, permanently. If a seal goes bad, and water seeps into your motor, its goodby. Even if it didn't the danger to you, as Wes says, is very great.
One trick I learned from one of the disposers, manufacturers owner's manual (can't remember which) was to partially the sink with water. (I usually fill it full with very warm water.) Hold your hand down hard, on the other sink stopper. Turn on your disposal and pull out the stopper.
Your disposal will suck down the water fairly quickly and send it through your piples, under pressure. If you have minor gunk build up it will usually flush it away. Before you do this, make sure your plumbing connections are tight. hehe
Do this weekly or biweekly. Just keeps build ups away and things draining smoothly.
All disposals suck the water down quickly, but the GE 8000 rpm series motor is phenomenal....kinda scary. It makes a gigantic vortex and then a whoosh and and the sink is empty, in a few seconds. Any deposits in the pipe don't stand a chance.
John, I've used several types of "Y" junctions depending on the undersink configuration. Usually, I like a 45 degree wye going into the main drain line.
No constriction whatsover, no 90 degree turns in a confined environment. Never had one clog.
When one uses those cheap little "disposal installation drain pipes, without a trap on both sides of the sink, I have noticed noise from the disposer comes up from the other sinks drain, as sometimes some suds as well, when I let the disposer pull down sudsy water. That's another reason I got rid of the one when I lived in the apartment with the cheap plumbing. With two separate traps, one on the sink side and one on the disposer one gets much quieter operation as sound does not funnel up and out the other side.
These wretched little dissposer drain piples are made for one reason. To allow a homeowner, ignorant of plumbing, to be able to install a disposer themself. However, plumbers like them, because they are cheap (saving them money) and quick, so they can get on to the next job (making them more money).
They put back-pressure on a disposer. You wont's see as quick a drawn-down of a sink full of water if you have a disposer installed this way. It still will, but not as dramatically, and you lose a effectivness in cleaning pipes.
John, yes, I had one of the Whirlpool models. I think it was 1 1979 or 1980 model. I haven't thought about it in a long, long time. Oddest looking disposer I ever had.
It, like the cheap disposer junction pipe, was made for installation by ignorant people. One actually lowered the skinny disposer down the sinkhole fron the top and let it hang by the lip. Talk about quick installation! You just dropped it in and tightened it up a little. Not like the three bolt mounting system.
Unlike the GE series 8000's, it did not hang by a rubber vibration absorbing ring and transmited horrible vibrations to the sink. I had a cheap, thin, stainless steel sink. and it resonated with the disposer, which was MUCH, louder than a GE 8000. As I remember, the hopper was fairly skinny and deep. It didn't seem to that well with that teeny diameter turntable. It was a lackluster performing disposer to say the least. I couldn't take that noise, though.
I give credit to Whirlpool engineers for thinking outside of the box, on that one. Unfortunatly, it seems they lost sight of the box altogether.
I got rid of it, after short while, and put it in the trash. Whirlpool, to their credit, discontinued it. And shortly therafter discontinued their regular disposer series, too. (They called them the "bone specialists".) and contracted ISE to stick the Whirlpool logo on some their models.
The regular Whirlpools didn't get a very good rating in Consumer Reports in the late seventies. So it was just as well Whirlpool dropped them, but they were nice looling esthetically, pretty blue. One of the few disposers I never had. Would like to have one, just to see what it was like.
Anyone of you ever had one of the Whirlpool made disposers ("Bone Specialist") from the 1970's? Be great if yo could post some pictures.
Boy Wes, you brought back some great memeories. That is a beautfiul KitchenAid!!
I loved my Maytag made disposer. Probably my favorite, after the GE series wound models. And that's only by a very slight margin. Maytag built them heavy, had a great sound insulation shell of molded polyfoam, which made it very quiet.
It was very quick, and ground up most anything I threw its way. What a pity, Mayatg went to the, "let's contract ISE to stick our name on their disposers" route.
