Pumpkin in the Drain can Make your Halloween a Nightmare

pumpkin in the drainAh the ooey gooey feeling of sticky pumpkin innards that cling to your hands when pumpkin carving.  Think cleaning up after that is a nightmare?  What’s worse is what could happen if you wash the pulp and seeds down your drain.
Oh but you are putting them in the garbage disposal you say?  Bad idea!  Despite popular belief, garbage disposals are not meant to be garbage “dispose-alls.”  We refer to these handy appliances as garbage “disposers” for this reason.
Some food items should never be placed into a garbage disposer, and the fibrous, sticky flesh and hard seeds like those in pumpkins innards are two biggies that should be avoided.
Garbage disposers work by spinning your food waste against a grind ring on the side of your disposer wall.  Fibrous foods like pumpkin flesh and potato peels can stick to the sides of the grind ring before they can pass through and become pulverized, and that can clog your disposal.
The stringy flesh of certain vegetables and pasta should also never go into your garbage disposer.  These stringy food items can wrap around the spinning impellers at the bottom of your garbage disposer and jam them.
Hard foods like pumpkin seeds should also stay out of your disposer, as they are too hard to be completely pulverized by the grind ring, as are the tough rinds of pumpkins and other melons.  These food items that don’t get pulverized can still pass through your garbage disposer and get stuck further down your drain pipes.
Even pumpkin flesh that gets shredded adequately in a disposer can clog your drains.  The sticky goo of pumpkin innards dries quickly once it attaches itself to the walls of your pipes, and becomes a clog in the making.  If you have ever tried to pick a dried pumpkin seed off of a plate then you can understand the glue-like consistency of pumpkin guts.  Add a few errant pumpkin seeds to the mix and you’ve got a recipe for a Halloween nightmare only a call to our plumbers will fix.
Before you begin your pumpkin carving adventures, have a “pumpkin disposal plan” in place that does not include putting pumpkin innards in your sink.  If you do end up with a garbage disposer problem or a clogged drain, call our expert plumbers at Anthony PHC right away at A-N-T-H-O-N-Y (268-4669) KS or MO.

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