[simplified]

Hello! The only posts I could find on this subject were in the Plumbing forum, but if this should be elsewhere, please let me know.

We bought a house in December, built in 1986 and used for the past 20 years as a care home for supported living. It's in great shape except for a mold problem caused by a perpetual leak around and under the kitchen sink, and a built in dishwasher that clearly had more than one meltdown. What seemed like a minor inconvenience (during the inspection) turned out to be far more serious. The entire kitchen has now been gutted, drywall and insulation removed, framing treated and cleared for mold. The rebuild is about to start. We did NOT want a project house, but here we are.

The original sink is a double bowl porcelain on steel, in pretty good shape, though the original Hudee ring is corroded and crusty. I found that there are replacements still made by Vance, Kohler used to make them as well and discontinued them. The original countertop was formica (particle board backing, not plywood) and the underside was nightmarish (pics attached) after decades of leaks. They installed a new faucet, but the accumulation of the past neglect is very evident.

Am I an idiot to re-use this sink? I really like it, it's part of the house's history, and a new stainless ring is available for this standard size, but am I asking for trouble? We have not decided yet on what material to use for the countertop, I was leaning toward butcher block or even fresh new formica -- we're trying to keep the cost down since we did not anticipate this expense -- but I worry now about the ability to maintain a seal against anything porous. We want the house to be livable, but we are not remodeling or making it into our "dream house", we were happy as it was so we're just trying to get back to that. Solid Surface would certainly be more practical, assuming it's possible to mount this sink into that or some sort of stone, but it seems like the cost of those would be much higher.

Any recommendations on how to successfully re-use this sink would be very much appreciated, I'm sure there are considerations that I haven't thought of yet. Thank you everyone!

 

[SW Dweller]

Nothing wrong with the dated look. I would remove the sink and take it to someone and have the back side bead blasted. ( walnut shells, glass beads or soda)
Get the back side completely clean and then make the decision.

 

[chandler48]

Unless the sink has sentimental value, I would ditch it for a more modern one. It was one of the worst designs put out. As you see from underneath, it was impossible to keep water from infiltrating.

There, now you have two sides of the story, both equitable.

 

[simplified]

Thank you both, I hadn't thought about what the edge of that steel might look like once the old ring is removed. Probably not too good. At the very least, I'll get that completely clean before committing to re-using it. If the integrity of the seal was hard to maintain originally, it'll probably be even less likely to succeed now. I do love the look of this sink and that fact that it's original to the house, but in the interest of not re-creating a problem, maybe this is not the design hill to die on.