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Greetings. Recently our garbage disposal refused to shutoff. It's operated via a wall switch near the sink. Whether the switch is in the off or on position, the disposal will not shut off. I've replaced the switch and outlet for the disposal to no avail. I did notice something odd however. The outlet is located under the sink and both the disposal and dishwasher are plugged into it. When I tried to unplug the dishwasher plug, it was incredibly hard to remove. Once I got the thing out, I found that the outlet and the dishwasher plug were melted slightly. I can't tell if it's recent or not. As it stands right now, the dishwasher is plugged into the new outlet and if we want to use the disposal we have to plug it in for a moment and then unplug it. It's the only way to make it stop working. Any info is hugely appreciated!!
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From an electrical point of view what has happened is that your switch is being shunted by an extra connection in parrallel with the switch. There are two likely locations where this could occur. The first place to look is at the switch itself, which you have already done.
Since its not that and you have indicated that the dishwasher and the disposal are connected to the same outlet you need to look at the outlet itself. When your system was originally wired it probably had power going directly to the outlet that the dish washer is plugged into, then the little shorting bar on the black side of the duplex outlet was removed and the switch was wired across in place of the removed bar. It sounds like the outlet which has partially melted has deformed enough to allow the black side connections to touch either inside the outlet or on its surface. You need to replace the outlet. Don't forget to remove the little shorting bar line (black) side only.
While your in there try to find out the root cause of the problem, why did the outlet melt in the first place. Is it becoming wet? Have caustic cleaning agents under the sink dammaged the outlet? IS the wiring aluminum?
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