Upgrading Kitchen Sink

Thicker gauge stainless steel is a must, the less expensive ones are thinner. The thicker gauge is great as they are solid, do not make those thumping sounds when you put something heavier in them or change of temperature with water. Look at the spec sheet for sinks, it will tell you the gauge.

I tend to like a single sink, extra deep so that when you have some dirty dishes in them it somewhat hides them from view and makes easy work to wash while the sink is half full. When you have time then I load up the dishwasher leaving bigger things to be done by hand. Add in a bottom wire rack for the bottom of the sink, keeps foodstuff below the dishes until you can clean the waste.

Extra deep also allows a much easier access washing my cooking racks or larger items, together with a tap with hose faucet. Wire rack takes up a half of an inch of your depth.

Double sinks will be good for some, for me each sink is too small for anything by itself. Sure you can wash in one side and rinse in the other....but each side is too small to both have dirty dishes and trying to wash at the same time just more of a mess.

With a large single sink I can wash my dog the the sink, just makes life easy. If my kids were babies still I could wash them there as well which is versatile, and deep means less water spillover.

I believe the countertop place who cut our quartzite to size recommended the sink supplier, cannot recall off hand but will post later when I check our paperwork. They had a website with all available products and were very helpful.

+1000 for a single deep sink. I had a Blanco Silgranit 9" deep single tub sink and it was awesome.

Ballroomblitz1 wrote: ↑Thicker gauge stainless steel is a must, the less expensive ones are thinner. The thicker gauge is great as they are solid, do not make those thumping sounds when you put something heavier in them or change of temperature with water. Look at the spec sheet for sinks, it will tell you the gauge.

I tend to like a single sink, extra deep so that when you have some dirty dishes in them it somewhat hides them from view and makes easy work to wash while the sink is half full. When you have time then I load up the dishwasher leaving bigger things to be done by hand. Add in a bottom wire rack for the bottom of the sink, keeps foodstuff below the dishes until you can clean the waste.

Extra deep also allows a much easier access washing my cooking racks or larger items, together with a tap with hose faucet. Wire rack takes up a half of an inch of your depth.

Double sinks will be good for some, for me each sink is too small for anything by itself. Sure you can wash in one side and rinse in the other....but each side is too small to both have dirty dishes and trying to wash at the same time just more of a mess.

With a large single sink I can wash my dog the the sink, just makes life easy. If my kids were babies still I could wash them there as well which is versatile, and deep means less water spillover.

I believe the countertop place who cut our quartzite to size recommended the sink supplier, cannot recall off hand but will post later when I check our paperwork. They had a website with all available products and were very helpful.

If you could provide the sink supplier, that'd be great! Any idea how much many gauges a standard sink is and how many guages I should aim for?

exrcoupe wrote: ↑ +1000 for a single deep sink. I had a Blanco Silgranit 9" deep single tub sink and it was awesome.

thanks! we've never had a single sink but i assume plumbing would be easier, washing larger items would be easier and only one sink strainer needs to be cleaned. My wife is used to the double sink but I think i'll convince her with a single sink.

exrcoupe wrote: ↑ +1000 for a single deep sink. I had a Blanco Silgranit 9" deep single tub sink and it was awesome.

i just googled it. I didn't realize Silgranit was another type of material. We wanted to originally stick with stainless steal but open to options now.

otaknap wrote: ↑ If you could provide the sink supplier, that'd be great! Any idea how much many gauges a standard sink is and how many guages I should aim for?
thanks! we've never had a single sink but i assume plumbing would be easier, washing larger items would be easier and only one sink strainer needs to be cleaned. My wife is used to the double sink but I think i'll convince her with a single sink.

When we redid out kitchen last year, I got a 16guage 10 inch deep sink from Amazon for 350$ or so. 25 inch wide.

We just renovated our kitchen and went to a store called Interior Blue, in Vaughan to buy our sink. Private label stuff, 16 gage SS for under $400. Lots of choices, great quality. Didn't want to overpay for a branded name..not sure what his inventory is right now though

Your text to link here...

assuming lower gauge = stronger/thicker?

