First Garbage Disposal

[jakeseacrest]

What was the first garbage disposal that you ever had? My parents had an Insinkerator Badger 5 installed in 1991. The first one I bought when I moved out on my own was the Kenmore 1/2 hp that looked just like the Badger

 

[turquoisedude]

Our second house in the Montréal suburb of Pointe-Claire had a Youngstown Kitchens disposer, probably original to the house (circa 1957).  We moved to that house in 1970 and the disposer was not very good at all.  I remember that we replaced it with a Kenmore that we got while on vacation in upstate New York in '72.  

 

[circlew]

Waste King

Which was installed soon after we moved into the house in late Summer of '57. The housing on it was a medium blue. It lasted until sometime in the mid 70's, when we got an ISE 77. After it went bad around '90, an ISE Badger was installed, which didn't last very long.

 

[arbilab]

1953 Hotpoint builder model, alongside the companion impeller dishwasher.  IIRC, it was bidirectional depending which direction you turned the stopper handle.

 

[petek]

In the houses I grew up (60's) in they were In Sinkerators, not sure what models, not even sure they had model names like they do now. I installed an In SInkerator in our first house in Calgary but had problems with it clogging because the kitchen drain pipe didn't seem to have enough slope as it crossed the basement to the rear of the house. Stopped using it and we've not had one since.

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

What I at least saw in the house I’d done most of my growing up in:

An orange In Sink Erator, to be replaced by a beige one, followed by many more, turning into the Badger brand, after that...

— Dave

 

[askolover]

My sister and I bought our mother a 1/3hp Kenmore one back in 1984 or so.  It did ok but rusted out.  Sometime around 1993 I bought her a new 1/2 hp model with stainless innards, not sure if it is a Sears or Insinkerator branded one but they are the same thing anyway.  In my house I have a 3/4 hp stainless grind chamber model Sears I think...it's been so long since I've actually looked at the label and it's been installed for 20 years trouble free.

 

[reactor]

Westinghouse

We gout our first disposal in the summer of 1967. It was a Westinghouse (a real Westinghouse, not WCI).

That was back in the day of trading stamps--anyone old enough to remember those?? In Dayton, Ohio we had "Top Value" trading stamps where most areas of the country had "Green Stamps. I don't remember how many books of stamps it took, but it was a lot.

It worked fine up until 1971 when it smoked and died. My dad then got a General Electric TOL series-wound "Disposall" with the Carbaloy cutter.

A very impressive performer and impressive looking with its brushed aluminum housing.

 

[bradfordwhite]

Yes I remember S&H greenstamps.

 

Do you remember as a busy body three year old waking up early in the morning, before everyone else, taking a sheet of these, laying down on the floor in the kitchen facing the kick space at the base of the cabinets, ripping them off individually, licking them, and sticking them onto said kick space approx. 12" apart?

Who HASN'T done that, right.

 

.

The garbage disposal in the house I grew up in, built in 1959 as a tract house, had the original disposer.  It never worked and over time it leaked until it was replaced by some orange-plastic-sound-insulated-jacketed-housing type thing in the late 70s.  But our plumbing was bad (pipes with no tilt, rusting badly, etc.) so you really couldn't put all that gunk down the drain as it would back up.

 

[iheartmaytag]

Our first

Was a GE, it Was In the house built around 1953. It was replaced with an ISE
around 73 or 74. Anywhere we have lived since it has always been an InSinkErator of some kind. Currently we have a 777ss. I think it was installed around 2002, we bought the house in 07.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Technically, all disposers were just disposers. Only GE had the trademarked name "Disposall." Hotpoint called theirs the Hotpoint Waste Exit when it was first introduced with their electric dishwasher/sink combo, but that was not as long-lived as GE's Disposall.

 

[turquoisedude]

The first Westinghouse disposers were called the 'Waste-Away', IIRC.  They kept the name even after they outsourced manufacturing of the disposers to Anaheim (they made Tappan and Monkey Ward's Signature disposers, too) back in the 60s. 

 

[tomturbomatic]

Is that like "she just wasted away"? That is a bleak sounding name unless for her leit motif you have a brief sound of a disposer revving whenever her name is mentioned or she appears.

Too much opera.

 

[reactor]

???

"Technically, all disposers were just disposers" I am not quite sure what that means, Tom.

Anyway, Anaheim still uses "Disposall" for their GE branded disposals (disposers).

Remember Annaheim's "Bone Crusher" disposer?

.. and my favorite was the early 70's Whirlpools with the name "Bone Specialist." .

 

[turquoisedude]

"Bone Specialist", eh?  I'll leave that alone.... LOL

 

One other 50s model name I recall was "Pulverator" - was that Waste-King's? 

 

[circlew]

Our Waste King was called a "Pulverator".

 

[luxflairguy]

Our first one was in 1965, Tacoma, Wa house. GE batch grind, year unknown though GE dishwasher (tub pull-out) next to it was from 1858. We weren't allowed to use it much. Too much silverware was going down! Naughty kids!

