i can put potato peels in my garbage disposal and have for years with
different grades of disposals.  i just put a little bit at a time into the
active disposal.  anything will jamb a disposal up if you put too much of it
in all at once.

Thanksgiving is down the drain - you hope
November 25, 2006

Ashlie Yaeger didn't know. Come on. It's a garbage disposal, already.
And potato peels?

They're garbage.

Well . . .

On the day after Thanksgiving, she was looking at a clogged sink. And a
plumber's bill.

"Now," she said, "I know."

Give thanks if you made it through Thanksgiving without having to call
a plumber.

More than a few people had to. Plumbers say the day after the big feast
can be one of the busiest days of the year for them.

People, after all, rarely cook the kinds of meals they cook on
Thanksgiving. You're looking at turkey, potatoes, stuffing.

Gravy. Corn. Yams.

Biscuits and cranberries and pumpkin pies.

And some key kitchen hardware simply can't handle the onslaught of such
a bounty.

Or else people simply do no-nos when it comes to getting rid of food
scraps and drippings. They're hurried. They're stressed. They put
turkey grease in sink drains, for instance.

Or, as in Yaeger's case, they put potato peels in the disposal. This
was not good. The potato peels are slippery little beasts. They can
make it through without getting obliterated.

And they clog drains.

Yaeger's husband, Eric, said they were doing the dishes when it
happened. The sink water began rising. They hit the disposal, and
instead of water disappearing, water shot up.
Yesterday afternoon, the water was still there. By then, it was kind of
brownish.

Drain Medic Rx Plumbing came to the rescue of the Talmadge couple.
Plumbing supervisor Jeff Hughes had to get out the snake - a piece of
plumbing equipment that slithers through drains, clearing up bad
things.

And soon enough the Yaegers were able to do dishes again.

"It was your basic stoppage," said Hughes, who was hardly alone in
making emergency plumbing runs yesterday.

"We get a lot of stoppages," said Larry Fite, of Earl Fite W & Sons
Plumbing in La Mesa.

Like clockwork, several calls came in bright and early yesterday
morning. All were for problems with drains.

Walter Anderson Plumbing concurred. The day after Thanksgiving? It's
crazy with clogs.

"We get a lot of drain issues," said Mary Jean Anderson, the
general manager.

A couple of factors are at play, it appears.

People no longer cook as often as they did in days past. According to a
recent Pew Research Center survey, 66 percent of those responding said
they dine out at least once a week. One third said they did so twice a
week or more.

So some people are kind of strangers to their kitchens.

Except for Thanksgiving.

When, suddenly, everybody is a Martha Stewart.

Sink and disposal problems aren't the only emergencies plumbers face.
Sometimes toilets and showers get backed up. That's because families
are hosting huge gatherings, which stress the systems.

So next year, to be on the safe side, think pizza.

Delivery, of course.

hely chijef

adding on:

some are old enough to remember when there weren't any disposals and
kids were taught 'not' to let anything go down the drain - the food
particles [especially anything that would encourage bacteria growth
would gather along the pipes and eventually close it off, and then dad
would had to get out the snake and spend a bit of time reaming it out -
hopefully without resorting to having a plumber in...everyone had a mesh
filter stopper that you put in the drain to catch particles that didn't
get scrapped off before washing.

out the door to the composte pile, or throw it over the wire into the
chicken yard.

nowadays, with disposals folks just plain forget that even though
'stuff' gets minced up and washed down, there's still the long length of
pipe to follow - and sooner or later it does get clogged if you're not
careful.

last spring susie and i had to have an eight foot long length of drain
pipe replaced that had 'corked up' - 45 year old pipe had less than a
pencil diameter open

oh! bet martha would have a snake ready for just such an event!