Butler/belfast sink waste.

[Ed Sirett]

I am trying to install a genuine 1929 butler sink.

So far all I've been told is that a standard basket-plug sink waste will fit. Well it nearly does, the bottom part will fit nicely but the top part is just a bit too big. The diameter of the hole is about 70mm and it needs to be about 80mm to accept the standard basket.

I've looked at several different makes of wastes and none will fit.

My backup plan (which is some chore) is to rig up the diamond core drill and widen the hole in the ceramic to take the waste. I have a 65mm core drill which I can rig up to to widen the hole in 4 'bites'.

Is there a special supplier of wastes for these? Is it possible that the 'reproduction' version of these is a bit bigger so as to take a standard basket-plug sink waste?

[Owain]

Do bathroom basin wastes have smaller baskets than kitchen sink wastes?

Owain

[Ed Sirett]

The only ones I've seen are for hair dressing basins. I presume they would be basin sized, although they might be bigger. They wouldn't be big enough by a long way to fit this sink.

[John Stumbles]

Dunno about genuine 1929 sinks but for the new ones I've installed I've got 1 1/2" slotted wastes (grate & standard plug type) from somewhere like Trollstation or BES

[Frank Erskine]

I'd have thought that in 1929 there was little standardisation and that installations were done by craftsmen who largely made their own fittings!

[Ed Sirett]

Update: I obtained the 1.5" sink sized "basin" style waste. But it was nearly too small underneath, use of plumbers' mait aka stay soft putty is compulsory.

After having tried a couple of times to get the fitting really centred and found it leaked I adopted plan B. I drilled out the centre hole of the slotted waste to 13mm. The unit being a substantial chromed cast brass item could handle this abuse and there was still a ring of metal joining the spokes (just). I then chopped about

30mm of the length of the waste. I then used the bits from the bottom half of a basket-plug waste with its 13mm screw to hold the whole thing together with mait and no washers. This got a result, looks ok and doesn't leak.