Real Life WTF - Badly Engineered Sink.



  • http://imgur.com/ag2BP.jpg

    This is the standard sink in our kitchens at work. We moved to a new building about 3 months ago and it was touted in the press as one of the most technologically advanced buildings in our city.

    What they didn't realise was that the sinks are a massive wtf, if you look closely the lip around the plughole is around 5mm higher than the sink bottom. This means that there is always a small puddle of stagnant water around which begins to smell horribly bad around Wednesday (it is cleaned every weekend) and continues to stink until Friday.



  • This sort of wtf really makes my heart sink.



  •  WTF?  Where does the water come from?



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    WTF?  Where does the water come from?
    I'm going to assume that this is packed with ice for a buffet line or something int he cafeteria.  It's too shallow to really be good for anything else.

    That or it's photoshopped out.  Take your pick.



  • I'd say the bigger WTF is the large number of spoons... but no forks... Soups only?



  • @DeLos said:

    I'd say the bigger WTF is the large number of spoons
    How else do you expect them to get that last bit of water down the drain?



  • @bstorer said:

    @DeLos said:

    I'd say the bigger WTF is the large number of spoons
    How else do you expect them to get that last bit of water down the drain?

     

     Bose-Einstein Condensate.  Then it'll flow uphill.



  • Even if you fixed the lip (which shouldn't be too hard: just take an angle grinder and cut a small gap in it), that sink still looks like it wouldn't drain very well.  The bottom is just too flat.

    I think the only real solution, short of getting building maintenance to replace that different-for-the-sake-of-being-different POS with a real sink, is probably to wash it every few days with a brush and hot water.  Or at least run some hot water daily through the sink to kill the biofilm that's producing the smell.  Or keep a bottle of bleach by the sink, and have the last person to leave each day pour a teaspoonful of it into the puddle.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @_bugmenot_ said:

    This means that there is always a small puddle of stagnant water around which begins to smell horribly bad around Wednesday (it is cleaned every weekend) and continues to stink until Friday.
    Do you really need to wait until the weekend for the cleaner to turn up? Couldn't you have them turn up on, say Wednesday as well, just to clean the sink?




  • The other wtf is that there are staff who are there every day for replacing the coffee in the machines, delivering new milk, replenishing the spoons and napkins. They are there nearly every hour. They do not, however, clean the sinks.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @_bugmenot_ said:

    The other wtf is that there are staff who are there every day for replacing the coffee in the machines, delivering new milk, replenishing the spoons and napkins. They are there nearly every hour. They do not, however, clean the sinks.
    Well that is what I was implying with my post.



  • @DescentJS said:

    This sort of wtf really makes my heart sink.

     

    +1 truth and pun bonus.



  • @_bugmenot_ said:

    The other wtf is that there are staff who are there every day for replacing the coffee in the machines, delivering new milk, replenishing the spoons and napkins. They are there nearly every hour. They do not, however, clean the sinks.

    But where are the taps??? Come on, we NEED to know!!



  • @DescentJS said:

    @bstorer said:

    @DeLos said:

    I'd say the bigger WTF is the large number of spoons
    How else do you expect them to get that last bit of water down the drain?

     

     Bose-Einstein Condensate.  Then it'll flow uphill.

    I call bullshit.  What do guys who make those noise-cancelling headphones and bagels know about plumbing?  Stop making things up.


  • You know that's pretty damn unsanitary looking. I wouldn't want my hands inadvertantly touching the bottom of something that's had peoples food and spit tossed into it all day.



  • Look on the right to see where the tap is



  •  It is impossible for me to describe the magnitude of rage I feel when I see stuff that is completely impractical just for the purpose of being different. This is what happens when you let one of those art majors design things whithout an engineer over their shoulder to smack them upside the head when they go off the deep end.



  •  @DOA said:

    This is what happens when you let one of those art majors design things whithout an engineer over their shoulder to smack them upside the head when they go off the deep end.

    Actually that sink would have been an order of magnitude better if it had included some kind of 'deep end'.



  • @_bugmenot_ said:

    [offensive sink] Look on the right to see where the tap is
     

    What in the fuck.



  • @_bugmenot_ said:

    Look on the right to see where the tap is

    DAMN!!

    That is the stupidest sink/kitchen arrangement I've ever seen.  It takes real skill to do worse than most DIY efforts.



  • @_bugmenot_ said:

    Look on the right to see where the tap is
    Wait - this is actually meant to be used?


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @_bugmenot_ said:

    [photo]
    I'm going to regret this, I know....

     What's that hole in the counter top between the tap and the sink?



  • I'd like to say it was a single hole whack-a-mole game but unfortunately it is just a non-wtf bin so you can throw used tea bags, sugar packets, etc down there.



  • @_bugmenot_ said:

    I'd like to say it was a single hole whack-a-mole game but unfortunately it is just a non-wtf bin so you can throw used tea bags, sugar packets, etc down there.
     

    So the garbage bin is about 2 feet between the tap and the drain?  I don't even want to imagine what the plumbing looks like.



