I have a 20 year old house with tile counter tops. The problem came up of how to replace the sinks without a lot of “collateral damage”. The bathroom sinks were pretty much straight forward; cut out the old units with a “sawsall’, drop in new lip type units & secure with silicon adhesive. The kitchen sink was problematic because due to restricted space a lip type unit wouldn’t fit. But using a Fein Multimaster & abrasive saw blade I was able to undercut the adjacent quarter rounds replacing them with new tiles cut to fit. Without looking carefully,you can’t tell it was replaced. We accidentally broke the 2” ABS drain line 4′ downstream however. Since the break could only be accessed through the plywood of an external wall,the Multimaster performed a “surgical cut” (thin kerf,1/2″ penetration)to gain entrance to the work area.All the “anglestops” were replaced using the Multimaster to nip off 1/8″ of the old stubs so the new units would fit using the old compression rings. The Multimaster is an expensive tool to be sure, but it sure paid for itself on this project!
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Not questioning the many wonderful uses for a MM.....but I can't recall EVER having to "cut" a sink out.
What types of sinks were these, and how were they installed?
J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
Pp, Qq
The "tile ins" were a popular way of installing sinks in Northern California about 20 years ago. You'll see a lot of houses of this particular vintage with "bad sinks". The reason being is that no "self respecting" contractor will touch them for fear of liability suits. Imaginine taking a hammer & chisel to some old discontinued tile and you get the genarel idea. Even the guy I worked with said he would'nt have taken this on if I had'nt removed the tile first. I took this line of attack out of sheer desperation, that it turned out so well doubles my satisfaction. Plus the fact I didn't have to invest heavily in some rather unneccessary remodeling. I hope this answers your question.
I suppose....maybe its a regional thing.
But in 20 plus years of kitchen and bath remodels, I don't recall ever seeing it.
Then again, most of the homes I rehab are closer to the 100 yr. mark.
J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
Pp, Qq
One of the reasons I offered this advice is that remodeling can be such a slippery slope. To keep some of the original design elements of a house I think is desirable; to add, for example, a marble countertop in the kitchen of a house conceived during the 1980s is risky. Not only does it detract from some original design elements, but in the end it may look like a "country job". To redo the countertops in tile would seem counterintuitive since the cabinets would then beg to be replaced and so on. What I have done in effect is to defer that decision, since when the new sinks go bad I probably won't be living here anymore. And that will be someone elses problem.