My kitchen sink has two sides – right and left. The right side is hooked up to the disposal. Both sides have have little strainer-dealies and plugs so that they can be filled up.
I’m sure there is some purpose to the two sides, but personally I’ve never used it. I’m sure it has to do with rinsing vs. scrubbing, or soaking vs. rinsing, etc. I’ve tried these schemes but dishes mainly end up getting piled in both sides.
[/end GQ]
So how do you use your two sided sink?
Well, back in junior high home-ec class, the teacher had us fill the right-side with sudsy water to wash in, and the left side with clear water and a capfull of bleach to rinse the dishes in. I don’t know if that’s the standard, though … or even if there is a standard.
Are you related to that guy who was asking about the two bags of dirty laundry in his dorm room closet and wanted to know how to make his room smell better? :dubious: 
Just kidding. I suppose it’s possible that there are people out there who have never been shown how to wash dishes, and you are one of them. OK, fair enough.
There are different methods, but here’s mine:
Fill the side that does not have the disposal on it with hot soapy water.
Put dirty dishes in hot soapy water. If they’re gunky you can rinse them first in the other side and wash the food bits down the disposal. Start with the least dirty items and/or the ones that you don’t want to put in gunky water later: silverware, glassware. YOu can also fill up this sink with things to soak for a bit.
Wash dirty dishes in hot soapy water. Rinse them in the empty side. You can either stack them up a bit and rinse them in batches, or rinse as you go.
Stack clean dishes in dishrack or on a towel. Wipe dry or air dry, your pick. Some people air dry because it’s more sanitary, but I air dry because I’m lazy.
Oh, and don’t put dirty dishes IN the sink if you’re not washing them right away! Then it’s not available if you need the sink to drain or rinse something. Or, if you lack counter space, only put them in one side. When it’s full, it’s time to wash dishes. 
“And put your garbage in a garbage can, people. I can’t stress that enough. Don’t just throw it out the window”
“Garbage in garbage can…hmm, makes sense.”
With the drain board/dry rack to my right, I fill a glass with hot soapy, and plunge the scrub sponge into said mix before washing dishes. Finishing all of a class, (silverware/cooking implement/glasses/mugs, etc.) they are then rinsed in the RH sink and exit to the right for rack placement. As such, the left sink is used for pre-wash staging.
Or, as my ex would handle kitchen management, it was another place for her to leave dirty dishes. 
I was shown, but it involved a dishwasher. Luckily that has worked out in the apartments I’ve rented.
And don’t forget to get a good scrubbbing brush!
:rolleyes: :eek:
eh, that aint nuthin. I had a friend who had lotsa parties at his apartment. He would wash dishes in the sink on the right. The left was to piss in if the bathroom was full. Seriously.
I think I’ll be the first to say, :eek:
Ok, I knew the wash/rinse separation, but I’ve always done it the other way around:
Soapy water in the side with disposal (the left on every dual sink I’ve encountered), rinse water on the other side.
Seemed reasonable to me: if plates/pots/pans have stuck on food, you scrub it off in the soapy water, it goes down the disposal. If it was reversed, you have to deal with this little “sieve” plug, which seems to defeat the purpose of the disposal.
This matches bughunter’s post in the linked thread. But have I been abusing my sinks all these years?
That makes sense to me. We never had a disposal growing up or a dishwasher. So the way to avoid any “gunk” being left in the sink is to scrape and rinse every dish before it gets put in the “to wash” pile (ie when you’re done eating, scrape and rinse your dishes). And clean the seive catcher thing too (dump contents in trash if any).
My parents and I still rinse all dishes, even tho we have a dishwasher now. We also wash many items by hand - large items and not-safe-for-dishwasher items. My friends think i’m crazy that I have to clean the dishes before I put them in the dishwasher but it’s habit.
Unless you have a dishwasher. Then you can just use one side of the sink as a dirty dish staging area. When it’s full, it’s time to transfer the dishes over to the dishwasher.
Whassamatter? Many of the guys I’ve known are admitted sink-whizzers. If the gals could do so, I bet they would, and the lines at high atttendance venues would shrink immediately. 
I bought a new (to me) house in 1991. It was a pretty nice house, big, four bedroom, three bath, with an extra living area plenty big enough for me to put in an eight foot pool table.
But I wondered about the kitchen sink - it was fairly plain, stainless steel, and it didn’t have a divider, just one big sink. What kind of deal was that?
Well, it didn’t take me long to realize that the previous owner was pretty smart. It was so nice being able to rinse dishes in a roomy sink.
Then I moved to my current house three years ago, and it has the standard two-section porcelain sink. It’s such a pain in the *ss, having that divider in the way when I need to wash a big pot, or our big blender carafe. When we re-do the kitchen, I will again get a sink with an oversized compartment. Lots of sinks I see nowadays have this, with a very small side compartment. That would be OK, but, this is important, the garbage disposal must be on the large section. Most the time when I see these newer sinks, they put the disposal on the very small section, which I can’t figure out.
I use both and I need a third.
Left sink is for dirty dishes to soak in hot water the right sink is for cleaned dishes to dry. I am too lazy to put the clean dished up immediately after I wash them so both are usually full. But I need hot running water to run over my dishes as I wash them but the right sink is filled with ‘clean’ dishes I don’t want to run dirty water over and the left has to have the bottom plugged up and running hot water will overflow the sink. So having 3 sinks would be really nice. Or a dishwasher. Yeah, i’d take a dishwasher over 3 sinks anyday of the week.
I had to check to see if it was the same guy who only cleaned his george foreman grill every 3 months.
Jeez, I ask a question about the use of the two sided sink and suddenly everyone thinks I’m
The Guy with 2 Bags of Dirty Laundy
The Guy who Cleans His Grill Every 3 Months
The Guy who Doesn’t Know How to Do Dishes
The Guy who Never Learned to Use a Toilet
Thanks a lot.
But we love you anyway, Stinky! :D:D:D
Our local utility is stressing a program called “Can The Grease” to encourage all cooks kitchen workers to place waste cooking grease in cans or plastic bags and place in the garbage.
Grease is a major cause of stoppages and reduced flow in sewage disposal systems.