Common problems, illustrated
Every service call we get is one of these six characters. Find the one acting up under your sink, and you'll know in about ten seconds whether it's a five-minute fix or a five-minute phone call.
The most common call we get Usually DIY
Flip the switch and it hums like it's thinking about it, but nothing spins. Nine times out of ten the flywheel is jammed, not broken — a hex wrench in the bottom socket and sixty seconds of elbow grease usually brings it back from the dead.
Second most common Usually DIY
No hum, no sound, nothing. Before you assume the motor's gone, check the little red reset button on the bottom and the breaker it's wired to — a tripped reset accounts for more "dead" disposals than actual dead motors.
Time-sensitive Depends where
Where the drip starts tells you everything. From the top, it's usually the sink flange and a five-dollar fix. From the bottom or the seams, the housing itself has failed — and that's not something you tighten your way out of.
Annoying, not urgent DIY, 5 min
It's not broken, it's just been composting quietly for a while. Ice cubes and rock salt, a run of citrus peels, or a proper scrub of the splash guard underside usually clears it out in one pass.
Messy, mostly harmless DIY, 30–60 min
Water rising instead of draining is almost never the disposal itself — it's the trap or the line just past it, packed with the same grease and grounds the disposal was supposed to break down. A plunge and a trap check beats a service call here.
This one's on us Replacement
Ten-plus years old, rusting at the seams, and failing every few months in a new and creative way. This is the one character on this page we won't talk you out of replacing — the parts alone cost more than a new unit installed.
The full symptom-by-symptom diagnostic covers all six in more detail, including the two we didn't draw a cartoon for — grinding noises and a breaker that trips every time.
Tell us which character is under your sink and we'll tell you straight whether it's a fix or a replacement — before we ever come out.