DYI mistake that I make again and again

If you like to do some light maintenance around the house I hope that you don't make the same mistake I do. Buying appliance on sale or as an impulse buy is a bad idea no matter how much you save! But I am done making this mistake.
Few months ago we bought new Titan 1¼ HP Premium Food Waste Disposer at Costco. It was on sale. It looked like a nice disposer, much more powerful than we had. It is cheaper than the low end Badger in Home Depot and looks like better featured. The only problem with it is that it does not fit in place of our old one.
After almost installing it I realized that it would not attach to our plumbing without some significant rework of the plumbing. Lucky for us Home Depot was stocking a Badger unit that fit perfectly so my removal of the old disposer was not a total waste.


The Titan disposer from Costco has a lot of plastic parts. Sink mounting sleeve, ring that pushes against the sink from the bottom, two tiny dimples by which disposer hangs under the sink. All these parts do not inspire any confidence. I was able to make this plastic ring skip threads by simply screwing it in by hand. I am not a large or strong person by any stretch of imagination. I am not sure if that ring would have held up for any period of time. The unit is encased in foam, which I am not sure is a great idea. The purpose of the foam is to reduce the noise. Unless you are running disposer at night, the noise is hardly a problem. The foam will absorb the water and the odors if the sink ever leaks. The unit is much larger than Badger and therefore occupied much more room under the sink. The opening is small and if something falls in the disposer you will need a small hand to get it out. It comes with the magnet to prevent silverware from falling in. In many years of using disposers I had this happen maybe two times. Again solution for imagined problem. I read reviews on Amazon for this unit and they are not promising. I am actually glad it did not fit.
Note to the makers of Titan garbage disposer - if you want for people to use your product make plumbing connections in exactly the same place as all other disposers. Then your unit will be a drop in replacement. For now it is going back to Costco.

Our previous Badger unit lasted since 1997 and aside from complete disintegration of rubber parts, it still works. The new Badger works great and all mounting hardware is made of metal, just like before.