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Kitchen sink drain hole: Center, center back, left or right?

lattegirl1
14 years ago

Where is your kitchen/prep sink drain hole? What is your experience with where it is?

Comments (7)

  • morgne
    14 years ago

    Mine is center back. I love myself!

  • mikespringer
    14 years ago

    Most new sinks have them towards the back. Most older in the middle. This makes a retrofit a pain because some newer sinks are 8-10 inches deep. The drain lines often need to be reworked by a plumber $$$

  • lattegirl1
    Original Author
    14 years ago

    Mikespringer: where do you recommend the drain hole to be? Also, all the depths are so confusing, what is the ideal depth?

  • friedajune
    14 years ago

    The term is "offset drain" (i.e. not in the center), and it offers a couple of advantages. It allows you to set down, e.g., a roasting pan to soak, without covering the drain hole. Also, it allows more room under the sink for storage, trash, whatever, because your plumbing and disposal are not smack-dab in the center.

    I don't quite agree with Mikespringer. Typically what causes the plumbing to need to be retrofit from an older sink is the depth of the new sink (plus countertop which adds about an inch). Older sinks might be 6 or 7 inches deep, and as Mike said, newer sinks tend to be 8-9+" deep plus a thicker countertop than, say, formica was. Also, newer disposals tend to be bigger than the older ones. That means your older plumbing outlet position out of the wall could be too high. But moving the sink's drain hole 2-3 inches from the center of the sink to the back isn't as disruptive. I had an older shallow sink with a center drain that I replaced with a 9" deep sink with an offset drain in the rear right. Luckily, my plumbing didn't need any changes, even with the added depth of the sink, thicker countertop and big disposal. It just depends on your setup.

    I really like my sink's offset drain hole in the rear right. But it is more common to find sinks' offset drains in the rear center which is fine too. So I wouldn't worry if the drain is offset center or offset right; just having it offset is an advantage. There's only a few sinks I know of that are offset to the right, which are the Blancodiamond Supersingle in Silgranit (very large sink), the Elkay Elumina, some of the Shaws fireclay sinks and the Rachiele sinks. But you can easily find quite a number of sinks at all price points with an offset drain rear center.

  • weedmeister
    14 years ago

    I think 'bottom' is a good location. Beyond that, I have no real preference.

  • chris45ny
    14 years ago

    My Blanco Precis super single sink drain is center back. Works fine for me.