Garbage Disposal

[cabinboy]

We put potato peels down our disposal which the disposal was able to handle. However, after turning off the disposal and running water in the sink, the darn sink will not drain. It will drain if I turn the disposal back on though. The disposal is not connected to a dishwasher. So, I disconnected the drain pipe from the disposal and ran water into the sink again and it drained through the disposal (into a bucket I had set up.) Since with the disposal on the water will drain (go somewhere) I assume the piping is not clogged. Is this an accurate assumption. And since the water drained through the diposal into the bucket, I thought that maybe it is the disposal somehow not allowing the water to drain from the sink when it is not turned on. Maybe like when a straw has liquid in it and you hold finger on top. Any ideas on what could cause this and if I can avoid a call to the plumber/disposal technician that installed it.

Thanks

[dhill]

Sounds like the pipe is clogged somewhere. Do you have a double sink? When that has happened to me (I put watermelon rind in the disposal once) the sink drained to the other side. I had a plumber come out and unplug the clog. The plumber only charged 35 bucks for the call, cheap in my book, and I didn't have to hassle with renting the machine and toting it around. My advice, call a plumber and get him to unclog the pipe.

[giddonah]

When you disconnected it, did it drain into the bucket while it wasn't turned on? If water doesn't go through when it's off, it sounds like stuff is stuck in there which is cleared by the centrifical acceleration when the disposal is spinning and settles back to blocking when it stops spinning. I'm no pro, but just had this thought.