My in laws had an awesome Blanco 80/20 split sink. The small side was very small and the big side was close to a farm style single sink. Only issue with it was that it was white and thus a PITA to keep clean.

We are using prochef from julien. If you want something contemporary, go with a sink with very small radius corners. Do not go for a sink with sharp corners - they look great but are a major PITA to clean. We are going with a 66/33 sink. A double sink has more versatile than a single sink, but a you will likely find that a 50/50 sink will be very tight for larger pots and pans. A deep sink 9” is also very desirable.

Single sink square edge. We ended up getting 50/50 and i think that was a mistake.

Here's the one with a short divider we put in recently after much thought: LINK

Currently $511 on Amazon: AMAZON LINK, and a bit more on Home Depot.

The short divider gives you the benefit of both single (can fit large trays over the divider) and double (can fill up just one of the sides with water) sinks. Because the divider is thin (vs. the one inch thick or more dividers between typical double sinks), there's more interior space compared to total width.

otaknap wrote: ↑ assuming lower gauge = stronger/thicker?

Correct. For metal the "gauge is the number of pieces of flat stock that you would need to stack to make an inch tall pile. 16 guage would take 16 pieces of flat stock stacked to make a pile an inch thick. 20 gauge would take 20.

jm1 wrote: ↑ Here's the one with a short divider we put in recently after much thought: LINK

Currently $511 on Amazon: AMAZON LINK, and a bit more on Home Depot.

The short divider gives you the benefit of both single (can fit large trays over the divider) and double (can fill up just one of the sides with water) sinks. Because the divider is thin (vs. the one inch thick or more dividers between typical double sinks), there's more interior space compared to total width.

this one looks great and interesting.. I'll definitely look into this. the only reason I like our double sink right now is because we have a sponge holder sitting on the middle. I like having the sponge or sponge holder "in the sink" because i feel it's less messy and clears up the countertop more. My only concern is that the divider looks very thin. Is it easily susceptible to denting?

KevinM56081 wrote: ↑ Correct. For metal the "gauge is the number of pieces of flat stock that you would need to stack to make an inch tall pile. 16 guage would take 16 pieces of flat stock stacked to make a pile an inch thick. 20 gauge would take 20.

thanks! i did not know that!! learn something new every day on this forum..

Single deep bowl > double bowl.

We would never consider going back. So much easier to wash large pots, sheet pans, roasting pans etc.. than double bowls. When they're deep you also don't see the dirty dishes piled in them. Great for the "open concept" trend of many homes.

Toukolou wrote: ↑ Single deep bowl > double bowl.

We would never consider going back. So much easier to wash large pots, sheet pans, roasting pans etc.. than double bowls. When they're deep you also don't see the dirty dishes piled in them. Great for the "open concept" trend of many homes.

Agreed!

KevinM56081 wrote: ↑ Correct. For metal the "gauge is the number of pieces of flat stock that you would need to stack to make an inch tall pile. 16 guage would take 16 pieces of flat stock stacked to make a pile an inch thick. 20 gauge would take 20.

That's not true. It's true that 16 gauge metal (or wire) is fairly close to 1/16th of an inch, but the gauges don't break down that way. 1 gauge wire certainly isn't 1" in diameter (it's about 9/32) and 30 gauge isn't 1/30th of an inch (it's about 1/80th).

opendoor wrote: ↑ That's not true. It's true that 16 gauge metal (or wire) is fairly close to 1/16th of an inch, but the gauges don't break down that way. 1 gauge wire certainly isn't 1" in diameter (it's about 9/32) and 30 gauge isn't 1/30th of an inch (it's about 1/80th).

Hmm... a quick google does suggest I was fed incorrect information in the past about flat stock. Appreciate the re-education - Thanks!

Check out Kraus sinks.

BTW - you're upgrading immediately following close? Will the builder consider not bothering with countertops, sink, backsplash at all?

Seems pretty dumb to have all that installed only to pay someone to rip it all out and at best send to the ReStore, at worst, the landfill.

Honestly, I'd pay the builder $200 to NOT install countertops/sink/backsplash if it was me.