I used the term “set tub” in a conversation the other day, and no one knew what I was talking about. I’ve always called the deep, utility type sink you find in a garage or laundry room a “set tub”. Is it a regional thing, or have I simply been wrong all my life? Or was my audience just not aware of a common term (seemed unlikely)?
As I think about it, it sounds vaguely southern. I grew up in New England, although we did live for a short time in the south, so I suppose I could’ve picked it up in either of those locations if it’s a term used only regionally in the US.
The conversation I had was in the bay area in CA, where I live now. The people were mostly from this area.
I grew up near Chicago, spent significant time in the North (Michigan), Southish (KY/southern IN), and East (Boston area). I have also lived in both Northern and Southern CA. I have never heard the term, even though I have seen such items frequently.
Admittedly I’m Canadian not American, but we do talk more or less the same - I grew up in Ottawa and have lived in Alberta most of my adult life and have never heard the term. I know the type of sink you’re talking about, but I don’t know of a special name for it.
I’ve never heard the term, either. I was grew up in Texas, now live in southern California, and spent much time as a youth visiting relatives in West Virginia.
Chicago(ish) born ‘n’ bred, and we’ve always called it a “splash sink”. I suppose because one can cause quite a splash in it and not get the floor wet. I’ve heard it called that through several drone level jobs which involved filling mop buckets, as well as from several different landlords referring to the sink in the laundry room. Never heard “set tub”.
I googled a bit and it does seem to be some sort of technical plumbing term for a big utility sink. We had a pair of these in our basement laudry room in the house I grew up in. It was a fairly old house and probably pre-dated electric washers and such. These sinks would have originally been used to actually do the washing. Maybe the term is just dated?
Haven’t had occasion to discuss such fixtures with anyone in North Carolina, but in Northern New York it was a “laundry sink” – even if not located in a basement or laundry room. (I remember lending a hand closing down a restaurant kitchen late one evening, and being told by the manager to put the pots and pans in the laundry sink – a typical deep sink at one end of the kitchen.)
Wow. I’ve been using a non-existent term all my life…
This place can usually sort this sort of stuff out in just a few minutes. It’s been an hour already, and nobody has heard that term before. FYI, I did spend some time searching on the internet, and tried to find it in wikipedia, but didn’t come up with anything. Nothing on dictionary.com either…
I’ll have to e-mail my siblings and see if they know what I’m talking about.
- I grew up in Ottawa and have lived in Alberta most of my adult life and have never heard the term. I know the type of sink you’re talking about, but I don’t know of a special name for it.
