confused garbage disposal

[megsablinsky]

I recently remodeled my kitchen, put in a double bowl sink with a garbage disposal on one side. From here, I have each bowl connected to a T-piece, then into a P trap, then up and out to the drain which is significantly higher than the T-piece. Now when I turn on the disposal with a lot of water, the disposal clears, but all the water and food backs up into the other bowl. I turn the disposal and water off and the water equalizes between both bowls. Slowly over several hours, the water seeps out of both sinks, just below the sink level, but never really clears. I put a snake into the drain and there were no clogs. Could it be that my drain is too high above the rest of the plumbing for the water to escape?

[jadnashua]

I think you hit upon the problem...water doesn't flow up. It will siphon some given the right conditions. My unprofessional opinion.

[Terry]

Jim's right.

Water flows down hill, the first rule of plumbing.

Many retro sinks wind up being 9.5" deep bowls, and not the 6" bowls that came with the house.
You may need to get into the wall and lower the drain.
Also make sure you have a baffle tee so that the food debries doesn't just change sides.

[hj]

Part of your problem is that the outlet into the wall is higher than the disposer outlet. But that is not why the water takes a long time to drain. That is caused by a stoppage in the drain system and your snake was not the right one to unplug it.

[MG]

Many retro sinks wind up being 9.5" deep bowls, and not the 6" bowls that came with the house.

We recently remodeled our entire kitchen (only thing left was the fridge and stove which we had bought just a few months before). Part of the remodel was a Silestone countertop (which I think is the shiznit) and an undermounted sink that is 8" deep. This problem gets compounded when you end up putting a disposal on and that extra drop from the counter gets factored in. I ended up having to fiddle around with fittings to get the extra 1.25" or so I needed to get the trap connected. Luckily it works.