A rare guest post by Todd
Since building our house almost 10 years ago, we have had 5 Kitchen sinks and I think we have finally found the perfect one.
We started out with a white Americast enamel on cast iron sink made by American Standard. Something like this one:
http://www.americanstandard-us.com/kitchen-sinks/33-Cast-Iron-Double-Bowl-Kitchen-Sink-Offset-4397/
The problem with this sink: It was continually scuffed up. We bought stock in the company that makes Barkeepers Friend brand cleanser and was continually scrubbing the scuffs off. We could always make the sink look nice when company was coming but it started scuffing again as soon as we used it. And with 7 kids the kitchen sink isn't just a decoration - it gets used!
When our hardwood was flooded by a freak downpour, we moved this sink to the basement (where we built a little canning kitchen) while we replaced all the hardwood. The sink weighed about 5000 pounds so there was no way we were going to bring it back upstairs when we re-installed the kitchen cabinets and counter tops. So we went shopping...
Sink number two was a black "Granite" sink very much like this one:
http://www.theswancorp.com/index.php?prod=106.
I can't remember for sure if it was made by Swan but I think it was. I put "Granite" in quotes because these sinks are really granite composite sinks. They aren't carved out of one huge chunk of granite- instead they are made of ground up granite mixed with some type of plastic and then molded into a sink. Tamara's sister has a granite sink and really liked it so we thought we would give it a try. We thought black would hide some of the marks that were so common on the old white cast iron sink, and for a while it was a very nice sink. We sold our stock in Barkeepers Friend but before long we noticed the divider between the two bowls was beginning to chip. We love to cook and our favorite pans are our cast iron skillets and dutch oven. And when you need to fill a pan with water and both sinks are full, it sure is handy to balance the pan on the divider between the bowls. So I know we were a little harder on the sink than some people might be, but this was suppose to be rock hard granite that could take any kind of abuse. Then the faucet started breaking so it would not turn from side-to-side. I think this was partly due to boys jumping up and grabbing the faucet when they were not tall enough to reach it. To make matters worse, the faucet had rusted so tightly that I could not get it loose to replace it. So we took that sink out and went shopping again. This sink weighed just a little less than the cast iron one and after grunting and groaning to get it out, we decided to look for lighter options.
And we found this sink:
http://www.frankeusa.com/stainless/osk954bx.html
The bowls were 9 1/2" deep (deeper than any of our other sinks), it looked nice, was much lighter than our other sinks and was easy to install. Everything was great for about 6 weeks until... the bowls popped out and flooded the cabinet below the sink! Instead of being made of a single piece of stainless steel as every other stainless steel sink I have ever seen, this sink was made of three pieces. Each of the bowls were separate pieces and they were glued to the rest of the sink! I couldn't imagine that a company would make a $285 sink that would only last 6 weeks. Surely they had used a bad batch of glue or we got a bad sink that had skipped a step during manufacturing.
We took the sink back to Menards and they assured us that no one had ever had this problem before. So, against better judgement we bought sink number 4 just like sink number 3. Installation was a breeze - the hole in the counter top was perfect and everything was great for about 8 weeks. Until the bowls popped out -again. I might be a fool twice, but I refuse to be a fool three times! So we started looking for another sink.
And we found this one at Lowes:
http://www.lowes.com/pd_102-94094-027OTH115STS_0__?productId=3608968&Ntt=american+standard+sink&pl=1¤tURL=%3FNtt%3Damerican%2Bstandard%2Bsink&facetInfo=
Here is a great video explaining how it is different than any other sink I've seen:
http://webapps.easy2.com/cm_mvc/GenericIndex?page_id=36354381&vid_refer=134621
We have only had this sink for a week, so it is a little early to say this is the perfect sink, but it is pretty close. It has one HUGE bowl instead of two smaller holes. You can't imagine how much space is wasted by the divider between the two bowls in other sinks. We have a couple of 12x20 commercial baking pans we use pretty often. These pans and our largest cookie sheets lay flat in the sink - soaking is so much easier.
The smaller removable bowl is the same size as the bowls in our old sinks, but is easy to slide back and forth as needed. We were afraid that we might use more water since the big bowl is so big, but we almost always just fill up the smaller bowl. Because it has it's own drain, we've even lifted it up and set it on the counter when it was 2/3 full of water and dirty dishes!
The removable bowl and colander both have a black plastic gasket that run around the edges to protect you from the sharp edge and make them slide easily. If anything fails on this sink, it will probably be these gaskets. I will probably try to order replacements just to have them on the shelf in case we need them.
Over all we are very happy with this sink. If you are in the market for a new sink, I would definitely consider this one!
