Don't Go to Home Depot for a Sink

A few years ago, we remodeled our kitchen. We've had to remodel our house a few times because when we built it, we had four kids. As more babies came and kids got bigger and needed more space, we had to change rooms around and remodel.

Since I'm OCD, I don't like grout lines unless they can be perfectly clean all the time. I know, I'm weird like that (when I had carpet, I had to vacuum it all at the same angle so the lines all matched). When we remodeled, we decided to put in granite countertops (no grout lines). And, since it was new and exciting, and seemed to make cleaning the counter easier by sweeping crumbs straight into the sink, we had an under-mount sink installed.

We bought the granite from Home Depot and hired them to install it. Of course, they hired an outside contractor to do the job. Apparently, an installer who was not well-trained on how to install a sink.

Just before Christmas  (of course, because we had company coming) while finishing breakfast, we heard a strange sound and then water started pouring out of the sink area. Why? Well, the super-awesome-everyone-is-getting-the-new-under-mount-sink fell out of the countertop. That's right--fell out.

We rushed to try to hold the sink up as best we could while we unloaded it. (I'd like to say that it was all clean and sparkly at 6:00 am and didn't have a full sink of water with dishes soaking from the night before because whoever was supposed to load dishes hadn't done so, but that'd be lying.)

To make a long story short, I called Home Depot to see if they'd fix it. Of course, they hid behind the "we only warranty it for a year" excuse. They offered to call someone to charge me to fix it. Probably the same someone who'd installed it improperly in the first place--are under-mount sinks supposed to fall off after only a few years? Ever? As we examined the sink and researched the proper way to install it, we found that our installer had only glued the sink and had not taken the other steps necessary to secure it.

So we originally paid for a sink installation and we ended up with a sink that fell off and subsequent water damage to the basement below. And Home Depot avoided having to pay for it.

Will I ever shop at Home Depot again? I think not. No, I know not. They should have made good on this installation since they didn't ensure it was done properly in the first place. But they didn't. And, thankfully, I married Amazing-Computer-Man-who-also-is-Amazing-Handyman (among other things). So the sink is fixed. All is well. Except for the water damage we have to fix in the basement.

But I would never recommend Home Depot--especially if you expect something like a sink to last longer than a few years.