Sink Cabinet Replacement in Wilmington, DE

When the damage stops at the box, the base is replaced under the existing countertop. The sink and faucet are disconnected, the drain and supply lines come off, and the old cabinet is cut free. Screwed to its neighbors and trapped under the top, a sink base can't slide out whole, so it comes out in pieces where it has to. A new base of the same width is installed, leveled, and fastened to its neighbors. Then the sink is reconnected.

Some tops won't let a base out from under them. A laminate top that was glued and screwed down can crack or lose its surface on removal. An undermount sink hangs from the underside of a stone top, so its support has to be held or replaced while the cabinet below it is out. If the old top can't be saved, the job grows to include a new countertop, in stone or laminate.

A leak that runs long enough can get past the sink base: into the subfloor beneath it, the dishwasher's side panel beside it, or the cabinet on its other side. Once the base is out, the subfloor is checked. Where it has gone soft, that section of floor is replaced and strengthened from below. If more than one cabinet is ruined, the whole run may be due, and that becomes a kitchen remodel.

A bathroom vanity fails the same way, from the same kinds of drips. Replacing a damaged vanity is part of our powder room and half bath work.

The new cabinet goes in only after the leak that ruined the old one is found. Under a kitchen sink, the suspects sit close together: the shut-off valves and the nuts on them, the supply lines to the faucet, the faucet's own base and its sprayer hose, the strainer where the sink meets the drain, the slip joints on the trap and the dishwasher's drain hose where it joins the sink drain or the disposal. Each one leaks under different conditions. A cracked strainer seal leaks when the sink holds water. A loose trap joint drips when the sink drains. A failing valve or supply line can be wet all the time. Water is run through the sink to find which joint it is, and that joint is repaired before the new cabinet goes in.

A particleboard sink base behaves differently once it gets wet. Particleboard is wood chips pressed together with glue. Water wicks in at any cut or chipped edge, the chips swell apart, and the board doesn't shrink back when it dries. It stays thick and soft; its skin bubbles and screws pull out of it, so a swollen particleboard floor is a replacement, not a repair. A cabinet built of solid wood or plywood reacts to the same leak differently. Solid wood swells and then shrinks back as it dries, and plywood's layers hold together longer, so the box may keep its shape. The question is whether the wood stayed wet long enough to soften, which is checked with the cabinet empty.

A sink base is held by more than just its neighbors: it is also fastened to the wall along its back rail. A Wilmington row-home kitchen can have plaster on wood lath over unevenly spaced framing, and plaster alone gives a screw little to grip and can crack around it. So the framing behind the plaster is found, the base is shimmed so it stands plumb against a wall that may not be plumb, and it is fastened through to the wood, with a backing strip where no framing falls in the right place.