installing bathroom sink off-center over drain

Grobian

We're moving and this is the situation in our new bathroom

the black are walls, the green is the bathtub and the red is the sink.

The problem is that we don't have room for our washing machine between sink and tub, the space is ~3cm too narrow. So, as a new sink costs way less than a new washing machine, we want to replace the sink.

As you can see from my great MsPaint skills, the sink is next to a corner, so with the current oval sink you have a hole there. It would be neat to get a rectangular sink and just place it right into the corner. But then the new sink won't be centered above the drain. All guides I can find on the internet tell me to always install the sink centered. I can't find any reason for that, though. I mean, there's a trap there anyway, that is at least a little flexible and we're not talking about huge distances here. Or i guess we would have to get a little length of pipe to bridge the gap?

So is this a bad idea, and why?

bowen

Any sinks that are 3cm smaller?

Grobian

Well, yes, we would buy one that is 5cm smaller (they come in 5cm intervals). But if I install that also centered, then I save only 2.5cm which might not be enough (I have the exact measurements at home). And I thought that I could fix that stupid hole while I was doing stuff anyway.

Hevach

Most of the sinks in my house are off center over the drains for various reasons. One of them to the point that the drain isn't even under the sink. The trap makes it impossible to directly line it up anyway, and you can fiddle with the angles between the elbows to give you some play. On the impossible list, two-basin kitchen sinks only have one drain, so you can't center it under both (it's usually not centered under either, but in the middle). 3 cm isn't going to matter, you could probably get that much leeway just with the trap.

There's even special pipe kits you can get to give you farther play - my bathroom sink has two different sized elbows in the trap to give it more distance between the sink and the drain, and my kitchen sink has some angled pipe.

Eat it You Nasty Pig.

are you rough plumbing this or is the bathroom already finished? If rough, you might be able to make up a couple of cm with a little bit of muscling

I'd be a little bit leery of installing small elbows because you're just introducing more chances for a clog to happen, but that's an option too. You can find a million different pipe kits at home depot/lowes/whatever

bowen

Yeah I don't see a problem with that honestly. Just find a sink you can cram against the wall.

If I recall, you'd just try to find a trap fitting that would let you angle it off center than you should be able to do it. Should be at least enough give on the fittings to let you angle it 3cm's out.

Grobian

The bathroom is already finished.

Ok, thanks, that helped. I was mainly wondering if there was any reason except "it looks better" to place the sink centered. If it's no big deal, then I can surely find some pipes to bridge the gap.

bowen

I'd go with the smaller sink too @Grobian . The last thing you want is to do all this and find out, whoops you need another .25 cm.

sportzboytjw

It's super-easy to shift it off-center though if you still want to do that.