 

[qsd-dan]

Hobart Kitchenaid (forget the model # now) that was installed in the early 80's along with a KDS-20 dishwasher. That disposer was a Sherman tank. The only time it ever declared "Uncle" was when a penny jammed the impeller and the "Wham-Jam" feature couldn't break it free.

It was still going strong 30 years later when the kitchen was completely remodeled and a new disposer was installed.

As their advertisement campaign (accurately) touted back then "Kitchen-Aid. Because It's Worth It."

 

[toploader55]

Back around the time KitchenAid came out with the 15 series, I think they were partnered up with National Disposers.
I bought my Mom in 1970 a KitchenAid Superba with "MagnaStart". It automatically reverse every time you turned it on.

Yes Dan, these were Tanks. I think National was rebadged as KitchenAid and That was the best rebadge ever.

National were touted as the Best Built disposers back then.

I remember having a KD-15 series brochure that had National disposers on the back of the leaflet.

 

[petek]

Here in Canada they're commonly called garburators or garbage disposers. Though I don't think garburator was a trade name for any brand..

 

[qsd-dan]

It automatically reverse every time you turned it on.

Yeah, mine did the same. You could hear the motor reverse if the switch was flipped back on fast enough during the spin down. I'm 90% sure I remember the motor reversing if it bogged down to a certain point, which wasn't often.

Wow, I haven't thought about that in 20 years.

 

[circlew]

Garburator

My mom's friend Elizabeth H. lived in the Detroit, MI area, and I remember her calling their disposer a Garburator. She was not from Canada, and in fact was born in West Virginia. However, Mrs. Webster - her neighbor of many years - was from Canada. I imagine Elizabeth was not familiar with such a machine until she moved into that house, and picked up that term from her neighbor.

 

[gansky1]

Maytag had a promotion that proved it could grind nails.  It could, but ruin the grind ring in the process.  The Maytag dealer in Early, IA had one mounted that he demonstrated with nails in the store.  It was still sitting around 30 years later, ready for another handful of nails.  

 

We had a late 60's GE until my mother got a shock, then a TOL In-Sink-Erator.  It seemed as quiet as a church mouse after that whiny, high-pitched Disposall.

 

[tolivac]

The first one I used in my apartment was a "Bus Boy"Autoreverse.Did pretty well until I put a bone in it and the bone punctured the hopper.The unit was old original to the building-over 10yrs old.Replaced with a Badger-did just fine.At present have a Moen similar to the new PM motor Waste Kings and Anehiems.

 

[maytagbear]

My first

disposer was in my first apartment. It was the much maligned ISE Badger 5. Worked perfectly for me.

Next two apartments had noisy but high speed GE. First one eventually died, but since it was original to the apartment, built in the 1960s, that was a good run. It was replaced with an essentially similar Whirlaway. Second was a smaller apartment in the same complex.

Next apartment did not have one. The landlord said I could have one, if I paid for it. Not interested in that.

This apartment? Badger 5!!

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[jamiel]

We had a Westinghouse in the first house my folks bought in 1968...it was original from the house being built in 1958...had a toggle on the front of the housing to reverse and a red reset button. My dad and I replaced it in the early 70s with a Sears ISE; our neighbor had it for about 5 more years before she remodeled the entire kitchen. My one grandmother had a batch-feed Hotpoint from when she redid the kitchen in around 1965; the other one had a high-end Waste King from when she re-did hers in 1970 (she kept her 1940 Chambers stove at that remodel...)

 

[Marky_Mark]

My first one was a slim Waste King model that I bought in the 90s.  A bit of a screamer (the disposal, not me...well.... maybe) it was fast and seemed to work well despite its very small size and low price.

 

Since then I've always had Insinkerators, from the builder grade Badger 5 to more expensive models.  

 

I have a friend in the UK who bought ISE's TOL model.  It's very quiet (partly due to the slow-draining splash guard) and she's very happy with it.

 

[volsboy1]

Our First one was a Emerson E-100 I think(ISE) . It was heavy duty but my Mom entertained so much it did not last that long. She had a pair of G.E. 3/4 H.P. High speed disposals installed when she gutted the kitchen one for the main sink and another for the prep sink.The prep sink disposal lasted about 6 years and I replaced it with a Old Maytag and I was In love with that one.I also loved the G.E. disposals but they are not designed to run for over 5 mins they get to hot.

 

[maytagneptune]

Insinkerator Badger 1

Insinkerator Badger 1. It worked for a while then Upgraded to Evolution Compact. I thought there was not enough power on the Badger.

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

I think long ago in my appliance drawings stage when I actually included small, soon to be minor appliances like garbage disposers, microwaves and even range hoods, soon to be eschewed among the more favorable refrigerators, freezers, washers, dryers and ranges even compactors and dishwashers, I forgot the make of one disposer I drew but in a lack of trade names, and in a wanting spark a little creativity, I dubbed it a “Trash Disposer”...

— Dave