A garbage disposal is one handy little tool to have in your kitchen. However, most owners simply put their food down the disposal and never think twice about it. Suddenly, every year or so, they end up with some major disposal problem that they need to have fixed. Like any kitchen tool, the garbage disposal thrives with proper maintenance. Not only will caring for it keep it running longer without problems, but it will keep it from smelling too funky as well. So what maintenance techniques can you employ to help your garbage disposal?

Add a Drop of Dish Soap

While running cold water down your disposal with the blades running, add a dab of dish soap to help clean things out. Like with your dishes, dish soap helps clean away any grease or caked on food. Keep the disposal running until all the bubble froth has gone down.

Toss in Small Bones

I know, right? That seems like breaking garbage disposal rule number one, but by grinding up small bones, the shards actually help to clean any dried food particles that has attached inside there. Consider easy to snap bones like chicken ribs, but definitely not thick bones like beef bones, pork bones, or bigger chicken bones like leg bones.

Add an Orange

Is your disposal starting to smell a little bit funky? The most common cause is not simply because food is rotting in there, but you have used your disposal a lot. It has seen some pretty gnarly stuff and needs some freshening up. The easiest way to deodorize and clean your garbage disposal is to add a few orange peels in for the grinding.

Fill It with Ice

Once a month, clean out all those ice cubes from the floor of your freezer and toss them in the disposal. Once it is filled with ice, grind it all down. Ice cubes serve as a little more heavy duty alternative to orange peels. They not only clean grease and other food particles out, but the ice also works to sharpen your blades.

Unfortunately, even with proper maintenance, your garbage disposal isn’t going to stay working forever. With proper maintenance you will have less problems, but when you do in the Columbia, Missouri area, contact us today to get Brian Wear Plumbing on the job.