Reasons Why You SHOULDN'T Buy A Belfast Sink | Fifi McGee

Belfast sinks…if you don’t own one, you’ll definitely have seen them on Instagram. They’re perpetually photographed with a bunch of flowers plonked inside or even a reluctant puppy. But tired gimmicks aside (burn), for practical reasons they are a bit, well, Marmite. They seem to be disliked and loved in equal measure, with Belfast sink owners more likely to reside in the dislike category. We noticed this when we got some discussion going on our Instagram.

In most other walks of life, the only way you can discover if you don’t like something is to take the plunge and buy the thing, try it and if you don’t like it change it. Well that’s not quite as easy when you’re installing new kitchen components. One of the reasons why we included a shopping module in our online renovation course is because we know how stressful the decision making process is.

What are the reasons to hate Belfast sinks? Well, let’s see now:

Belfast sinks are really low down

Due to the depth, Belfast sinks are much lower than normal sinks so you end up stooping whilst washing up which aches quite terribly. For vertically challenged types, this might not be too much of an issue but if you’re more of Gandalf than a Frodo then you’re going to have issues. Coping mechanisms include doing a rockstar/legs akimbo posing whilst you’re scrubbing those pots.

Belfast sinks don’t drain very easily

Belfast sink designs haven’t really changed for many decades and are actually not brought up to modern standards in terms of draining. Whereas your standard sink shape gives all of those little food particles a helping hand down towards the strainer, the Belfast sink trundles along with it’s near horizontal ‘bowl’ leaving random food nuggets stranded like flotsam and jetsam at low tide.

Belfast sinks hog cupboard space

When we bought our Belfast sink we were completely unaware of how small the cupboard space under the sink would be, it’s one of those little details that you just don’t think too much about until it’s there in your kitchen. This means we’re constantly juggling that cupboard around for all of those handy bottles of cleaning stuff. We came up with a semi-solution in the form of a cleaning caddy which brings a little bit of method to the madness, it helps because we can simply remove the key items in one go for cleaning missions.