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Anyone have any experiences with acrylic sinks?

I'm trying to locate a nice, deep, single bowl kitchen sink. The pain is locating one that will fit. I think that I've found one that is dimensionally correct, but it's acrylic. Seems that every material has its pluses and minuses...

This is what I located (thanks to someone who posted a link to this site):

http://www.efaucets.com/detail.asp?Product_Id=15-1-00#

I was just at a friends house who replaced his sink with one of these. Same as you like, very deep, single bowl. He did replace the sink cabinet also but doesn't like the sink. I saw why. The sink bottom was showing signs of wear. Looked like scrapes and cuts. He lives alone and is a neat nick so imagine it with some abuse. Seems the bottom would
look dirty after awhile. I am sacrficing the depth for a new stainless to replace my enamel. Only place I can find one without faucet openings was from a mobile home supply company called Blevins. All local MH suppliers dd not carry them.I am not ready to replace my cabiets to accomadate a normal size sink.

I would only use a stainless in the kitchen, just for the fact of the nicks & chips. It may take some work but I am sure you can find one that fits.

Greg

We have a double bowl acrylic sink in our home. It has a flat finish and we like ours with 1 caveat, you must keep a sink bottom protector in it. I think the only endearing quality about it though is that it is quiet and not tingy. That's our only dislike really about metal sinks though you can pay for the extra undercoating to combat that. Other than that, spray it down with bleach water every once in a while to get it white again is about the only maintenance it requires.

I've managed to find TWO sinks that match my requirements, both from the same manufacturer! I didn't think I was THAT picky! Anyway... what are folks' thoughts on these?

http://www.homewarehq.com/Whitehaus-30- ... a3016.aspx
http://www.homewarehq.com/Whitehaus-30- ... b3016.aspx
I'm thinking that the first one doesn't really provide the advantage of a single bowl by splitting up like that. The second one provides a bigger area for dealing with large stuff, but it positions the faucet (and whatever else you want to plumb in) over to one side (right side), which I'm figuring would require a large swivel faucet.

While on this basic subject of kitchen sinks, what do people think of the faucet+sprayer combo faucets? I'm thinking that the "L" shaped sink would require a sprayer in order to properly rinse stuff (larger part of the bowl to the other side of where the faucet goes).

NOTE: I computed the sink volume and it's roughly double the volume of our current sink.

Wow, both those are nice, so glad once again I found this forum. I could use more sink room, but don't think I will be doing it any time soon with prices like that... I'm cheap. LOL Maybe I need to visit a mobile home salvage yard.

I gauge on value, value as pertains to how important something is and how much it's used.

Our current sink is just slightly more functional than "useless." Lots of time is wasted juggling stuff around. At just 5" deep it's nearly impossible to wash pots: it's hard for my diminutive wife to be shifting them all over in order to clean them.

My wife is old-school Filipina, no spend-thrift is she. If she's complaining then I don't give it a second thought to replace: I find other ways to cut expenditures to accommodate. It wasn't until quite some time after I'd been complaining that she finally said that she'd like it replaced: we've only been in this place for about 11 months.

If you think that these sinks are expensive you should see the stuff that I ran across while doing this search. I saw sinks in excess of $2,500, and it wasn't even "custom!" For the most part these sinks didn't offer any more functionality than the ones I'm considering.

mdnagel,

We recently faced this question and have also decided to get a deeper, single-basin sink for our upcoming kitchen remodel. We're tired of the puny 6" depth and split basins that nothing big will fit into. We were all set to go acrylic, but then I stumbled upon another, seemingly far better option - solid surface, ie essentially the same stuff used in solid surface countertops. It's FAR more durable and impact/scratch resistant than acrylic, and the price is comparable. There are several companies that make these, and so far, all I have found are made in the U.S.A., which is always a bonus for us. Here's what we're getting:

http://www.swanstone.com/index.php?prod=101

It comes in many different colors. You would be advised though to seek out a local dealer who has samples of the material in stock, as we found the actual material color/pattern differed significantly from what we saw on the web site. We found that www.plumbersstock.com has the best pricing, though local hardware stores (including Home Depot and Lowe's) were comparable for the common colors like white or bone. The only drawback is that the faucet will be offset one hole (4") to the right if you need a standard 3-hole mount. Our new faucet is a single hole, so will be right in the middle.

FWIW, we put in an acrylic sink, and we like it. It does get some coffee staining, but it bleaches out. We bought it at a yard sale for $45 which is about 90% off retail. It hung around for about a year before it got installed. Same with the tile, $5 for all of it and we have that much left over, again, it hung around about 1 1/2 yrs before being used (we like yard sales). The cabinets we got at the re-store all of them about $500 (more not shown), and the flooring was on sale for less than $1/sq.ft. Did I mention I was a cheapskate?

Aaron, thanks for the suggestion. We'd looked at these, and while we liked them, they won't fit our current cabinetry

Jim, we'd love to be able to replace the cabinets (could have gotten a standard sink!), but have so many other pressing priorities... (hot water tank is on the horizon- 12 years old; just had a circuit wired in for electric)

We ordered the Whitehaus sink that places the faucet in the center.

Nothing exciting here, not fancy (old cabinets still). Just wanting to conclude my episode, and to show a couple of pics in case they'd be of use to someone contemplating a sink replacement.

That may be the nicest stainless sink I've ever seen! Thanks for the update, it looks great.

It's pretty decent. But, there's many more out there that are nicer (but would not fit). As previously noted, this, and a slightly different model from the same manufacturer were the ONLY sinks that would work (that were single bowl). Ended up getting a rack for the bottom as well (that was a non-essential purchase, though hopefully it'll protect the bottom from getting all scratched up).

Here is the sink I'm putting in our place:


I think it's fiberglass, but, not really sure, got it for $18 at Habitat's Restore. It's got a nick here and there, but, we needed a sink ASAP, and, with all that needs to be do to the place, can't afford something new at the moment. We wanted to try the three basin sink style, has anyone installed one of these? The outside basins are 8" deep.

Jerry

mdnagel wrote:It's pretty decent. But, there's many more out there that are nicer (but would not fit). As previously noted, this, and a slightly different model from the same manufacturer were the ONLY sinks that would work (that were single bowl). Ended up getting a rack for the bottom as well (that was a non-essential purchase, though hopefully it'll protect the bottom from getting all scratched up).

I'm just curious why exactly a larger sink wouldn't fit. Are your cabinets not as deep (front to back) as standard, did you just want a sink that would drop into your existing countertop hole, or the existing hole was too far forward for a larger sink to fit?

I think our cabinets are more or less standard, measuring 23.5" from the back wall the the back side of the face frame (so 24.25" to the front of the face). Our countertops are the standard 25.5" front to back. We're using a tile backsplash, so I'm subtracting 1/2" for that. Our new sink is 33" x 22" instead of the 33" x 19" sink we now have. It's a close fit with our cabinets, but it will fit, and while still centering the sink on the counterop front to back.