sink garbage disposer - switch or no switch?
We are about to purchase a garbage disposer for the kitchen sink. I know at least one forum poster recommended the Insinkerator, but I haven’t seen any other discussion about the pros v. cons of the older style disposers (that turn off and on with an electric switch), and these other kinds that have no…
We are about to purchase a garbage disposer for the kitchen sink. I know at least one forum poster recommended the Insinkerator, but I haven’t seen any other discussion about the pros v. cons of the older style disposers (that turn off and on with an electric switch), and these other kinds that have no switch, but which you turn on manually by twisting the mechanism in the sink. Our plumber recommended the manual kind, saying it was safer if you have children around. My only experience with this type was in a vacation rental house, where I just remember sticking my hands into a sink full of dirty water to turn on the disposer. Does anyone have this kind? What’s your experience?
Just don’t get anything but an Insinkerator. They are the best. Our vacation home has a generic one and it is useless.
I have the manual Insinkerator and have never had a different garbage disposal (thus can’t really compare). I got this one because of the child safety concern. It works just fine and I have not had to stick my hand in the muck to turn it on since the piece you turn is at the top of the unit. I see a big value in the peace of mind department.
Why not have both? Ours has a manual turn-off, but a switch as well (which we generally keep on). The switch comes in very handy for pulling stuff out of the disposal that accidentally falls in – I turn it off when I need to stick my hand down there.
recently faced the same dilemma. the decision became easy b/c the plumber was ready to install it and Lowe’s only carries 1 model with no switch (called “batch feed”) and that model was bigger than i wanted.
i went with the insinkerator space saver unit and put the switch inside the sink-base cabinet (since the sink is on an island). the unit itself is EXTREMELY quiet, i would recommend it. it’s the blue one.
I recommend the ol’ fashion on/off switch. We had that put in recently, and I can’t see how a child could wind up with a hand in there, unless they are old enough to know better (like 10 years old or something!).