I installed a 3/4hp Sears-Kenmore garbage disposal unit (made by InSinkerator) in 1990. Flawless operation until about a year ago. Suddenly, sink draining was slow unless if unit was turned on. Within last two months, the use of a hex key was required on occasion to get it to spin.

When I removed it, the discharge pipe broke off quite easily. That is when I noticed the point of failure. For some reason, the opening was being choked by debris squeezing the discharge tube from INSIDE the unit. It was about 1/3 of original size.

I went with same size InSinkerator to replace it. Figured over thirty years of great performance proved reliable enough to buy again.

Yeah you got your moneys worth out of it. Just years of gunk building up restricting it. I run ice thru mine each month and one of those foaming disposer cleaner tabs.

30 years for an appliance is a darn good run these days.

Yeah I had to replace both mine and my mom’s at right around 20-25 years so I consider that normal.

We are on our 2nd in just a little over 12 years. I Googled it a while back and read that Egg shells are hard on them. We were eating 18 + eggs a week and most every shell went down the disposal.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:
...foaming disposer cleaner tabs.

Are those dishwasher tablets that you mentioned?

WASTE KANG!

Nemesis of baby yaks.

quote:

Originally posted by Sig2340:
WASTE KANG!

Nemesis of baby yaks.

We replaced the Badger at pur old house with a 3/4hp Kang.
Quieter & more powerful.
Probably not too far off with our current house [also a Badger i think]. Sounds like there's a fork in the sink nearly every time we run it.

Failure of this kind of appliance, with lots of moving parts that constantly have nastiness run through them, after nearly 35 years is hardly "strange."

Should have gone with a Kang. I'm still very impressed with our unit after 5 years.

Hope you don't have another issue, regardless.

WASTE KANG

Thanks MikeinNC, that looks like a good idea to be doing. The old one didn't smell that bad until the very end. I still wash dishes by hand and I grind up the dishwater as it drains. Perhaps that is why it stayed clean for so long?


Now that I have the old unit out, I discovered my family has more than once ground up plastic in there. Bits and pieces of various colors. Don't know if that is related to the internals getting debris, but I'm certain that didn't help any.

I'm pleased that it lasted so long in spite of the accidental abuse it received.

The new one has a press in wire connector that is a pain to install. The 14ga wiring didn't go well with getting assembled. My brother made a good suggestion, unfortunately after I finished. Having the wire do a small loop instead of a 90 bend. There is room inside the unit for that to work.

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:
Failure of this kind of appliance, with lots of moving parts that constantly have nastiness run through them, after nearly 35 years is hardly "strange."

You’re right, the strange thing is that it took that long to fail. I think the OP’s point is that it seemed odd that the outlet was getting occluded.

quote:

3/4hp Sears-Kenmore garbage disposal unit

I have the same unit. I had to replace the cheap unit that came with the house that was built in 1983. One of the metal grinding tabs broke off.

quote:

Originally posted by slosig:
....I think the OP’s point is that it seemed odd that the outlet was getting occluded.

Correct.

I really don't know how old it is but we are still using the built in microwave oven that came with the house when we bought it in 1992. It wasn't new when we moved in. 33 years and counting. Not bad!