Do-it-yourself kitchen sink installation

Part of the over­all repair that you can do your­self is installing a sink in the kitchen. Depend­ing on the choice of prod­uct, the instal­la­tion of the sink can be eas­i­er or more dif­fi­cult, but the com­fort of using it depends on the accu­ra­cy of all instal­la­tion steps.

Overview of sinks

There are sev­er­al cri­te­ria for choos­ing a kitchen sink. These include the func­tion­al­i­ty of the sink, the type of instal­la­tion and the com­pat­i­bil­i­ty of the mod­el with the design of the kitchen. When deter­min­ing the func­tion­al char­ac­ter­is­tics, you need to pay atten­tion to the fol­low­ing:

1. The capac­i­ty of the bowl is deter­mined by your own requests. If the fam­i­ly is large and you have to wash large vol­umes of food and large pots, then the host­ess will need a sink with a large and deep bowl.
2. Con­ve­nient mod­els with over­flow — an addi­tion­al hole on the edge of the bowl. Such a sink will nev­er get too much water, and when immersed in dish­es, liq­uid will not splash out over the edge.
3. The vol­ume of simul­ta­ne­ous manip­u­la­tions will deter­mine the num­ber of bowls. The indus­try pro­duces both sin­gle sinks and more com­plex sys­tems con­sist­ing of 2–4 com­part­ments. Often the sink also has 1–2 wings for dry­ing dish­es.
4. The strength of the mate­r­i­al or coat­ing is cho­sen depend­ing on the abil­i­ty to change the shell after a short peri­od of time. Enam­elled steel sinks are cheap, but quick­ly fail due to enam­el chips, while nick­el-plat­ed sinks can last much longer, although they are more expen­sive.

Installing the sink in the kitchen can be done in dif­fer­ent ways. Accord­ing to the type of instal­la­tion, there are:

• over­head sink, which com­plete­ly cov­ers the coun­ter­top of a sep­a­rate pedestal;
• mor­tise, built into the recess of the com­mon coun­ter­top;
• an inte­grat­ed bowl, i.e., con­sti­tut­ing a sin­gle sur­face with a coun­ter­top.

When choos­ing a mod­el suit­able for the inte­ri­or of the kitchen, pay atten­tion to the mate­r­i­al, col­or and shape of the prod­uct.

The choice of a sink accord­ing to these cri­te­ria depends on the com­fort of the host­ess, who will have to spend time in the kitchen, on the hygiene of the coat­ing or the instal­la­tion method. The com­pat­i­bil­i­ty of the mate­r­i­al with oth­er inte­ri­or details also mat­ters: a shiny nick­el-plat­ed sink will look spec­tac­u­lar with oth­er sim­i­lar details, and in a kitchen designed in a sin­gle col­or scheme, it is bet­ter to put a paint­ed mod­el of a suit­able shade.

Neighborhood of a sink and other equipment

The sink should be installed so that there is at least 40 cm between it and oth­er kitchen appli­ances. In prac­tice, this is dic­tat­ed not by con­ve­nience, but by safe­ty con­sid­er­a­tions: by plac­ing a refrig­er­a­tor next to the sink, the apart­ment own­ers risk get­ting an elec­tric shock or caus­ing a short cir­cuit as a result of water enter­ing the elec­tri­cal appli­ance. Between the refrig­er­a­tor and the stove, it is rec­om­mend­ed to install a cab­i­net with a work sur­face (table­top), on which food from the refrig­er­a­tor is laid out before pro­cess­ing.

Ergonom­ics rules in the kitchen are advised to fol­low the tri­an­gle rule, i.e., place work points (stove, sink, cut­ting table) so that they form a tri­an­gle with sides no more than 1 m. In a small kitchen with fur­ni­ture placed along 1 wall, the stove next to the sink turns out to be not the most con­ve­nient option. The best loca­tion of the sink and stove on the sides of the cut­ting table. Its length does not exceed 60 cm.

Some­times the sink is placed in the cor­ner mod­ule of the kitchen set. This arrange­ment is con­ve­nient in that it helps to ful­fill the tri­an­gle rule. When choos­ing the cor­ner loca­tion of the sink, leave a dis­tance between the sink and the refrig­er­a­tor or stove. Between these work­ing points put mod­ules with coun­ter­tops.

