The best choice of sink
Which sink material is best for you?
When looking for a sink for your new kitchen, you’ll come across three different sink materials. There are sinks made of stainless steel, ceramic sinks and granite sinks, or composite kitchen sinks made of a high proportion of granite and a number of other components. These include Silgranit sinks. This invariably leads you to wonder which sink material is best and right for you?
Which sink material is best and right for you?
It would be great if there were a single answer to that question. However, experience has shown that all three sink materials are proven to be effective, with strengths in different areas. When you think of the plethora of kitchen designs, then style clearly comes into it. Silgranit and ceramic will often chime better with country house-style kitchens than stainless steel sinks. Yet determining which sink is the right one for your kitchen isn’t solely a matter of taste.
If you want to buy the best sink for your home, you have to ask a few more questions. Key things to consider are how you’re going to use the sink bowl, the hardness of the water with which the sink will come into contact, and how easy-care you want your sink to be.
A sink that suits me
You might be a coffee drinker or a tea lover. We all have certain habits that are reflected in our kitchens. Some of these will require extra electrical appliances, while others call for special equipment.
Some of these personal penchants in your kitchen will also have a bearing on your choice of sink. Drinking tea is one such habit, as is regular washing-up by hand, to give just a couple of examples. Both require your sink surface to have certain attributes.
The texture and feel of a sink
The smooth, closed surface of a ceramic sink is fundamentally different from the surface of a polished stainless steel sink or a fine-pored Silgranit surface. Not only are the differences visible to the naked eye, but you can also feel them if you run your hand over the surface. The different textures also have an effect on the warm or cold feel of the material. Ceramic sinks tend to feel much colder than the surface of a Silgranit sink.
What sticks and what runs off
The smoother the sink, the more easily water runs off it. This is particularly important if the water flowing from the mains is hard. The faster water can run into the drain, the less it is able to condense and leave behind a thin limescale coating. This layer of limescale can soon prove irritating, particularly if you have a coloured sink. If your sink is light in colour the residues left by the water will not become apparent for a long time, remaining unnoticed until they are discoloured by teabags or food. Then you might think, “Oh no! My sink’s changed colour!” In actual fact, it’s only the limescale deposits that have absorbed the colour.
Proper care is important
In ceramic sinks it takes a long time for this kind of layer of limescale to build up, as the smooth material offers very little traction, so the water runs off quickly, leaving nothing behind. For this reason, you should clean your ceramic sink regularly with a gentle vinegar-based cleaner to keep it looking like new. However, an elegant dark Silgranit sink in a hard water area will require you to care for the velvety surface texture every day and rub it dry with a microfibre cloth.
Avoid breaking glasses when washing up
There is one disadvantage to perfectly smooth ceramic sinks as opposed to stainless steel and Silgranit: it’s hard. So hard, in fact, that you need to be particularly careful when handling fragile dishes at the sink. While a stainless steel sink is forgiving of little bumps from delicate wineglasses, another sink will cause these to break much more readily.
Time spent cleaning
As we’ve said, how often and how long you’ll need to spend keeping your sink looking like it did on the day it first arrived will depend on the hardness of the water, but also on how easy the material is to look after. How tough can I be on stainless steel without scratching my soft sink surface? The best thing is to opt for Silgranit. Even knives have been sharpened on this surface. You might need to use a sponge every now and then, in the case of stubborn dirt. Don’t clean stainless steel or ceramic too vigorously, as this can scuff the uppermost layer.