  • @ender said:

    @_bugmenot_ said:
    Look on the right to see where the tap is
    Wait - this is actually meant to be used?
     

    I think we're missing something here; I'm pretty sure that tap is fixed in place, so you can't really use it with the sink.  It looks like one of those stupid hot water taps that gives you not-quite-boiling water, thus enabling you to make a really awful cup of tea.  I'm basing that on the hot/cold indicators at the top, and the "DO NOT TWIST" warning.

    So in summary, there doesn't seem to be any source of water at all for the sink.  And that makes the whole thing that much more bizarre.

    Can we get some photos from under the counter?  I want to see this plumbing job.



  • @Justice said:

    @ender said:
    @_bugmenot_ said:
    Look on the right to see where the tap is
    Wait - this is actually meant to be used?
    I think we're missing something here; I'm pretty sure that tap is fixed in place, so you can't really use it with the sink.  It looks like one of those stupid hot water taps that gives you not-quite-boiling water, thus enabling you to make a really awful cup of tea.  I'm basing that on the hot/cold indicators at the top, and the "DO NOT TWIST" warning.

    So in summary, there doesn't seem to be any source of water at all for the sink.  And that makes the whole thing that much more bizarre.

    Can we get some photos from under the counter?  I want to see this plumbing job.

    In an earlier comment, I said that I thought the sink would be filled with ice, but now I believe it to be a coffee urn with a spout on it similar to this.

    It's placed in a sink so that spilled coffee will not have to be wiped up.  That plan has backfired.

    However, the water spout is not nearly tall enough to fill an urn of this size, much less one large enough to caffeinate an office of considerable size.



  • I showed this to my brother (he used to work as a chef) and got some insight on this.  The whole setup is called a service station, and they're used in restaurants.

    The tap, apparently, is for filling water pitchers, and the mesh part below it is a weight-triggered faucet control.  When the pitcher hits a certain weight, the water shuts off.

    The sink is designed for filling racks of glasses (say with water) all at once.  You put a rack full of glasses in the sink, open end up, and fill them, and the sink catches any spills, ice, etc.

    So the WTF here is not the setup itself, but the fact that somebody installed this in an office building kitchenette.  My guess is some contractor had the parts sitting around from another job, say a restaurant remodeling, and decided to use them here.  Probably helped for making the low bid.



  • @Justice said:

    Filed under: Who designed those stupid 190º water taps anyway? Somebody who didn't like having their instant noodles cooked all the way?

    I don't know, I'm surprised that H2O is still capable of remaining a liquid at that temperature.


    Those work fine if you nuke them to boiling.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Lingerance said:

    @Justice said:
    Filed under: Who designed those stupid 190º water taps anyway? Somebody who didn't like having their instant noodles cooked all the way?
    I don't know, I'm surprised that H2O is still capable of remaining a liquid at that temperature.
    Why? Boiling point is 212 (in Fahrenheit, which is the scale I assumed the OP was talking about. As opposed to, say, Celsius or Rankine.)



  • @PJH said:

    Why? Boiling point is 212 (in Fahrenheit, which is the scale I assumed the OP was talking about. As opposed to, say, Celsius or Rankine.)
    The unit of mesurement is notably absent.



  • @Lingerance said:

    @PJH said:
    Why? Boiling point is 212 (in Fahrenheit, which is the scale I assumed the OP was talking about. As opposed to, say, Celsius or Rankine.)
    The unit of mesurement is notably absent.

    [b]edit:[/b] Lets assume its in calories.



  • @Indrora said:

    @Lingerance said:
    @PJH said:
    Why? Boiling point is 212 (in Fahrenheit, which is the scale I assumed the OP was talking about. As opposed to, say, Celsius or Rankine.)
    The unit of mesurement is notably absent.

    edit: Lets assume its in calories.

    What??? water has calories now??? [heads off to gym to do another hour on the treadmill to burn off the water I drank during yesterday's workout]


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @OzPeter said:

    What??? water has calories now??? [heads off to gym to do another hour on the treadmill to burn off the water I drank during yesterday's workout]

    I wouldn't bother.

    However when nominally 'pure' water is frozen it has negative calories.



  • @OzPeter said:

    What??? water has calories now??? [heads off to gym to do another hour on the treadmill to burn off the water I drank during yesterday's workout]
    You can lose a lot of weight if you stop consuming liquids, thanks to a process known as "decomposition."



  • @Lingerance said:

    @PJH said:
    Why? Boiling point is 212 (in Fahrenheit, which is the scale I assumed the OP was talking about. As opposed to, say, Celsius or Rankine.)
    The unit of mesurement is notably absent.

    The specific types of taps he is refering to is specifically labeled as "190°" taps. 



  • @DescentJS said:

    @Lingerance said:
    @PJH said:
    Why? Boiling point is 212 (in Fahrenheit, which is the scale I assumed the OP was talking about. As opposed to, say, Celsius or Rankine.)
    The unit of mesurement is notably absent.
    The specific types of taps he is refering to is specifically labeled as "190°" taps.
    So they're just a little larger than half a circle?



