New Kitchen Sink – What’s best?

MRSTITTLEMOUSE

I have a ceramic butler sink,but I don't wash dishes in it,only veg otherwise I would'nt even of considered it.I did have a cream composite sink,it was a nightmare.After a few months I had to bleach it daily to keep it stainfree.I think stainless steel is your best option for durability.

dannahaz

I've had all all three types in this house. When we first had the kitchen fitted we had a composite sink, in a dark grey mottled colour. It was fine for a while, but we live in a hard water area and it got more and more manky over time.

I then changed it for a gorgeous Franke stainless steel sink. Absolutely beautiful. Very durable. But it was a nightmare to keep looking good. I was forever scrubbing it trying to get the watermarks off. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't difficult to clean - it was very easy. It just needed cleaning ALL the time because of the watermarks. My uncle had one, and his was perfect, Turned out whenever he used it (even to fill the kettle) he would wipe it round with a cloth then with a dry tea towel. I tried that, but we didn't keep it up. I would NEVER have another stainless steel sink.

My third sink is a beautiful white ceramic sink. This also stains a little, but a bit of Barkeepers Friend gets the stains out. If I put something scratchy in - like a colander with metal feet - then I get small silver scratch marks, which come out easily with Barkeepers Friend. But this is the sink I would recommend. It looks good nearly all the time.

It's called a Sonnet, and is imported. The prices vary enormously, I got mine online at a big discount. You can get all sorts of combinations, single, double/1.5 with/without drainer. We wanted double plus drainer, and we had to wait a long time because that particular combination is not very popular in the UK, so we had to wait for it to be made and then imprted. But it was worth it.

Don't confuse "ceramic" with "enamel". A lot of the old butler sinks are enamel not ceramic, and these are the ones that tend to have the brown staining from the water dripping,

Hope that helps.

Buffy_the_Vampire_Bat

In our current (rented) house we have a plastic sink and I really don't like it. It's white (or at least it was until stained by previous tenants), and scratched and marked (it looks as though a previous tenant had a habit of putting dishes and pots straight out of the oven into the sink and melted the plastic in places as a consequence). Had a stainless steel sink in the kitchen in our previous house which I much preferred.

However, the current plastic sink is the only thing I don't like about the house so I can live with it for now!

dND

Thanks everyone for your thoughts. :A

I think I'll go for a new version of the ceramic sink I have already - it's similar to the Sonnet one danahaz mentioned.

Stainless would probably be more long lasting but the water here is very hard and I don't want (not the worlds best housewife :rolleyes:) to have to mop up every time I use it.

Many thanks again for you experiences:T

Deborah