5 Mistakes to Avoid When Buying a Workstation Sink

I've spent 27 years designing sinks and 22 before that as a kitchen designer, and in that time I've handled, inspected, and taken apart more sinks than I can count. So when people ask me how to tell a well made workstation sink from a dressed up one, I don't have to guess. I've seen the difference up close.

The workstation sink category exploded after I introduced the concept in 2010. That's a good thing for homeowners in a lot of ways. More competition, more price points, more accessories. But it also means the market got flooded with sinks that borrow the language of 'workstation' without any of the engineering behind it. Here's how to spot the most common workstation sink mistakes before you buy

1. Wooden accessories

If the cutting board or ledge accessories that come with your sink are wood, ask a simple question before you buy: what's the warranty on them? Not on the sink. On the wood itself.

Wood and water don't get along long term. It warps, it cracks, it holds bacteria in the grain no matter how well you oil it, and it needs constant maintenance to look decent after a year of daily use.

I don't sell wood accessories for this reason. We use high molecular weight HDPE, the same category of material used in professional food service, because it doesn't warp, doesn't stain, and is dishwasher safe. Ours carries a three-year warranty against staining. Ask any manufacturer selling wood accessories what they'll do for you if the board cracks or blackens in eighteen months. The answer tells you everything. That all being said, the one exception is decorative use only, never as a working surface. For example, I have one. The most I ever use it is when I'm cutting up cheese and placing crackers on it, and I use it for serving hors d'oeuvres.

2. A protective covering for the bottom of the bowl

Pay attention to whether the sink ships with, or the manufacturer offers, a protective mat or covering specifically for the bottom of the bowl. On the surface it looks like a thoughtful accessory. In practice, it's a tell.

If a company feels the need to protect the bottom of the sink from day one, that's because the finish scratches easily and those scratches are difficult or impossible to buff out once they happen. A properly finished, properly gauged sink shouldn't need a permanent shield just to survive a stack of dishes. Think about it. How can you wash a huge grid, and worse yet, if it is a sheet metal grid, how do you rinse out the sink? These are things that are rarely thought about until it is too late. None of our sinks require grids. Our 316L hand finished stainless steel sinks can be made to look new in minutes, simply using a ScotchBrite sponge.

3. A center, left, or right drain

This one is simple. If the sink has a drain positioned center, left, or right instead of a rear corner drain, what you're looking at is a reversible, off the shelf design. It's built to fit either side of a cabinet layout, which means it wasn't built around your kitchen. It was built to fit as many kitchens as possible with the least amount of tooling.

A true custom workstation sink is designed around your workflow, your cabinet base, and how you actually use the space, not around what's easiest to manufacture in volume. The rear corner drain isn't a style choice. It's what makes the entire usable floor of the sink actually usable.

4. A flange used as the top step for accessories

This is the seam problem a flange-style sink creates over time.

Some sinks rely on a flange, essentially a ledge that sits on top of the counter, as the mounting surface for accessories. The problem is what that flange sits against: caulk. Caulk breaks down. It discolors, it separates, it grows mold, and eventually it needs to be redone. Every time that seam between the sink and the counter is compromised, you've got a maintenance problem and a hygiene problem in one of the wettest spots in your kitchen.

While you're looking at the top of the sink, don't stop there. Measure the bottom of the bowl too. I've seen sinks advertised at 18 inches wide that taper down to 16 inches or less by the time you reach the working floor of the bowl. If you're upgrading from an existing sink, that taper can mean your new "bigger" sink is actually smaller than what you're replacing once you account for the accessories sitting inside it.

5. Too many workstation accessories

Three years ago I remodeled my own kitchen and put a 60 inch workstation sink in my island. I asked our artisans to build me one of everything we offer, every accessory, because I wanted to test something. For years, customers switching to us from other brands had told me the same thing over and over, and I wanted to see if they were right.

They were. The marketing photos, the food styled perfectly, the accessories all laid out, and the polished videos - all of it looks great until you actually live with it. Customer after customer told me the same story. Most of those accessories got used once or twice, or a few times a year at most. The bowl and colander pieces looked wonderful in photos, but in real life they were almost always the wrong size for the task at hand. Think about your own kitchen. You probably already own more than one bowl and more than one colander, in different sizes, because one size never covers everything you need.

My experience matched theirs exactly. Three years later, most of those accessories sit in storage, taking up cabinet space I'd rather use for something else. When every accessory is built to do one thing, you end up needing a lot of them and somewhere to put them when they're not in use. It's also cheaper to build many of these accessories. Stamping out hundreds of single-purpose pieces costs a manufacturer less than engineering one that does the job of six or nine, and that's exactly why most of the market hasn't bothered.

That's the problem I set out to solve with our multi-use grid. It's not a drying rack. It replaces six to nine other accessories with one. And our patent-pending Culinary Dock™ holds two of our three main accessories while taking up only an inch of bowl space, so there's nothing extra to find room for in your cabinetry. As a former kitchen designer, I know how valuable cabinet space is, and you shouldn't have to sacrifice a drawer or two worth of it just to own a workstation sink.

This is what a well-designed sink should look like.

The bottom line

None of these five things are accidents. They're the direct result of design decisions made to cut cost, simplify manufacturing, or move a sink through production faster. A workstation sink is supposed to solve problems, not create new ones five years down the road. Before you buy, look past the marketing photos and check these five things for yourself. The sink will tell you the truth even when the listing doesn't.