Sink Cabinets and Chemical Storage

kitchen sink cabinets

Think about what's typically located in your sink cabinets: the underside of stainless steel sinks, the garbage disposal metal casing (in most cabinets), copper or CPVC water supply pipes, and plastic, PVC or metal waste pipes. Plastic and metal are affected by corrosive chemicals, and continued corrosion and rusting can eventually result in leaks. Most people, though, store everyday chemicals inside their sink cabinets.

This is the absolute wrong place to store such items because most cleaning chemicals by their very nature are corrosive. So, I personally recommend not storing chemicals in your sink cabinets. Additionally, children won't have the opportunity to gain access to those harmful and dangerous chemicals.

Not many people ever remove all those chemicals out of the sink cabinets to inspect the cabinet floor and the water and drainage pipes, unless they're moving, or a significant leak is noticed, or a child is injured after gaining access to the chemicals.

Water supply and drainage pipes should be monitored regularly, and here's how to do it virtually on a daily basis with no effort at all on your part: Store dry materials (towels, bathroom tissue, boxes, etc.) in your sink cabinets. This type of storage allows one to check for leaks in sink cabinets each time something dry is removed. If normally dry materials are wet, check for leaks or deteriorated caulking/grouting around the sink edges and the counter top splash guard. Always have a licensed plumber repair or replace any plumbing components that fail and have any deteriorated caulking and grouting repaired.

So where should you store such dangerous chemicals? A high cabinet in the garage or at an exterior location is great, but if you must keep them inside, an upper hallway closet, the cabinet above the microwave oven, or the cabinet above the refrigerator make great interior locations.

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Hi Dave,

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Lisa G.