Artificial stone kitchen sink

No one ques­tions the pres­ence of a sink in the kitchen, because it is a mul­ti­func­tion­al part of the room. How­ev­er, in addi­tion to work­ing func­tions, the bowl should be easy to use and fit into the inte­ri­or of the room.

If we con­sid­er the evo­lu­tion of such equip­ment, then ele­gant stain­less steel has replaced the Sovi­et enam­eled “mon­sters”, and today prod­ucts from real gran­ite, mar­ble and their ana­logues are becom­ing more com­mon. But, nat­ur­al mate­r­i­al is very expen­sive, but kitchen sinks made of arti­fi­cial stone per­fect­ly imi­tate the nat­ur­al col­or, while main­tain­ing all the func­tions.

What parameters to look at when choosing

Today, the mar­ket is flood­ed with var­i­ous types of kitchen sinks made of arti­fi­cial stone — cheap “ana­logues” and tech­no­log­i­cal copies of brand­ed prod­ucts. How­ev­er, for cheap, it is impos­si­ble to get a real­ly high-qual­i­ty thing. And so that after a short peri­od of time the ques­tion of replac­ing one stone sink in the kitchen with anoth­er does not arise, it is worth­while to be very crit­i­cal in choos­ing a prod­uct. Low-qual­i­ty acrylic stone prod­ucts are easy to dis­tin­guish by such signs.

1. The first thing that should be alarm­ing is the cost below the mar­ket price. Even if the sell­er assures that this is an exact copy of the brand, in com­pli­ance with the man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nol­o­gy. Qual­i­ty implies the use of an appro­pri­ate amount of mate­r­i­al, which in turn is not cheap.
2. Brand­ed prod­ucts also can­not be sold at a low price, and as the sell­er does not assure that this is a sink from the “same fac­to­ry”, such a prod­uct is in any case an ordi­nary copy from cheap raw mate­ri­als. The price of a for­eign-made car wash can reach $2,000, while domes­tic coun­ter­parts are sold in the range of $200–400.
3. The strength of the sink body, its dura­bil­i­ty, as well as sta­bil­i­ty will depend on the com­po­si­tion and pro­por­tion­al ratio of the com­po­nents. Usu­al­ly, arti­fi­cial stone is made from min­er­al chips (gran­ite, mar­ble, quartz) and a binder poly­mer.

Qual­i­ty prod­ucts have a mate­r­i­al com­po­si­tion of 80/20%, where the first com­po­nent is stone, and the sec­ond is binder poly­mers. It is this ratio that gives the sink a prop­er mar­gin of safe­ty, and sta­bil­i­ty when exposed to high tem­per­a­tures.

The most durable will be a sink made from gran­ite chips, also not too infe­ri­or to ana­logues with quartz in the com­po­si­tion. Such sinks can with­stand a drop of an object weigh­ing up to 2 kg from a height of 1.5 meters!

4. Pack­ing qual­i­ty. By the way the prod­uct is pack­aged, you can eas­i­ly under­stand what kind of prod­uct is offered. A real­ly good sink from any well-known man­u­fac­tur­er is wrapped in good card­board, with all the pre­cau­tions against impacts, and the oblig­a­tory man­u­fac­tur­er’s instruc­tions and qual­i­ty mark.
5. Pro­por­tions and work­man­ship. A good sink from the man­u­fac­tur­er has clear con­tour lines, and pro­por­tion­al sizes, defects and errors are very rare for well-known brands.
6. Man­u­fac­tur­er’s con­tact infor­ma­tion. In case of doubt, you can eas­i­ly con­tact the indi­cat­ed con­tacts on the pack­ag­ing, or they must be pro­vid­ed by the sell­er of the goods.

Also, do not for­get that today, in the Inter­net era, it is very easy to find reviews and descrip­tions of well-known brand­ed prod­ucts, by which it is easy to deter­mine the char­ac­ter­is­tic fea­tures of prod­ucts. If there are dif­fer­ences with the store goods, then it is best to refuse to pur­chase.

What are sinks made of?

Kitchen sinks today are made from a vari­ety of mate­ri­als, from steel to nat­ur­al stone. Each prod­uct has its pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive qual­i­ties. But when choos­ing a sink, it is worth con­sid­er­ing all the options.

