Garbage Disposal Repair in Germantown, MD

What happens when you call

The number on this page connects you with an independent plumber who takes disposal jobs in Germantown. You will be asked what the unit does when you flip the switch (hum, silence, grinding noise or a leak) and roughly where you live. A cross street off Middlebrook Road or Clopper Road is enough to start.

On site, the plumber cuts power to the unit, frees the plate if it is stuck, tests the reset button and looks at the sink flange, the discharge elbow and the dishwasher connection. If the unit itself is sound, the next stop is the trap and the branch drain, because a slow line can make a healthy disposal look broken.

What changes the price

• Clearing a jam or resetting the motor versus mounting a new unit
• The size and build quality of a replacement, if you need one
• Whether the unit is plugged into an outlet or wired directly
• A cracked trap, worn tailpiece or clogged branch line found during the visit
• Hooking the dishwasher drain to a new unit, which means knocking out its inlet plug

Germantown kitchens and drains

Germantown grew from farmland into a planned community of a downtown and six villages, and its growth took off after a sewer line was finished in 1974. In ZIP 20874 the largest group of homes went up in the 1980s, so many kitchens are on a second or third disposal by now, and the drain lines under those sinks have decades of food waste behind them.

WSSC Water runs the public sewer here. Your kitchen drain, the pipes inside the house and the building sewer out to the main are yours to keep clear, which is why a plumber will often look past the disposal before calling the job done.

Before the plumber arrives

• Turn the switch off and unplug the unit or trip its breaker
• Clear out the cabinet under the sink so the plumber can reach the unit
• Set a towel or pan under any drip
• Note whether the dishwasher or the other sink basin has backed up
• Do not pour drain opener into the unit while you wait