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PLUMBING ANSWERS - SPECIFIC TO FIXTURE => Kitchen Sink | Dishwasher | Garbage Disposal => Topic started by: DUNBAR PLUMBING on January 24, 2019, 09:36:30 PM
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Customer called us out to a job in Independence Kentucky in the Hartland Subdivision on Heartland Boulevard for 'leak under kitchen sink' that another plumber was paid to hook up/connect and tried to resolve the issue with no result. This kitchen sink was a single bowl, trough design made out of porcelain. Porcelain is a good product but sometimes what happens is the surface or surfaces get messed up/out of plane. We found this out on this sink when the sink strainer was tightly installed to the sink and was still leaking. Plumber's putty was used initially by the plumber but we do not recommend plumber's putty. 100% silicone is what we use as it is resilient to water completely and no chance of it ever breaking down.
The picture identifies from the underside that where the sink strainer is about to be attached to is uneven. Given the delicate nature of porcelain, there's only a very small limited amount of variance between the sink strainer and no flexibility of the porcelain at all.
The fix:
Replacing the porcelain trough sink was not feasible to correct the problem in this case. I recommended to the customer that I could remove all the plumber's putty that was used, clean up the basket strainer and reinstall the strainer utilizing a large amount of silicone caulk to make a large gasket out of the material. This method was utilized and the silicone squeezed out of both the top and bottom making up for the imperfections in the surface of the porcelain sink. Given the limited options of resolving this problem, anything else would be extensive to replace the sink and grinding a flat surface into the flanged part of the sink would of lead to the chance of damaging the smooth porcelain surface.
Customer was satisfied with the repair and we expressed the necessity to make sure that no water was poured into the drain system for at least two to three hours. Enough time to let the silicone caulk set up and be effective in this plumbing repair. The picture below shows where the daylight was peaking through where the imperfect surface of the sink's flange area was.