Artificial analogues of stone

Mor­tise kitchen sinks made of arti­fi­cial stone are pro­duced with a sig­nif­i­cant amount of nat­ur­al stone (mar­ble, quartz, gran­ite) chips and a binder poly­mer, usu­al­ly acrylic resins. They are very durable and can with­stand the rig­ors of the kitchen. Such sinks can be made from var­i­ous mate­ri­als: porce­lain stoneware, syn­gran­ite, fra­gran­ite, crys­tal­lite and oth­ers, they all have one thing in com­mon — it is an arti­fi­cial stone.

Composite

More often they are called acrylic, for their com­po­si­tion. These prod­ucts are made from quartz chips with the addi­tion of binders — poly­ester, acrylic resins, rub­ber, as well as a dye that gives the desired shade and col­or.

The prod­ucts are quite durable and resis­tant to mechan­i­cal stress, but are more sen­si­tive to hot dish­es, which can leave vis­i­ble marks.

Com­pos­ite sinks are glued into the coun­ter­top using a seam­less tech­nol­o­gy, which results in a her­met­ic struc­ture that is inte­gral with the work­ing area of ​​the kitchen.

Ceramics

Ceram­ic sinks are made of earth­en­ware or porce­lain, which are made from white clay, quartz chips and kaolin with some dif­fer­ences in the recipe (adding oth­er mate­ri­als). High-tem­per­a­ture pro­cess­ing gives prod­ucts strength and a high degree of water resis­tance.

Ceram­ic sinks are not as sen­si­tive to tem­per­a­tures or aggres­sive sub­stances as com­pos­ite sinks, but at the same time they can be bro­ken.

A natural stone

Sinks made of gran­ite have a huge mar­gin of safe­ty, and mar­ble sam­ples are slight­ly infe­ri­or to them. Out­ward­ly, such prod­ucts are one piece with a table­top carved from a sin­gle piece of stone.

Mar­ble sink comes in a wide vari­ety of col­ors and shapes. It is easy to match it to the appro­pri­ate kitchen design.

Gran­ite in the inte­ri­or will also look great, as they can be mount­ed any­where in the room.

Con­sid­er the pros and cons of mar­ble kitchen sinks.

Bowls made of nat­ur­al nat­ur­al mate­r­i­al are prac­ti­cal­ly unaf­fect­ed by chem­i­cal com­pounds, impacts, and high tem­per­a­tures. Well-known man­u­fac­tur­ers give a guar­an­tee of 10–15 years for their prod­ucts made from real stone.

How­ev­er, the trans­porta­tion and instal­la­tion of nat­ur­al kitchen sinks requires expe­ri­ence and one can­not do with­out spe­cial­ists.

Positive and negative properties of artificial sinks

Crit­ics often describe the dis­ad­van­tages of mor­tise kitchen sinks made of arti­fi­cial stone: the col­or is not nat­ur­al, they are very sen­si­tive to tem­per­a­ture, they can­not with­stand loads, and oth­ers. How­ev­er, do not con­fuse acrylic prod­ucts with high­er qual­i­ty prod­ucts. Ide­al and “eter­nal” prod­ucts do not exist, and each mate­r­i­al has its own advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages.

Kitchen sinks made of arti­fi­cial stone have such pos­i­tive qual­i­ties.

1. Strength and dura­bil­i­ty. Liv­ing con­di­tions prac­ti­cal­ly can­not harm an arti­fi­cial stone sink, because it is very dif­fi­cult to break it. In addi­tion, high-qual­i­ty prod­ucts from both for­eign and domes­tic man­u­fac­tur­ers are able to with­stand fair­ly high tem­per­a­tures (180–280 degrees) cre­at­ed by the hot sur­faces of uten­sils. And even with the for­ma­tion of chips or scratch­es, the sink can be restored.
2. Since the sink is one piece with the coun­ter­top, there are no gaps or even more pores. As a result, there is no accu­mu­lat­ed or absorbed dirt, and the stone does not have unpleas­ant odors.
3. A long peri­od of oper­a­tion will not affect the col­or of the sink, it does not fade and does not lose its orig­i­nal aes­thet­ic qual­i­ties.
4. A vari­ety of shapes, tex­tures and col­ors allows you to fit the sink into any kitchen design.
5. Stone sinks are bet­ter than stain­less steel because of their quiet­ness.

