Sinks are a part of our daily activities. No one likes to have cracks on their sink. Cracked surfaces lead to water leakage which makes washing hands and dishes challenging.
If you want to know can sinks crack by themselves? then this guide is for you. It makes it easy to maintain the sink when we know how the sink cracks and how to avoid this situation from happening.
It’s easy to work with a scratched sink but it’s tough to work with a cracked sink. If you have seen a crack in your kitchen or bathroom sink, you have to fix it right now.
Not every sink cracks by itself but most sinks crack when they become old enough. High temperature, temperature stress, and heavy objects are a few reasons why a sink cracks naturally. Natural Hairline Cracks are common to see on aged sinks. If a crack stays for long, natural cracks can result in even bigger cracks.
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How Does A Sink Crack?
People get to wonder when they crack their sink, but they wonder because they don’t know how the sink cracked. To know the reason for the crack, he/she has to know how a sink cracks.
There is not only one reason for sink cracks, you just read these causes and match them with your recent activities. It may help to recognize how your sink cracked.
There are a few reasons you get cracks on your sink, which include temperature stress, putting heavy items, age of the sink, and careless activity behind the maintenance of appliances.
Examples of stress temperature conditions; When we use too hot water during washing oily dishes and the hot water contacts the cold porcelain, it creates temperature stress. As we discussed, temperature stress causes cracks on the surface of the sink.
Not every sink manufacturer builds hard and strong material sinks. Sometimes your sink is made of thin steel, keep in mind thin metals are not good to hand in enough to weigh items.
So if you recently put heavyweight items in your sink, maybe it’s the main reason why your sink got cracked.
What Causes A Crack In The Sink?
In most cases, we found that people who don’t know the main causes of cracks on their sinks are those people who told sinks to crack by themselves. But this is not true in most crack cases.
Reinvesting in an expensive sink is not easy for every owner. We can save our sink when we know the primary reason why your sink may crack.
Here are Primary reasons why most sinks crack on their own:
- Dropping heavy items: Not every sink is built of hard and thick metal. A thin sink is not able to deal with heavy items. If you own a thin material-made sink, you have to take care of it. Dropping heavy items on the sink surface may crack the sink. Keep in mind that don’t drop items in the sink forcibly.
- Age Of Sink: Old things lose their strength and quality when they evolve aged items. If your sink is old enough, keep trying to avoid dropping heavy items on it.
- Rust: Rust is an enemy of iron and steel-made things. Rust damages new old things slowly but consistently. It develops rust when we skip care and maintenance of our sink. When water stays on the sink and it contacts with air, it develops rust on the body. Rust damages or cracks old surfaces fastly than less aged surfaces.
- Extremely hot water in a cold sink: Thermal stress or temperature stress is the main reason for cracks in old sinks. When we put extremely hot water in the sink and it contacts porcelain, it causes cracks on the cold surface.
- Natural Hairline Cracks: People who don’t pay an effort to check the cleaning and condition of sinks frequently occur with more natural hairline cracks on granite or natural stone-made sinks.
How To Fix A Sink Crack?
Most cracked sinks can be repaired easily, you just have to follow the proper guide to fix a crack on the sink. Now we are going to show you how you can easily fix a sink crack yourself.
Tools needed: Glue, fiberglass filler, bonding agent, color, high-quality enamel.
Time: maximum 20 minutes.
Following are steps to Fix a Sink Crack:
- Remove any loose sections of the cracked sink, in this case, it came clean off.
- Apply heavy-duty glue to secure it back in the place.
- Use fiberglass filler to apply the underside for added reinforcement.
- Also, apply it to the surface above.
- Followed by a second filler to fill the cracks.
- Now carefully sanded to produce a smooth finish.
- Apply the bonding agent to ensure the enamel sticks to the surface.
- Make up the exact color to match your sink.
- Spray 2-3 coats using high-quality enamel.
- All done, this repair will last for years to come.
Can A Porcelain Sink Crack On Its Own?
Porcelain sinks can crack on their own in hot water contact. The location and condition of the porcelain sink do not matter if it becomes in contact with too hot water.
Temperature stress in sink metal is the main reason why a porcelain sink can crack on its own. The thermal stress process causes a reaction that develops cracks on sinks.
The purpose of usage of a sink is another main thing to consider. As we know most bathroom sinks can’t work well in the kitchen.
If you mistakenly put items to wash in the bathroom sink then it may develop cracks on the sink body. There are multi-work usage and separate work-use sinks, please check the type of your sink before using it for multiple purposes.
Can You Fix A Cracked Sink?
If a sink gets cracked, it does not mean that it is now useless. If the cracks in the sink are normal then you can easily fix them yourself.
Normal cracked sinks can be repaired easily, you just need to have proper knowledge of their repair. But keep in mind that you can’t repair or fix every cracked sink.
The condition of the sink is responsible for fixing the sink, if it has normal scratches or cracks you can fix them with easy steps, but if your sink has bigger cracks then it’s time to buy a new sink.
If your sink is leaking, check its cracks because it has structural cracks. If you think the structural crack can be fixed then try it. But if the damage is so serious that you can see right via it, you should purchase a new sink.
Conclusion
Some sinks crack themselves by thermal stress, rust, and careless situations. Not every metal can crack on its own.
If your sink was cracked recently, you have to check the main cause of the cracks. Don’t think that only thermal stress is the main reason, but sometimes it can also crack by dropping heavy items and age.
Most of the time the material of the sink is responsible for early age scratches and cracks. If you don’t want to have cracks on your sink, please learn to take care of your kitchen or bathroom sink.