KOHLER K-8801-VS Duostrainer Sink Strainer, Fits Most Standard Kicthen Sinks, Vibrant Stainless

I see this thing every day. Pretty glam for a sink stopper, gold, looks fine with my insanely expensive Kohler sink. It's a heavy piece, sturdy and good quality, glad I spent the extra money instead of going with what my plumber pulled out of his truck. I do enjoy having eye-appealing stuff around me, and washing dishes is grim enough without having to stare at something cheap. *sniff* As for water retention -- A+ -- and ease of install, well, I didn't hear any complaints from the plumber ;)

I just installed two of these Kohler sink strainers (in polished chrome) last week and I really couldn't be more pleased with them! Perhaps it's a bit weird to be so pleased with a lowly sink strainer, but, well, I am, and partly because I've always been DISpleased with sink strainers for as far back as I can remember noticing them. Strainers are typically made mostly of light gauge metal (except for the part of the body with the threads) and just don't work well. There are several standard approaches to strainer design. One is to have a doubled over spring-metal tongue on the bottom of the strainer basket that is pushed down into a slot in the bottom of the strainer body drain hole, this holds a rubber-ringed disc below the main basket against the sides of the body, thus sealing the sink to hold water. There are two main problems with this design: when not pushed down, a gap is present between the basket rim and the strainer body, which allows food to flow down into the drain, bypassing the basket; and, the rubber gasket gets all gunked up with food and is a pain to clean and is integral with the basket and thus can't be replaced separately. Another design is to have a metal disc down below the strainer basket, with a threaded extension. To seal, you just twist a turn-knob on the strainer and this pulls the metal disc down against a sealing surface on the strainer body. Previous to experiencing this Kohler unit, this was my favorite design as the metal disc can be cleaned and the seal was pretty good if you turned it down nice and hard. The draw back is that both the male and female threads get all gunked up with food and all the units I have found based on this design were moderate quality at best. And yet another design--the one used here--is to have a four-way cross piece at the center of the basket. In one orientation, a sealing ring is held up above the sealing surface on the body. Rotate it 90 degrees to the other orientation and that ring is allowed to drop down onto the sealing surface. The problem I have experienced in the past with this design is that the ring would get accidentally knocked down far too often during the process of washing dishes. Otherwise, it seemed like a decent design, I thought. Well, Kohler has proven this beyond a doubt in my opinion. Even after several hours of washing / rinsing dishes and the like, I have not had one case of the sealing ring dropping down unwanted. It STAYS in the locked up position pretty well, probably because it is so substantial. And when you drop it down, that extra mass helps it seal perfectly to the strainer body. It makes a really great seal from everything I have seen so far. Water can stay in the sink for hours if you want, with no leakage. I don't normally do this, so it's not a big deal either way for me, but for others it will be a welcome change from cheap, poorly designed sink strainers. In addition, the sealing is done by an o-ring. To my mind, this is GREAT! Because o-rings are cheap and easy to obtain and easy to change. Even if an o-ring only lasted a year or two before it started to lose performance, it's no big deal. Just replace it! One reviewer here noted the exact size. I will verify this and update this review. But I believe you can buy them in a two-pack at one of the big box stores that sells Kohler. I will verify this as well. Either way, my point stands. Easy and cheap to change. But that's not all! The other advantage in my opinion is that there is a minimal amount of rubber to get all gunked up, so it's easy to clean the sealing ring and to keep it clean. The strainer body itself is a thing of beauty and excellence in design. It's a heavy-weight, well machined piece of metal (brass in my case) and the three-screw tightening ring assembly makes installation of this unit a joy. Normally you need a strainer wrench (to turn this really large locking ring) and a basin wrench (to hold the strainer body), both of which are specialty tools. Cheap, but a pain, and pretty limited to just this one function. With the Kohler, these tools are not needed. Except that you have to remember that REMOVING the OLD strainer body is probably going to be a nightmare. Just assume it will be very difficult, because it probably will be. Something like this that has been in place for 20 or 30 years is just not fun to remove, and you will need some way to hold the strainer body while you turn off the locking ring. It may even take two people. Or a hacksaw if you're really unlucky. And please follow the instructions and put plumbers putty at the top sealing surface (between sink and strainer body) and use the rubber gasket at the bottom one (between bottom of the sink and the washer). One review I read somewhere the person complained about an 1/8th inch of water remaining in the sink because the gasket raised the strainer up that much. Ah . . . yeah, that's because that gasket should have been BELOW! But, once it's installed, all that pain and frustration will have been so worth it. Or at least it was for me. Every time I look at these Kohler Sink Strainers, I get a small dose of satisfaction and joy--the joy of something which works well and looks great and exudes quality. Very nice indeed.

