The garbage disposal... our friend. Well, if you have a septic tank not so much. Grinding up food leftovers and greasy foods and washing them down the drain can mess up your bacteria levels and clog up the drain fields. But, that's not what this blog is all about!
It's about the do it yourself-er installing a disposal under the kitchen sink without knowing the do's and don'ts. Physically, it's not a complicated job, but knowing how to properly and safely do it is another.
This one was installed by a not-so-handy man, perhaps he even installed a used one! There is a small hose connection that is for the dishwasher discharge made onto the unit just 
under where it mounts to the bottom of the sink. They come with a small knock out, if you have no dishwasher, you don't knock it out.
This house had no dishwasher... but the knock out was gone. So, every time you turned the water on, some dribbled down the outside of the unit to, yep you guessed it, right on the electrical connection! Imagine reaching under there to grab your favorite cleaning solution and grabbing a hand full of wet electrical connection? The wire is not hot till you flip on the switch but who wants to take that chance? What if your kids were under there? Yikes!!
There is also a nifty bellowed turnout on the other side of the sink. They probably could 
not make the original pipes line up and decided to use a universal type pipe.
These type of universal pipes are easy to manipulate to make fit, but they are not smooth inside and food, grease and gooky stuff will accumulate in those grooves and smell dandy. Well, maybe not that dandy... Not to mention, those creases in the bellows are very thin and could easily start leaking.
If you are faced with a project like this and are not sure if it's over your ability level, there are lots of Plumbers out there that would love to do it for you. There's more to it than saving money on the installation, it's family safety and preserving the integrity of the cabinets, and kitchen!
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