  • @belgariontheking said:

    @DescentJS said:

    @Lingerance said:
    @PJH said:
    Why? Boiling point is 212 (in Fahrenheit, which is the scale I assumed the OP was talking about. As opposed to, say, Celsius or Rankine.)
    The unit of mesurement is notably absent.
    The specific types of taps he is refering to is specifically labeled as "190°" taps.
    So they're just a little larger than half a circle?

    I guess "3.31612558-radian tap" doesn't have the same ring to it.


  •  Oh i get it. The sink looks european, therefore it must be good.

     

     

    Hm on a side note I bought this mixing bowl from ikea. Ikea has a job to both sell every kind of funiture and funiture accessory, and then to make sure it at least looks european or at least different (how a mixing bowl would differ accross the atlantic ocean...). It looks somewhat like this: http://www.ikea.com/ie/en/catalog/products/90011829 but not as tall, but still not as wide as a good mixing bowl. Problem is that you can't toss anything with it, which of course means nobody in the entire world has ever adopted this design, which means they just pull the design out of their ass and call it european.



  • @Lingerance said:

    @Justice said:
    Filed under: Who designed those stupid 190º water taps anyway? Somebody who didn't like having their instant noodles cooked all the way?
    I don't know, I'm surprised that H2O is still capable of remaining a liquid at that temperature.

    If that surprises you, then the video at [url]http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~jw/superheating.html[/url] will probably blow your mind. Water can apparently remain a liquid at up to 374°C if you treat it right.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @_moz said:

    @Lingerance said:

    @Justice said:
    Filed under: Who designed those stupid 190º water taps anyway? Somebody who didn't like having their instant noodles cooked all the way?
    I don't know, I'm surprised that H2O is still capable of remaining a liquid at that temperature.

    If that surprises you, then the video at http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~jw/superheating.html will probably blow your mind. Water can apparently remain a liquid at up to 374°C if you treat it right.

    Given the context, I'm not entirely surprised that you didn't notice that the tap in question wasn't in a microwave. Or (to counteract the next argument) that it was under substantially under more than 1 atmosphere of pressure.

    But do carry on....



  • @PJH said:

    Given the context, I'm not entirely surprised that you didn't notice that the tap in question wasn't in a microwave. Or (to counteract the next argument) that it was under substantially under more than 1 atmosphere of pressure.

    But do carry on....

    How do you know the entire building isn't a hyperbaric diving vessel located at the bottom of the Mariana Trench?



  • @PJH said:

    @_moz said:

    @Lingerance said:

    @Justice said:
    Filed under: Who designed those stupid 190º water taps anyway? Somebody who didn't like having their instant noodles cooked all the way?
    I don't know, I'm surprised that H2O is still capable of remaining a liquid at that temperature.

    If that surprises you, then the video at http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~jw/superheating.html will probably blow your mind. Water can apparently remain a liquid at up to 374°C if you treat it right.

    Given the context, I'm not entirely surprised that you didn't notice that the tap in question wasn't in a microwave. Or (to counteract the next argument) that it was under substantially under more than 1 atmosphere of pressure.

    But do carry on....

    I'm pleased to hear it. Those who are not able to take things in context must find the world an endlessly surprising place.



  • @DescentJS said:

    @Lingerance said:

    @PJH said:
    Why? Boiling point is 212 (in Fahrenheit, which is the scale I assumed the OP was talking about. As opposed to, say, Celsius or Rankine.)
    The unit of mesurement is notably absent.

    The specific types of taps he is refering to is specifically labeled as "190°" taps. 

     

    I've always known them as "Zip taps". I used to work where they had them over a normal sink. The blue side actually puts out cold (as in <8°C) water, and the whole thing is filtered.



  • @Zemm said:

    I've always known them as "Zip taps".

    Who would name a faucet after a proprietary, high-density floppy disk technology that was obsolete a decade ago?

     

    @Zemm said:

    The blue side actually puts out cold (as in <8°...

    OMG IT WOULD BE SOLID ICE--

     

    @Zemm said:

    ...C) water, and the whole thing is filtered.

    Oh.



  • @Zemm said:

    cold (as in <8ºC) water
    So it's water so cold it can make a clown sad?



  • @Zecc said:

    @Zemm said:

    cold (as in <8ºC) water
    So it's water so cold it can make a clown sad?

     

    A clown with really cool sunglasses!



  • @dhromed said:

    @Zecc said:

    @Zemm said:

    cold (as in <8ºC) water
    So it's water so cold it can make a clown sad?

     

    A clown with really cool sunglasses!

    Or Elton John in a dunce cap.


  • @bstorer said:

    @OzPeter said:

    What??? water has calories now??? [heads off to gym to do another hour on the treadmill to burn off the water I drank during yesterday's workout]
    You can lose a lot of weight if you stop consuming liquids, thanks to a process known as "decomposition."

    Personally I prefer Jimmy Tango's Fat busters Regimen myself.

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