Quality heavy duty Kohler drain with a finish that exactly matches our faucet. Easy installation, perfect fit, great looks, well made. Worth the investment to us!!!

Very sturdy. Cleans easily. Looks good

I used these to replace old chrome sink drains. This did the job of making my Kohler enamel sink look a little higher end and dressing it up. They have a good weight in the hand and are very shiny. I bought rubber mats for the sink bottoms to protect these drains and the sink from scratching. In the past I haven't liked the type of strainer baskets that these drains have, since they've never actually worked. These actually work (but you have to be careful the stopper is in the right place to hold the water in the sink; there have been a few times when it looked like it was solid, but the water drained out overnight when I left something soaking; it won't do that other times when I make sure it's closed properly). I understand from other posters that I'll need to replace the little black thingie on the bottom of the pull-out strainer (the o-ring), so I'll know what to do if it starts not holding the water. These are pricey but well worth the money, if you want a high end look and quality. The plumber had no trouble installing these. UPDATE 3/7/14: The O-ring on one of the strainers fell off recently. Luckily, I saw it and was able to catch it before it was swept down the drain with the water. I put it back on, but I guess that means I need a new O-ring already. It's only a little over 2 months old! On the up side, I still love the way these drains look. They really gave my old white enamel Kohler sink a facelift. A gorgeous look. And the drain stoppers really do work! UPDATE 1/4/2015: Last month the O-ring on the other strainer basket fell off. So I'm going to order O-rings from oringsandmore.com, which is a great site for O-rings recommended by another poster. The O-rings shouldn't stretch out so soon on such a pricey product. I'm taking off a star for that.

You don't think much about your sink drain/strainer until you have to buy one, and then you realize that they are all cheap pieces of junk out there when you actually pick up and handle them. The Kohler Duostrainer is by far the sturdiest feeling and best looking drain I got my hands on after spending a couple of weeks looking for one for our new sink. Installation is straight forward and didn't require any special tools to get a completely secure and professional fit. The actual strainer/stopper portion seems well designed and when closed doesn't let a drop of water through it, when I tested it just for fun I left a sink full of water overnight in our reno and when I returned to it it was still full. Nothing about this strainer is flimsy and I'm confident it'll last forever unless there is something sketchy about the finish but we haven't even moved back into our house yet so this is very much a time will tell area. The only point of concern is that unlike many of Kohler's plumbing products these only carry a one year warranty instead of a lifetime warranty. For an item like this demanding the high price that it does, I would hope that they would stand behind the product for a longer period of time.

Made of solid brass, very heavy duty. The length of the threads allowed install on a fire clay farmhouse sink. The Finnish has held up beautifully after 2 months use.

The Kohler DuoStrainer K-8801-2MB in Vibrant Brushed Modern Brass looks and feels like heavy duty quality. I got two for both sides of my kitchen sink and paired them with the Kohler Crue Pull Down Kitchen Faucet of the same color. With the recommended tools and plumbers putty, it was a smooth and straight forward installation process, which I did myself with the help of the manual and a YouTube video or 2, with no problems. The challenge I experienced was uninstalling one of the two previous drains, which had been there so long it was a bit stuck. Same thing happened with uninstalling the previous faucet, but got through it both times without having to call for help. The functions for the basket placements work a bit differently than my previous drain strainers did, it took some getting used to but once I did, it’s now a smooth experience. Overall thoughts and experience of the Kohler Duostrainers…I love the quality, functionality and style of these strainers.

Goes perfectly with GICASA Commercial Style Single Handle Kitchen Sink Faucet with Pull Out Sprayer, Solid Brass Oil Rubbed Bronze

Es perfecto de excelente calidad y el color es precioso Supero mis expectativas ...fue una excelente compra...