Ruvati RVH8010 25" Stainless Steel Single Bowl Kitchen Sink - 16 Gauge Overmount for Easy Installation | Perfect for Modern Kitchens, Restaurants & Food Prep Areas

We researched quite a while looking to replace our old porcelain, dual mount sink. We also have laminate countertops and all of our appliances are stainless; this somewhat limits our choices. None of the hardware stores in our area had what we were looking for. At first we were a little hesitant to order a sink online without being able to look at it in person. The number of high reviews are very good for such a new product so we decided to give it a shot. I am glad that we did.This sink is great! It is exactly as advertised; very high quality, thick steel. It was hard to find many sinks over 18 gauge but this is 16 and is quite deep. At 10” it is perfect. Any deeper it could be uncomfortable to work in and bend down for an extended period of time.The packaging was awesome. I was nervous about shipping such a big, valuable item but it was packed extremely well. Very high quality packaging. The cutout template was included in the box. Although we did not use it since we were replacing an old sink.Our old sink was the same size, roughly (33x22). The old sink had a rounded hole cut into the countertop. Luckily, we did not have to make any cuts into our counter for it to fit right, but it was pretty close. If you have an existing sink with rounded edges, you might get by without cutting at all. But this is not always the case.It comes with a nice drain and basket strainer although you won’t be using them if you plan on hooking up to a garbage disposal, which you can with this sink. If you do install a new garbage disposal or use an existing one, you will need the pipe connections and disposal mount, so keep that.The rinse grid that it comes with seems to work well as already stated. It does help prevent scratching and such; however, it makes it slightly inconvenient since you have to use water to get stuff into the drain instead of just wiping some things. To keep it looking nice, you will have to remove the grid every so often and clean the bottom, especially the corners. It’s not too bad though.So far, it has not scratched easily which is nice! As others have stated, the one thing that is not great is the angle of the sink floor. Water and food particles tend to sit comfortably around the sink edges. It’s really not that much work to spray it towards the drain, but if you don’t have a good spray nozzle this might be inconvenient for you.This sink is not undermount, so we can’t expect it to be that easy to wipe stuff from the counter into the sink. The edge of the sink sticks up above the counter about 3/8”.Overall, the sink is great for the price. Very good quality and looks nice. It can seem weird getting something like this online, but really, it’s simply just what it claims to be.Now, installing the sink was interesting. I’m not sure if I could say anything bad about the design, I’m definitely no plumber; however, I thought I would share some pictures and information about what I experienced. Keep in mind, I did not have to do any cutting in my countertop, so I’m skipping that part.IMPORTANT! You will probably want to install your faucet FIRST before mounting your sink. This is a 10” deep sink and once its installed you have only a few inches to work with between you and the wall in a tight place, that goes up 10”. I was glad I did the faucet first when I had all the room in the world.Next, the instructions say to attach the “mounting clips” to the sink. I’ll talk more about those in a moment. You will definitely want these on the sink though before you lower it into the counter.The instructions said to place a “rope” of plumber’s putty along the bottom edge of the outside rim of the sink (the bottom edge that sits on the countertop). What this meant was to get some plumbers putty and roll in your hand until it’s small enough to push up onto the bottom of the sink’s outside edge. (SEE PICTURE OF PEN AND PUTTY)Now, the edge of the sink is really thin, perhaps as thick as a piece of cardboard. So this was not easy. Plumber’s putty sticks better to my hand than stainless steel so this was a bit of a pain. It kept falling off. I don’t have any magical tips for this. Sorry…After that we had to place the sink in the counter. Funny now that all of the edges that I would otherwise grab are covered in putty… The only way I figured to do this without disturbing all of the putty was to get under the counter and hold the sink up from the bottom while I lay down, and then my wife guided it from the top as I lowered it.Now… The mounting clips… First, I read other reviews where people said they were fine without them. I noticed that while fiddling with the sink it would scoot some out of position, so I personally did not feel like the weight of the sink was enough. Also, silicon is a great sealant, but it’s not really a strong adhesive; so I would not depend on it to hold your sink in place when you put it around the edge at the end. Thus, I opted to install the mounting clips.The clips work like this: as you tighten the nut on the clip, it pulls the sink down as it jams a bracket into the ceiling of under your counter. However, if there is too much space between the wall of the sink and the all of the counter these will not work so well. I’ll show you what I’m talking about.There are a couple pictures (SEE ATTACHED) of the clips on the sides of the sink looking up from the bottom. The two pictures where the side of the sink is very close to the counter wall is how it should look. You'll notice that one is a pretty tight fit, it barely worked for me.The brackets are threaded. You can see now that as you tighten the bolt it pulls the mount down, which in turn pulls the sink down, and since the edge of that bracket is digging into the bottom edge of the counter there, it makes the sink really snug.Okay, so the tough part. If you look closely, this only works if the space is really tight. If there is no wall on either side, the bolt will start tilting to the side instead of pulling the sink down. Since the back of the sink has more space for the faucet stuff, the mounting clips did not work so well in the back for me. (SEE ATTACHED PHOTOS - note that the pictures of the back shows more room than others and includes a picture of what happens when a bracket starts to tilt sideways).As I tried to tighten it, it just leaned towards the sink and never got tight (SEE ATTACHED). So I figured I could get some adhesive and shove a 2x4 scrap wood in there and make it more tight. (SEE ATTACHED)I used Titebond polyurethane liquid glue (in a purple bottle). It is supposed to adhere to both metal and wood.So it’s not perfect, but the mount is able to tighten now because it starts to press against the wood (SEE ATTACHED).From here, you still have to install your drain and caulk the outside edge of the sink with silicon. I just got some Kitchen, Bath, & Plumbing waterproof silicon and a calk gun. I put a bead around the edge about the thickness of a string of yarn and ran my finger around to push it into the edge between the sink and the counter more. Some places online recommended putting painters tape down on the counter almost up to the edge of the sink; I got by without it. If you like things really neat, it might be worth it. I would probably do that next time, but it turned out okay this time. The back of the sink was hard because the caulk gun would not angle right into the crack; I had to kind of smudge it in by hand. In hindsight, I might purchase a “tube” of silicon instead of using a caulk gun, just because they are so much smaller and easier to handle. I probably could have gotten to the back of the sink just fine with that.You can see the finished product in 3 of the pictures attached (one is of the sink/garbage disposal/sewer connection, the other two are of the top of the sink).