What type of sink shall I choose?
There is no one right or wrong answer here. Taste and lifestyle will make customers lean more one way or another. In summery the ongoing battle between undermount and top mount sink types, it must be said that sit-on sinks probably win in terms of absolute practicality when it comes to water handling and cost.
A drainer attached to a sit on sink will drain much better than the grooves that are cut into the worktop that go with an under-mounted sink. Although we router out grooves for drainage into your worktop at a slight slope we cannot slope nowhere near enough to really drain the water efficiently into your sink, they are mainly for aesthetic and they help prevent your freshly washed glasses aquaplaning off the edge of the worktop, but they are not practical for drainers.
The two main points you need to consider are:
Drainage – Undermounts type sinks may lose out marginally against a traditional top mounted/ Drop-in style sink in this area as the drainer in a top mounted sink is physically moulded into the sink and hold the water in and off the worktop. However, for an addition cost you may opt to have a recessed drainer added to the undermount style sinks to address the drainage issue. This is where we router out an area of the worktop to create a sunken area to drain the water into the sink.
Aesthetic – Undermounted sinks Win here in our opinion, With the sink fitted underneath it gives very clean lines and really displays the beauty of a Granite, Quartz or Ceramic worktops. They look stylish and uncluttered as there is nothing sitting on the surface of the stone. Also, Family and friends will know that you have “top of the range” worktops as you cannot have under-mounted sinks with “laminate “or “formica” worktops! Undermounted sinks are the most popular option when it comes to choosing sinks for quartz and granite worktops
We feel that top mounted sinks come into their own where a significant amount of washing up is done the traditional way. Where water-handling is paramount, that old fashioned top mounted tray helps catch it and direct it to the drain. Down sides can be keeping the strip to the back clean and dry, although this is not as critical with stone worksurfaces as it is with cheap wood or laminates.
With a top mounted sink, the hole into the sink is the sink itself – you cannot see the cut-out in in the worktop. The edges do not have to be polished, and so the hole for the sink is referred to as an unpolished cut-out.
With an undermount sink, the hole into the sink is the hole in the worktop. The edges must therefore be polished and thus the hole is referred to as a polished sink cut-out.