How To Avoid Mistakes When Picking A Sink For Your Kitchen

By Author: joe hall
Total Articles: 6
Comment this article

kitchen sink." "The best is a relative term, what do you want to do with it?" "I want to put my dishes in it." "True but what else are you going to do with it? How are you going to take care of it" There are three basic types of materials? We've got your metals we've got your porcelains and we've got your composite stone materials.

Your metals are materials like stainless steel or copper, porcelains could be a porcelain-enameled cast-iron sink or it could be a fire clay sink. Fire clay is an interesting material because it's the same material all the way through and then of course we have a newer type of material that other companies are starting to get into here so there's some interesting designs out there in the world and that is like material called composite stone or composite granite composite quartz and I'll go through each of the three materials. Now, the reason people started using stainless steel as a kitchen cookware sets in for a couple of reasons mainly because they want a sink that is reminiscent of a commercial kitchen they want to have it look professional.

Now ...
... the reason commercial kitchens use stainless steel is that stainless steel will never crack it will never chip it will never fade it will never rust at least if it's a good quality stainless something like an 18 or a 16 gauge 304 stainless. Basically something with a high nickel content something that is going to have a little bit of luster. The thing about stainless steel though is it will scratch it will water spot so the question I always have is sure you want stainless, who's going to keep it looking nice? Or do you care about it looking nice? I've had some people tell me "I don't care" which is fine I've had some people say "that's the main problem" that's fine I've had some people say "that's my wife's problem" to which I say let me know how that works out for you. So the bottom line is stainless steel is a beautiful material but you've got to know that something that beautiful needs maintenance.

The other type of metal material is copper. Now a copper sink is going to start out looking like a shiny copper penny and then they take chemicals and they age it giving it this dark brown or bronze kind of a look. The thing about copper is it will turn green around the drain and it will probably water spot. What you can do with copper is you can shine it up like a bright new copper penny and let it age naturally all over again, so it's an interesting feature but again something with maintenance or care built into it if you want it to look the way you bought it for a longer period of time. There're you can use things like that to keep that finish from turning green and whatnot. The next type of material are your porcelains. So I mentioned fireclay. Firelay is a material that looks like your porcelain enameled cast iron but the biggest difference is porcelain enameled cast iron is literally just that it's a layer of porcelain on top of cast iron.

Which means, because it's a layered material it can crack it can chip it can fade I've seen little hairline cracks around the drain sometimes. It's not something that's going to happen tomorrow but it's probably going to happen five or ten years down the road. Anybody who's had a cast iron sink for more than ten years will tell you, you always end up with these little chips down at the bottom and it starts to kind of rust through and that's what leads to getting them replaced. Fireclay that's not going to happen. Now fire clay doesn't have to be an apron front you can do an undermount or drop in sink out of foreplay, but it is the same material all the way through and it's baked to a much higher temperature than cast-iron, so if you want the porcelain look but you want something that's going to be the same now and 20 years from now and it's not going to chip or rust fireclay is an excellent material to consider.
You may also like to read : Best Air Purifier Filters
Now that brings me to our final selection here which is a composite stone material. Like the fireclay the composite stone is a solid material all the way through very durable some people touch it and say it feels a little plastic it is a man-made material so it does have some resin in it. You can hear it on my ring so it does have a lighter weight feel as compared to the porcelain enameled cast iron or the fire clay material. It's also a little bit more contemporary in it in the way it looks it's usually a more matte finish although some of them do have some sparkle to them it's not going to be as glossy as a fire clay or porcelain enameled cast iron. Now that brings me to the ways you can mount a sink.

So there's again three basic ways to mount a sink. A drop in sink is a sink where the hole is cut and the sink is actually dropped into the countertop and the fixture is installed on top of the sink. An undermount sink is a sink where the hole is cut in the countertop and the sink is actually mounted underneath your countertop and the fixture is usually mounted on the countertop itself, and then you have your apron front sink like we show over here.

You've got this is an apron front sink this happens to be fire clay but you can get them out of seeing the steel or even the composite stone material. This is a great cool farmhouse look. You can get some more contemporary you get some that are hand-painted in France and very bougie. Which brings me to the three different ways to undermount a sink. Your most typical way to undermount a kitchen sink is like this one right here where the cutout of the kitchen sink tends to line up with the cutout of the countertop and it's pretty much just a flush design. You can have your sink and your countertop cut so that the edge is actually pulled away and you see a little bit of that lip all the way around so that's called a positive reveal.

You have your neutral veil which is the flush design you have the positive reveal, you also have a concept called negative reveal and that's not very common in the kitchen it's a little more common in the bathroom and the way it looks is the countertop is actually cut so it overhangs into the sink a little bit again not very common in the kitchen but it does happen so these are conversations you want to make sure you have with your countertop fabricator before the sink goes in, because once that countertop is cut you're pretty much done.

Now there are three ways to properly mount an apron front sink so we've covered the three ways you can have the countertop reveal which is that's one way is to undermount you can also bring it up so the countertop is going to be even with the edge of your sink such as in this installation right here you can actually bring it up so the countertop and the sink actually meet up right here. It's not very common but I do see it from time to time where the apron front she sticks up above your countertop. The final selection to make is whether or not you want to go with a single or a double bowl.

A single bowl is great because you've got lots of space and you can fit lots of things you don't have to worry about pot handles sticking up like that, as opposed to a double bowl which is obviously not as spacious. There is a third option in that category if you want to do something in the middle and that is something with a low divide. A low divide gives you the option to lay things flat but you also have a little bit of a divide if you really like to do dishes by hand. Some people prefer it, I'd rather say get a dishwasher that actually washes the dishes.

I am Aatif Riaz, I have done MBA(IT). I love to write articles about business, health and technology. https:10orange.com