The dis­ad­van­tages of sinks made of arti­fi­cial stone include the fol­low­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics.

• Con­sid­er­able price. For exam­ple, com­pos­ite types of sinks cost twice as much as high-qual­i­ty stain­less steel sinks. The high cost is due to the high cost of raw mate­ri­als.
• Cheap­er ana­logues made of arti­fi­cial stone do not tol­er­ate high tem­per­a­tures and mechan­i­cal stress very well.
• Sinks com­bined with a work­top with sig­nif­i­cant dam­age will have to be replaced com­plete­ly with the entire lid.
• Quite often come across fakes for orig­i­nal prod­ucts.

Options

The para­me­ters must be select­ed in accor­dance with the size of the kitchen. Large arti­fi­cial stone kitchen sinks with wings and sev­er­al bowls are not very suit­able for instal­la­tion in a small Khrushchev room. In this case, it is bet­ter to pur­chase a cor­ner sink for the kitchen made of oval or round arti­fi­cial stone with one bowl, which will allow you to use the “dead” space of one of the cor­ners of the kitch­enette.

The same applies to the num­ber of bowls, it is more advis­able to buy two or more com­part­ments in case of fre­quent cook­ing in large vol­umes, then it is real­ly con­ve­nient.

If the dimen­sions of the kitchen allow, then you can choose a prod­uct with a dou­ble-sided arrange­ment of wings, a suit­able shape with sev­er­al bowls.

When choos­ing a sink, you need to be guid­ed by the gen­er­al style of the room. With the pre­dom­i­nance of strict rec­ti­lin­ear forms, it is best to pur­chase the same sink, in smooth out­lines a round or oval bowl will look more har­mo­nious.

Mounting methods

There are two designs of sinks made of arti­fi­cial stone, embed­ded, which are mount­ed in an already installed coun­ter­top, and one-piece with a table top. Accord­ing­ly, the tech­nol­o­gy of their instal­la­tion will also dif­fer.

Embed­ded pro­vide the fol­low­ing instal­la­tion steps:

• Instal­la­tion on a sink fas­ten­ers from a deliv­ery set.
• Table­top prepa­ra­tion. An open­ing is cut out in its sur­face to fit the kitchen sink made of arti­fi­cial stone.
• Installing a sink, seal­ing gaps, and fix­ing fas­ten­ers.

Coun­ter­top sinks require expe­ri­ence and are best installed by pro­fes­sion­als.

When installing, you need to fol­low some gen­er­al rules: do not install the sink next to the refrig­er­a­tor and oven, do not place the bowl far from the work area, and also remem­ber that the sink divides the kitchen into two parts, for dirty and clean work.

Equipment

The pres­ence of addi­tion­al pro­tec­tive acces­sories is rel­e­vant when buy­ing cheap­er sinks. In this case, it is best to pur­chase a remov­able mesh bas­ket. It is very con­ve­nient for wash­ing food, but most impor­tant­ly, it will pro­tect the not quite high-qual­i­ty sink bowl from being hit on it.

Also impor­tant will be the pres­ence of var­i­ous coast­ers for hot dish­es, which will pro­tect the bowl from stain­ing.

Even if the pur­chased sink is made by a well-known man­u­fac­tur­er, and with the appro­pri­ate com­po­si­tion of nat­ur­al mate­ri­als, it is worth using such addi­tion­al devices.

How to maintain a sink made of artificial stone

Sinks made of arti­fi­cial stone also need lit­tle main­te­nance, like sim­i­lar stain­less steel coun­ter­parts. It is best not to start the wash­ing ser­vice from the moment of instal­la­tion.

• After use, the bowl must be rinsed with a degreas­ing, non-aggres­sive deter­gent, remov­ing any remain­ing dirt from the bot­tom and walls. The ide­al option would be to wipe the sur­face of the stone dry.
• All pots, pans and bak­ing sheets should only be placed on stands.
• When drain­ing boil­ing water, you should first open a tap with cold water, this will sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce the tem­per­a­ture load on the sur­face of the bowl.

Also, do not neglect the man­u­fac­tur­er’s rec­om­men­da­tions dur­ing oper­a­tion.

The select­ed high-qual­i­ty kitchen sink made of arti­fi­cial stone, with prop­er instal­la­tion and care, will last its war­ran­ty peri­od with­out any prob­lems.