Occasionally, something put into the garbage disposal will cause a jam. It will hum when you turn it on, or it will make no noise at all. There is a wrench that came with your disposal that fits into a hole in the bottom center of the disposal. If you turn this wrench clockwise and then counter clockwise, it will usually dislodge the jam. After dislodging the jam, turn on the disposer switch. If it does not start but it buzzes, the jam has not been dislodged. If when you turn on the switch the motor is quiet, either the breaker on the disposer has been tripped or the house circuit breaker has been tripped. Reset the breaker on the disposer by pressing the small, round button. The house circuit breaker is located in your utility panel box.
If you cannot locate the disposal wrench, you can clear a jam by putting a broom stick down into the disposal through the sink and rotating the cutter plate by pulling on the broom stick.
Under your sinks and toilets there are water shut off valves, one for hot and one for cold. They are there so that if a problem develops, or you want to change faucets, you can turn off the water to only that device. If your toilet fails and continues to run, this valve can turn off the water so that it can be worked on, or to stop a flood. If these valves have never been turned off, they may be corroded in the open position, so they cannot be turned off. To prevent this, turn each of these valves off and then back on once a year. You can make this a New Year’s Day tradition, along with changing the batteries in your smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors.
If the water level in your toilet bowl (not the tank) is low, the fix could be very simple. Lift the cover off the tank. You will see a ¼” tube running from the fill valve to a 1 ¼” vertical tube above the flapper valve. The ¼” tube points down into the 1 ¼” tube and is held in place with a steel clip. Occasionally, the smaller tube becomes dislodged from its clip and does not feed down into the larger tube. During each toilet flush, the little tube puts water into the larger tube which goes into the bowl. When it is dislodged, the water level in the bowl will be low. The fix is to reattach the clip and make sure the smaller tube points down into the larger tube.
If you have suggestions for future tips or have questions about maintenance around your home, submit them to ask.the.woodchucks@gmail.com.
