Pressure relief valve outside of my kitchen sprays water when I run my garbage disposal. Help!

Garbage disposal is not connected to a pressure system. Could you be more specific? What is the pressure relief valve connected to? What type of waste disposal system are you on-- city sewer, septic, force main?

The PRV he is referring to could be an air admittance valve or the vent pipe for the hot water heater's PRV. Either way, not too sure why using a garbage disposal would create a problem. If the AAV is defective, I suppose it could be leaking for whatever reason. Maybe a partially clogged drain pipe that only shows up when the garbage disposal is used?

As stated above, Pressure Relieve Valve (part of pressurized water system in your house, and Garbage Disposer ( part of non-pressurized gravity drain system ) are not connected and work independently.

Please, post photo of the device for us so we can identify it and respond

Back to you

Milo

Hi Marge.

Most likely you are talking about a Johnson tee (see image) setup that acts as an air gap for your dishwasher and connects into your kitchen sink drain line (which disposal is connected too).

Attachment 48909

Of course, all of the piping is hidden in the wall and covered by sheetrock, but the idea here is that this is probably the setup you have and if it is blowing waste out of it to the outside of the building then I have to figure that you have a partially clogged kitchen sink drain and the drain line needs to be cleared.

Start by looking at the drain pipe... should just need to be snaked to clear the problem!

Mark