Commercial sink buying guide
A commercial sink for use in a catering business is a fairly uncomplicated purchase in the majority of cases. Without variation these are stainless steel, which is by far and away the most appropriate material to use in a back of house environment, being the most durable and easiest to clean. Aside from this, however, there are a few other factors to bear in mind.
Sink configuration and dimensions
The primary considerations for your commercial sink purchase are configuration and dimensions. Assess the workspace to see how much room you have, primarily the width available. Sinks stocked by Catering Appliance Superstore have an industry standard height of 900mm and if you have other "off the shelf" units or professionally fitted worksurfaces they will be the same height in the vast majority of cases. However, check the depth of your worksurfaces as our commercial sinks can be either 600mm or 650mm and you'll want to match the two up if you can.
Next take a look at the flow of work in your business - whatever the sink is to be used for, be it washing up, food prep activities or utilities and housekeeping work, do items come in mostly from the right or the left? This will determine whether you need a left draining or right draining sink, or possibly a centre-positioned sink with double drainage boards, or possibly no drainage at all.
Commercial sink useage
The next thing to think about is what the sink will actually be used for. For high volumes of washing up, for instance, you obviously want a large sink basin with a decent width, length and depth of basin. Generally sinks are supplied with a 250mm deep bowl which is perfectly adequate for most uses, but Catering Appliance Superstore also stock sinks with extra deep pots (400mm) for washing large pots, or other heavy duty washing, soaking or rinsing. If you don't specifically need one of these, however, a standard depth unit would be more appropriate as they are easier to use for most people.
At the other end of the scale, you might only need a small basined, compact sink for general prep work or a small volume of washing up.
Double sinks with a smaller rinse basin are useful if you need rinsing as well as draining, or if you expect more than one person to need to use the sinks at any one time then two full size sinks side by side might be what you need.
If it's a simple handwash sink you need, we also stock these in our basins category.
Small details
With the main factors decided and a general sink spec in mind, there are just a few small details to focus on. For instance, do you want a sink with squared edged basin or rounded edges? Square edges have a slightly increased capacity, but rounded edges are far easier to clean, which can be quite important in a high volume catering business. Another thing to check is whether you want a fully assembled sink delivered or if you are happy to assemble it yourself - some models we supply are available in both formats and you can save a little bit of money on self assembly options, providing you are confident you can assemble your sink without any issues. Self assembly units also make delivery easier, which can be a benefit if you need to get your sink into a tight space.
Finally, don't forget that the commercial sinks stocked by Catering Appliance Superstore (or other retailers) aren't supplied with taps - for most of our commercial sinks there are dop down options to select compatible taps as extras in the individual sink product pages themselves.