Cabinet assembly

Stan­dard mod­els from the kitchen set are easy to assem­ble on your own. When assem­bling the cab­i­net for the sink, you need to check the com­plete­ness of the prod­uct:

• 2 side­walls;
• facade;
• bot­tom;
• 2 stiff­en­ing bars;
• acces­sories.

Depend­ing on the deliv­ery, the sink cab­i­net may also have a back wall. Often, the kit includes fas­ten­ers for a sur­face sink.

The con­nec­tion of parts is car­ried out on self-tap­ping screws and cor­ners, screw­ing fas­ten­ers from the inside of the pan­els. Install stiff­en­ers at the top to con­nect the side walls and get an open space in place of the coun­ter­top. When installing a free-stand­ing sink (con­sign­ment note) on the walls, you need to attach the brack­ets from the kit. For mor­tise mod­els, the cab­i­net is used as part of the com­mon base of a sin­gle coun­ter­top. The doors are hung on fur­ni­ture mor­tise hinges after the head­set is assem­bled.

At the cor­ner mod­ule, the stiff­ness con­nec­tions are arranged dif­fer­ent­ly. In most cas­es, they can be installed on the front and one side. When assem­bling cor­ner sets, you must fol­low the instruc­tions for the prod­uct.

Overhead sink installation

Depend­ing on the mod­el of the prod­uct, the instal­la­tion of the over­head sink on the pedestal can be done in dif­fer­ent ways:

1. If the cab­i­net has fas­ten­ers in the kit, then the instal­la­tion is car­ried out on them. To do this, mark the mount­ing loca­tion of the brack­et on the inside of the side­wall, screw the screws into the attach­ment points, and then hang the brack­et. Self-tap­ping screws should not be ful­ly tight­ened. Put the sink on the pedestal and move the mount along the mount­ing hole. In this case, the head of the self-tap­ping screw should enter the bend of the hole, and the sink should be pressed against the end of the side­wall of the pedestal. After installing the fas­ten­er in the desired posi­tion, the screws should be tight­ened.
2. If there are no fas­ten­ers, and the sink has sides bent down, then you can install the over­head sink with your own hands with a sealant mount. To do this, apply sil­i­cone to the ends of the side­walls, install the sink and press it with a load for 24 hours. When the adhe­sive lay­er sets, the sink will secure­ly con­nect to the base. If nec­es­sary, self-tap­ping screws can be screwed into the mount­ing holes on the sides, if any.
3. Do-it-your­self instal­la­tion option — on a sup­port made of bars. When the cab­i­net is very dif­fer­ent in height, and the fix­tures are not suit­able for the select­ed mod­el, you can make the sup­port your­self. The dimen­sions of the struc­ture should make it pos­si­ble to fix the over­head sink. The bars are mount­ed using self-tap­ping screws on the inside of the side walls of the cab­i­net, and the instal­la­tion height is adjust­ed so that the edges of the bowl are at the lev­el of the coun­ter­tops of neigh­bor­ing mod­ules.

Installation of a mortise sink

Before installing the sink in the coun­ter­top, you need to make a recess under it. To do this, use the tem­plate attached to the sink, or trace the out­line of the sides and bowl, turn­ing the prod­uct over. When mark­ing, you need to leave that part of the coun­ter­top intact, which will be under the side, and cut out only the con­tour cor­re­spond­ing to the bowl of the sink.

For saw­ing, a hole is drilled into which the jig­saw blade will be placed. It is advis­able to drill inside the con­tour to be removed. So it will be pos­si­ble to achieve an even cut along the entire con­tour of the recess. A jig­saw file is placed in the hole and a recess for the bowl is care­ful­ly cut out, try­ing to fol­low the con­tour as clear­ly as pos­si­ble.

The edges of the hole for the sink must be filed and sand­ed. Put the bowl and check the accu­ra­cy of the notch: with a cor­rect­ly made cut, the sides fit snug­ly against the coun­ter­top. Care­ful­ly cov­er the saw cut with sil­i­cone sealant and dry the coun­ter­top.

