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I'm renovating a multi-unit apartment building; it's an old building about 1950-ish. Hubs and I are butting heads about putting in garbage disposals. I think the disposals will help win the burden on old pipes; he says that will be another fixture to deal with for maintenance issues. Opinions?
Plumbers often advise against garbage disposals and they are prone to repairs. BUT tenants don't give a crap about being careful and there would probably be more repairs with clogged pipes than garbage disposals. So my vote goes to garbage disposals in a single sink.
Plumbers often advise against garbage disposals and they are prone to repairs. BUT tenants don't give a crap about being careful and there would probably be more repairs with clogged pipes than garbage disposals. So my vote goes to garbage disposals in a single sink.
Put one in or you will have tenants putting way too many things down the sink or the toilet that they shouldn't plus the apt will be stinking to high heaven with rotted food in their garbage if they don't take it out daily.
I know how disgusting it was when my garbage disposal broke and didn't get it fixed for weeks. I had to take that crap out everyday to the garbage receptacle so it wouldn't stink up the place but it also made for some nasty smells in the receptacle outside until garbage pick up once a week. Lots of unwanted critters wandering around also.
I vote no to the disposals. They are one more thing to fix, but tenants also think they can put anything down the sink if there's a disposal in it.
The apartments I managed did not have them. But, when I retired last year, the place I moved to had disposals and I heard crazy stories about what tenants tried stuffing down them from our maintenance guy. I had called our maintenance guy because I'd accidentally started up the disposal with a spoon in it, and afterwards it made a horrible noise. Turns out there was a piece of metal that broke off the spoon's decorative handle (that I didn't notice) flying around in there and the disposal wasn't broken.
You'll get calls not only because they're backed up, but because they're making noise, etc., from starting them up with spoons down in them or tenants being afraid to take the spoon out themselves, etc.
I just think you'll get more maintenance calls, rather than fewer, with disposals in place.
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