Laundry Tubs ? Remove or Replace ?

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I would second the recommendations to keep a laundry tub. They can be extremely useful not just for laundry, but for other purposes such as hand washing large items, dumping dirty mop water, etc. They can also avoid problems where a drain restriction might result in a standpipe overflowing.

The in-house laundry closet is just a few paces from the kitchen sink, so it doesn't really need a laundry sink (it has an in-wall standpipe instead) and there isn't enough room for anything bigger than a bar sink there anyway.

However in the workshop, which is a separate building on the property, I have a row of vintage washers, which are not hooked up, and three Miele washers, which are hooked up. Reason: there's only cold water out there, and the Mieles can heat their own. The problem was that there is no build in drain along that wall. So.... I got a cheapo plastic laundry tub, less than $50 as OSH, some time ago. Stuck it between two of the Mieles. Then ran a 3/4" diameter high quality industrial hose (red) from the drain on the tub to a john someone installed in the back of the shop. It took all 75 feet of hose to make that run, and the difference in height between the tub and the john is just enough to drain the water from the tub. It's enough drainage to handle the output from the Miele, even when I'm running two at once. The cold water input is taken via another 75 ft hose from an outside fresh water faucet (the closest one). The john is not otherwise in service, because the old well water system that used to provide water for it was disconnected long ago. Eventually I'd like to upgrade the shop with a water heater, copper water piping, and ABS or PVC rigid drain system, but for now this system, while kind of funky, will do.
 
just a thought......pay attention to the height.....even the new one I installed was too short for me at 33 inches high, seems to hurt your back leaning over into it....now were at 37 inches, granted mine is not a cabinet style, but keep this in mind....

I added a 4x4 base to raise it up to counter height, and even with the top of the Neptunes.....makes a world of difference
 
I'd like my laundry tub to be at a more comfortable height, and with a wall mount that's an option, but I thought it would look better to keep it the same height as the top surface of a washer and dryer, which is 36".

 

If it was just a utility tub by itself somewhere I'd install it higher on the wall.

 

Add me to the group who counts on a laundry/utility sink for large jobs the kitchen sink can't handle, filthy jobs the kitchen sink isn't appropriate for, or dumping a pail of dirty mopping solution, just to mention a few uses.  Oh yeah, and my washer empties into it even though it's not a suds saver.
 
Plus........

I don't have a laundry/utility sink in this apartment.

There are just some things I wash in the bath tub instead of the kitchen or bathroom sinks.

I would never bathe Rosa del Gata, but there is a crucial cat item......and I wash IT in the bath tub. If I had a laundry/utility sink, I would wash it in that sink, however.

Lawrence/Maytagbear
 
Bathing Pets

Our extraordinarily sweet girl Mia-the-cat took her baths in our laundry tub and never put up a fight.  She would get swaddled tight in a towel afterward, then spend the afternoon grooming her black & white coat in the back yard sun.  She loved being clean and would go for quite some time before deciding it was OK to roll in dirt again.

 

That whole operation in the laundry tub was Dave's doing.  Mia never got another bath after he had his stroke.  It's not like she'd hang around the laundry sink trying to tell us she wanted one, so I let that whole thing slide.

 

I also think she'd have freaked out over the torrent of water pouring out of the bathtub spout if we didn't have a laundry tub to do the job.  She was extremely tolerant, but still had her limits.

 

 
 
WOW!!!.....your freaking out over giving a dog a bath in the tub....seriously?.....I'd be more concerned of him drinking out of your toilet!!!

next time a dog lick's you....think where his tongue has been!......better yet, think about the next time you visit a friend and use their soap, whats the first place you use it, and the last place they used it!!!....

although the double laundrytub is great for bathing the smaller breeds, I would love to give Yogi a bath in one, at least he would be at my level, except for that center partition....then again, it is plastic, and thinking of cutting it halfway down for this matter alone, not like I use it for suds saving machine anyway....I already have the pullout sprayer, THAT is a must for a laundrytub!!!

even my kitchen sink is built similar.....the large section on the left is 18 inches deep, and the right side is 12 inches deep....once you have stuff like this, you can't go back to a regular one....
 
Um ...

"WOW!!!.....your freaking out over giving a dog a bath in the tub....seriously?"

YES!!! Seriously!!
 
I once had a cat that was a bit unusual.

For one, she loved water. When she was still a kitten, she used to try to jump into the tub with me.

She also loved to ride in cars. She'd perch on the back of my driver's seat (no headrest on that vintage car) and be perfectly happy sitting there during the drive. Unlike other cats I've had, who would freak out and try to run under the brake pedal... or through the steering wheel...

When she was a kitten, she also loved strawberries and bananas. One day I came home to find a bunch of bananas in a bowl on the kitchen table had her claw marks all over them.... trying to open them, I guess.

But as she grew older she lost her love for those things. She still was a good car passenger, though.
 
I don't see how a home can be run without a laundry tub. It's a shame that so many new homes don't have them. Using the kitchen sink for things like mopping floors is ultra-unsanitary. My home is still fairly new and has a composite material laundry sink in the small laundry room. There's also a deep Kohler laundry sink built into the kitchen island as a second sink. It has a built-in scrub board on the front. I only use it for food-related stuff like cleaning big pots.

As a child my mom had a double concrete laundry tub (aside from the one inside that the washer drained into) in the backyard. She grew the most wonderful basil on one side and Italian parsley on the other.
 
My friend Diane has a similar concrete double tub in her back yard, nearly all of which is devoted to fruits, vegetables, and herbs.  I can't recall what she has growing in the tub, but it looks right at home in her whimsical, arty scene composed almost entirely of reclaimed and re-used materials, including some pavers we gave her when we poured a slab for our hot tub.

 

Rich, our Mia loved bananas, melon and popsicles, right up until she left us a little over a year ago at around 14 years old.  A sweet girl with a sweet tooth.  She never liked riding in cars much.  That was a favorite pastime of a Siamese mix my sister had.  He'd curl up in the passenger's seat if anybody's car window was open, just hoping someone would come along and take him for a ride.

 

BTW Phil, you made a good choice.  I always wanted a tub with a cabinet surround, but no longer have the dimensions to accommodate one.
 
Well, I use a Hoover SpinScrub for mopping floors. The dirty water goes into the nearest toilet. Doesn't seem to hurt it one bit, and there's basically no chance of clogging that drain ;-). I have in the past dumped the dirty Hoover water down the kitchen sink, carefully directly into the disposer, but I stopped with that.

I'd love to have a laundry tub in the laundry closet inside the house, but the closet is just not big enough. Well, it might be big enough for a single tub if I went to a compact Miele set, which could happen if the Neptune pair ever bites the dust.

When I was in college in Berkeley, I lived during my senior year and afterward in a two room apartment (kitchen/bedroom/bath) in a converted old house. The kitchen was big and the sink was a kind of odd affair, with a standard depth kitchen sink on the left side, and a laundry depth tub on the right side, covered by a drain board. I was always highly embarrassed by the thing, and never used it for laundry. But in retrospect it was kind of cool.
 
Utility sinks.

I have a utility sink in each of the 2 basements in my house (multi-family). I have stand pipes next to the sinks for the washers so I can use the sinks whenever I please and however I want. They are essential for nasty stuff in the workshop, painting clean up, etc.

Dave
 
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