Install taps in the coun­ter­top and bring flex­i­ble hoses to them. Apply a lay­er of sealant to the edge of the recess before installing the mor­tise sink. To seal the joint, you can use the gas­kets that come with the sink. Lay the sink on the coun­ter­top, tight­en the fas­ten­ing bolts from the bot­tom side using the algo­rithm:

• first, those that are locat­ed diag­o­nal­ly on the prod­uct;
• after that — fas­ten­ings in the mid­dle of its sides.

When tight­en­ing along the con­tour of the sides, excess sealant may be squeezed out. It must be wiped with a rag, and too wide a gas­ket can be cut off with a sharp knife.

Installation of an integrated sink

It is more dif­fi­cult to install a built-in sink qual­i­ta­tive­ly than a mor­tise option. For a good result, you need an accu­rate mark­ing of the con­tour of the side and the bowl, so be sure to use the tem­plate for the prod­uct. The cut under the bowl is done in the same way as in the pre­vi­ous case.

Installing a kitchen sink below the lev­el of the coun­ter­top requires a recess and under the sides of the prod­uct. It will be pos­si­ble to make them with the help of a seam cut­ter, choos­ing a part of the table­top mate­r­i­al along the con­tour of the sides. This achieves the effect of deep­en­ing the prod­uct into the sur­face. The depth of the recess is deter­mined by the thick­ness of the rim.

After remov­ing a quar­ter, sil­i­cone is applied to the edges of the recess, the bowl is insert­ed into the recess­es and fixed with clamps. It is nec­es­sary to tight­en the clamps, start­ing with the cor­ner ones locat­ed diag­o­nal­ly on the rec­tan­gu­lar sink, or oppo­site each oth­er if it is round­ed.

Corner sink: installation features

For instal­la­tion in a cor­ner mod­ule, bowls of var­i­ous shapes can be used. Man­u­fac­tur­ers also pro­duce spe­cial over­head prod­ucts with sides, the con­tour of which cor­re­sponds to the stan­dard dimen­sions of the cor­ner pedestal. There are also mor­tise options suit­able only for instal­la­tion in the cor­ner seg­ment of the head­set.

When installing a cor­ner sink, the same prin­ci­ples apply as when installing sim­ple vari­eties. But there are also dif­fer­ences:

• the instal­la­tion of the tap is car­ried out in the far cor­ner, so it is bet­ter to install it and con­nect the flex­i­ble pip­ing before attach­ing the sink;
• when buy­ing an invoice mod­el, you should make sure that its size and shape cor­re­spond to the exist­ing cor­ner cab­i­net;
• a rec­tan­gu­lar sink will have to be placed diag­o­nal­ly on the cor­ner seg­ment, so you need to care­ful­ly align its cen­ter lines and diag­o­nals.

For a beau­ti­ful posi­tion of the bowl in the cen­ter of the mod­ule, before instal­la­tion, you need to mark the coun­ter­top. Straight lines con­nect the oppo­site cor­ners on the left and right, as well as the far cor­ner and the cen­ter of the front bar. Along these lines, you can align the posi­tion of round­ed and rec­tan­gu­lar sinks.

How to choose and independently install a faucet for a kitchen sink?

When choos­ing a mix­er, you need to pay atten­tion to the height of the tap. Too high when used will cre­ate a lot of spat­ter. It is dif­fi­cult to wash large dish­es under a low faucet. Kitchen faucets can have a flex­i­ble hose with a noz­zle.

The faucet can be mount­ed sep­a­rate­ly, in the coun­ter­top next to the mor­tise or inte­grat­ed sink. On the side of the over­head mod­els, stan­dard holes for the mix­er are pro­vid­ed. The low­er part of the device is placed in the hole, where flex­i­ble hoses for hot and cold water are con­nect­ed. Fas­ten­ing is car­ried out accord­ing to the instruc­tions for the mix­er mod­el.

Required Tools

To make holes and install a sink, you will need the fol­low­ing tools:

• drill;
• jig­saw;
• a set of screw­drivers and drills;
• pli­ers;
• file and sand­pa­per;
• long ruler or tape mea­sure;
• sil­i­cone sealant.

For the instal­la­tion of inte­grat­ed mod­els, you need a hand router with a rebate noz­zle.