Insinkerator electical problems?

The other day, my Insinkerator Badger 1 garbage disposal stopped working. I checked to see if it was jammed, and it wasn't. I checked to see if the reset button on the bottom had tripped, and it hadn't. I checked the breaker box, and no breakers tripped. (Yes, I actually flipped them all). I figured it had finally given up the ghost, as it's probably original with my home (10+ yrs.) I bought a new one to install, but before install, I checked the outlet it was plugged into, and discovered there was no power to it!!! I plugged the removed disposal into a socket (I know, not too smart, some might think), and it worked!! I changed out the socket, and switches, and still no luck. I'm baffled as to why there is suddenly no power to the socket.. The breaker box has 2 breakers in the disposal/dishwasher position, that are clipped together so if one trips, the dishwaher breaker trips as well. The dishwasher works fine. As fas as I know, there are no other appliances on the circuit. There are no GFI sockets on the circuit either. The switch that activates the disposal shares a box with an over sink light, and when I changed out the ****ch, I made sure the connections matched as I changed the switches out. Visual inspection of the socket box, and the switch box yields nothing out of the ordinary, as far as I can tell. Is it possible that maybe the breaker in the breaker box for the disposal has died, and I just can't see it? Is there a way I can safely troubleshoot the whole mess to find the weakest link? There was no overload to the circuit prior to this happening, and all the other plugs and switches in the kitchen still work fine. Thanks in advance for your help!!!

Dave

 

"No power" is usually either an open hot or an open neutral. An $8 outlet tester can figure out which, but so can almost any other kind of tester (e.g., voltmeter, neon circuit tester). Do you have any of these?

Your description of the dishwasher/disposal breaker suggests a multiwire circuit. Are you familiar with multiwire (aka shared neutral) circuits?

 

As an electrical novice, I'm unfamiliar with that term...There are 2 single pole switches in the box..One for the overhead light, one for the disposer. When I remover the cover plate, I was careful to match the connections on each switch when I replaced them....

Is there a reason it would stop working al at once?

The dishwasher and the disposal are on separate circuits, at least in the breaker box (sep. breakers)

Thanks again...

 

Go to your home center and spend eight bucks on an outlet tester. It plugs into a receptacle and has three lights on it.

 

John,

Can you tell me what an outlet tester will do?? I carefully removed my switch coverplate, and checked visually for any arcing, and did not see anything. I relpaced the switches using exactly the same wiring configuration, removing one connection at a time, etc. All of the wire were "accounted for". I still didnt work. will this tell me if I have a broken wire or something like that?

Sorry if it seems to be a dumb question. Will the tester tell me if one of the three connections at the plug is bad or not working?

Thanks,
Dave

 

The main objective of the outlet tester is to distinguish between an open hot and an open neutral. It's the first step in the diagnosis process, and it narrows the search. But if you don't want to narrow the search, you can look at every connection in every box on the circuit. If you find and repair a bad one, it might make the problem go away. However without any electrical test equipment at all, it's hard to divide and conquer or have any methodical way of finding the fault. You may decide to get a voltmeter or multimeter instead, but those are easily fooled by phantom voltage and so they often lead people down the wrong path.

A broken wire between boxes is very rare unless somebody has been driving long nails or screws in the wall.

If I understood you right, you had this problem before you changed the switches or anything else electrical, right? So we can rule out your switch replacement as a possible cause?

 

you might have a bad backstab connection on the receptacle. pull the receptacle and see if it has backstab connections, if it does, move the wires to the screw terminals.

 

Yes I had the trouble before I changed the switches,, I have also upgraded the switches and all wires are connected vis screws. There are 2 single pole switches in the box, and I replaced them one at a time, connecting the wires to the same connectors, one at a time, as I went....

 

John,

I got an outlet tester, and the plug in question shows an "open hot" condition on the plug. Does that mean that something is wired incorrectly in the circuit? As you recall, the disposer just stopped working one day with no warning. After purchasing a new disposal ( I need one anyway), but before installation, I checked the plug and found it not working. This was also BEFORE I changed out any switches or plugs. After changeout of 2 switches, and the plug in question, the condition remains. The plug I tested is the new plug. Any ideas where to start looking??

Thanks

Dave

 

Open hot means that you don't need to look for a disconnected neutral. For reasons I don't understand, backstab failures usually happen to the neutral wire, so that isn't my first choice of a place to look (although it may still be that).

Now I suggest you spend two bucks more for a neon circuit tester. You need to figure out how far the power gets before it doesn't get any farther. The three places to check are the breaker box, the switch box, and the receptacle box. If and only if you feel comfortable doing so, very, very carefully remove the cover from the panel and use that tester to check for voltage between the screw on the breaker and the box. Then just as carefully put the panel cover back on. Make very sure you don't touch anything inside the panel with your hands or with a corner of the panel cover.

 

When you replaced the switches was there a jumper from one to the other?

 

If you feel uncomfortable removing the dead front panel, at the service, to test the breaker, you can accomplish the same thing at the switch box.
Turn off these two tied breakers, remove the switches and pull all of the conductors into sight. Leave the whites wirenuted together.
If the wiring is in pipe or metallic flex, you may have two colored, two white and depending upon the age, a ground conductor.
If the wiring is in BX or romex you may have two separate home runs or "hot pairs", or you may have from a single cable two different colored conductors, a white conductor and maybe a ground.
For this discussion I am going to assume the later.
One of the colored conductors will be connected to the DW and the other will be connected through pigtail/s to the two switches. Remove the wire nuts securing these two connections as well as that from the whites.
Reenergize the two tied breakers and with the neon tester from you second trip to the hardware store, test from each of the colored conductors in succession and the white from the same cable.
Since these two circuits are in all probability directly wired to the service. If you find that there is no indication of voltage in one of the tested conductors then the problem is in the service panel and will require you to remove the dead front panel. With the two tied breakers off, make sure that the wires are properly inserted under the screw and that the screw is tight.
Reenergize the two tied breakers and then measure from the screw on the breaker to either the service panel or the neutral buss bar. If there is no indication of voltage, then that half of the breaker is bad. DO NOT REPLACE IT WITH THE SAME TIED BREAKER.
If there is voltage at both breaker screws, you should also have voltage at the switch box. Replace the breaker with the correct one anyway.