How to Diagnose Clogged Garbage Disposal

Video Transcript

"Hi, Michael Raines at Expert Village. Well, here's our switch. Does it work? Does it not work? Don't know. Let's find out. So now, we have our trusty little test light. Now as you see, there's a switch here with a receptacle. Now, it may be getting power from the receptacle, it may not. You never know how a house is wired, until you get into it. But, we're going to test anyway. So, here we go with our trusty little test meter or test light. Well, it's obvious, we have power. Now we're going to check the upper receptacle. Power there, too. So we know that's good. So how do we test our switch? Obviously, our disposal isn't working. There's something that could be wrong with the switch. So, off with the cover. Alright, so we've got to take this switch out a little further. We can't access the wires behind it to be able to test. One more screw, now it's loose. Again, it's live wires, we haven't turned off the plug yet, or the breaker. So, the safest way to grab a switch that's still live is by what we call the ears. Those are always insulated. Grab the ears, pull gently, the switch comes out. So now, we see a myriad of wires in here. Now we're going to take a little time and see if I can't explain them to you. Now, we have the white. We know that's a neutral. The red is probably our power. And the black is also a power. Now the reason they're red and black is because this one's just for the disposal unit and the red one is just for this receptacle. Okay, they're wired separately. So now, we know that there's power on the receptacle. We're not sure if there's power on our switch. So we're going to take our trusty test light. We're going to put one lead to the ground of the box inside the wall. And one to the lead on the switch. Nothing there. Power there. Well, we know that the switch is getting power. So we know it's not the switch."