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Garbage Disposal Repair & Installation, Done by a Licensed Plumber

Armor Pro Services repairs, replaces, and installs garbage disposals across San Antonio the same day you call, whether yours is humming, jammed, leaking, or completely dead. Licensed in Texas under RMP #36282 and fully insured, we diagnose the actual fault before quoting, so you only replace the unit when replacing it is genuinely the right call, and we tell you straight whether it is worth saving.

Plumber for Garbage Disposal Repair: What We Actually Check

A disposal repair takes most of an hour once we're under the sink, and better than half the calls we run turn out to be a jam or a reset trip, not a dead motor. So we work a fixed diagnostic order instead of guessing. First we confirm power: is the unit hardwired or on a switched plug, is the wall switch working, and has the breaker or the disposal's own reset button tripped. A disposal that's completely dead is far more often a tripped reset or a bad switch than a burned-out motor. Next we check for a jam. If the motor hums but the plate won't spin, something is wedged between the impellers and the grind ring. We kill the power, work the flywheel free from below with a 1/4-inch hex wrench in the bottom socket, clear the obstruction, then hit the red reset button. A jam cleared this way is a repair, not a replacement. Then we check the seals and the drain side. Leaks come from three specific places: the sink flange at the top, the dishwasher inlet knockout, or the discharge gasket into the P-trap. Each one is a different fix. We also confirm the disposal is draining into the trap correctly and isn't the reason your kitchen sink is backing up. If it's an actual clog downstream of the unit rather than the disposal itself, that's drain work, not disposal work, and we tell you that. Call 210-212-7667 and describe what you're hearing; we'll put the right parts on the truck before we roll.

Repair or Replace? The Honest Threshold

Here's the line we draw, and it's the same one we'd draw in our own kitchen. Repair makes sense when the unit is under about 8 years old and the fault is a single isolated issue: a jam, a tripped reset, a bad switch, or one worn gasket. Those are cheap, fast fixes and the disposal has years left in it. Replacement is the right call when the housing itself is leaking from the bottom shell, the motor bearings are grinding or the unit trips its own thermal reset repeatedly, or the disposal is past 10 to 12 years old with corroded internals. A leak from the bottom of the body specifically means the internal seal that keeps water out of the motor has failed, and there is no gasket you can replace to fix that. That unit is done. Most garbage disposals last 8 to 12 years. In San Antonio that number runs on the lower end, and here's why: SAWS delivers water at 15 to 20 grains per gallon of hardness, and that mineral load is hard on the grind chamber and the rubber seals over time. After swapping out disposals across Bexar County, we've learned the units that fail early are almost always the builder-grade 1/3-horsepower models that come standard in new construction north of Loop 1604. We generally steer homeowners toward a 1/2 or 3/4-horsepower unit on replacement, because the extra torque handles the load without stalling and the better-sealed models hold up longer against hard-water scale. No upsell on faith; we'll show you the failed part first.

Garbage Disposal Installation: New Sink, New Unit, or First-Time Add

Installing a garbage disposal is more than dropping in a unit and calling it done, and a bad install is why so many disposals leak within a month. Whether it's a brand-new kitchen, a sink replacement, or adding a disposal where there wasn't one before, the sequence is the same and every step matters. 1. Assess the setup. We check the under-sink space, the existing drain configuration, whether there's a dishwasher to tie in, and whether the circuit is a switched plug or a hardwired connection. If you're adding a disposal for the first time, we confirm there's a dedicated switch and adequate electrical, and we tell you before we start if an electrician needs to set that. 2. Mount the flange. The sink flange is bedded in plumber's putty and the mounting assembly torqued evenly so it seats flat. A flange that isn't seated square is the number-one cause of a slow leak at the top of the sink that shows up weeks later. 3. Knock out the dishwasher plug (only if a dishwasher connects). Every new disposal ships with the dishwasher inlet plugged. If your dishwasher drains through the disposal, that plug must be knocked out first, or the dishwasher won't drain and you'll get water backing up into the machine. If there's no dishwasher, the plug stays in. Getting this one step wrong is behind a huge share of dishwasher-won't-drain calls. 4. Hang the unit and connect the discharge. The disposal locks onto the mounting ring, then the discharge tube ties into the P-trap at the correct height and pitch so it drains cleanly and doesn't trap standing water. 5. Wire and test. We connect the cord or hardwire per the unit's terminal, then run water, run the unit, run the dishwasher cycle if present, and check every joint for a leak before we leave. Nothing gets signed off until it's run under real water. Ready for a new unit? Get a free estimate at 210-212-7667.

Garbage Disposal Replacement: Swapping a Failed Unit

A straight replacement, same-brand mounting to same-brand mounting, is one of the faster jobs we do: typically 45 minutes to an hour and a half depending on how corroded the old connections are and whether the mounting standard matches. The variable that adds time is almost always the drain side. Older InSinkErator mounts and newer models share a 3-bolt ring on most units, so the disposal often clicks onto the existing flange without pulling the sink apart, which saves real time and money. When the mounting standard is different, we replace the whole flange assembly, and that's when the job runs longer. Two things we check on every replacement that a quick swap skips. First, the P-trap and discharge tubing: if the old unit sat there for a decade, the trap arm is often crusted with grease and scale, and reusing it just means a clog in the new unit within months. We clear or replace it while we're in there. Second, the electrical connection: corroded wire nuts or a brittle old cord get replaced, not reused, because that's a callback and a safety issue waiting to happen. We'll tell you honestly if your old unit was quietly clogging the branch drain the whole time, because a disposal replacement won't fix a grease-packed kitchen line, and we won't let you pay for a new disposal thinking it solved a drain problem it didn't. If the line's the real issue, that's a job for our drain cleaning crew, and we'll say so.

When You Should NOT Replace Your Disposal Yet

We'll be straight with you: not every disposal problem is a reason to buy a new unit, and some of them you can knock out yourself in five minutes without paying anyone. Don't replace a disposal that hums but won't spin. That's a jam, not a dead motor. Turn off the power, put the little 1/4-inch hex wrench that came with the unit into the socket on the bottom center of the disposal, and work it back and forth until the flywheel turns freely. Then press the red reset button on the bottom. That fixes a large share of humming disposals for free. Don't replace a disposal that just went completely dead either, at least not before you press the reset button. Disposals trip their own thermal overload when they've been overloaded or jammed, and the reset button on the bottom of the unit clears it. If the reset doesn't hold, check the breaker and the wall switch next. A dead disposal is a bad motor far less often than people assume. And don't call anyone at all if your disposal works fine and you just read that they only last 10 years. Age alone isn't a reason to replace a unit that grinds cleanly, drains well, and doesn't leak. Run it until it gives you a real reason. When it does start leaking from the bottom shell, grinding on the bearings, or tripping its reset over and over, that's when a call to 210-212-7667 actually saves you money instead of spending it early.

Local Water, Local Homes, and Why Disposals Fail Here

Disposal life in the San Antonio metro tracks closely with the water and the housing stock, and it's worth knowing what you're working with. SAWS hardness runs 15 to 20 grains per gallon across most of Bexar County, and Schertz along the Guadalupe and Comal line runs even harder near 20 gpg. That mineral load scales the grind chamber and stiffens the rubber splash guard and seals, which is why disposals here rarely hit the top of their rated lifespan without a water softener ahead of them. The housing stock matters too. The newer builder-grade subdivisions north of Loop 1604 and out toward Stone Oak came with the cheapest 1/3-horsepower disposals the builder could spec, and those are the ones we replace most often at the 8-year mark. Older core neighborhoods like Monte Vista, Olmos Park, and Alamo Heights inside Loop 410 have their own wrinkle: the cast-iron and older galvanized branch drains under those pre-1970 kitchens don't tolerate the grease and food solids a disposal sends downstream, so a disposal in one of those homes is only as reliable as the drain line behind it. When we install or replace a disposal in any of the five communities we serve, San Antonio, Alamo Heights, Schertz, Converse, and Helotes, we account for the local water and the drain material behind the sink, not just the unit itself. Permits, when a job's scope requires them, are filed through the City of San Antonio Development Services Department under RMP #36282.