It depends what gauge are you looking for. Consumers make a simple mistake by referring just to gauge. The thickness of the sheet metal used to fabricate a sink is called its gauge. The gauge of sheet metal for most sinks ranges from 22 -15 gauge. The lower the gauge number, the thicker the sheet metal is. High quality residential sinks range from 20-18 gauge while commercial quality sinks are offered in 15-16 gauge. When manufactures refer to the gauge of their product, they are referring to the thickness of the sheet metal before the manufacturing process begins. Most stainless steel sinks are manufactured using a process called deep draw forming where a sheet of metal is drawn down into a form through a series of steps called reductions. Each reduction stretches the sheet metal deeper and deeper into the form, so what started out as an 18 gauge sheet of metal will not end up being 18 gauge throughout the entire finished product. The industry standard is to state the gauge of the metal that the manufacturing process started with. Since this is the standard practice, it makes it easy to compare one sink to another. If you are looking for 16 gauge finished product you need to look for 15 gauge sink, not 16. I hope this helps you with your selection.

At first I wasn't sure I liked my grid. It seemed I spent a lot of time chasing bits of food down the drain that would have been easy to just direct with my hand. The idea of gunk on the underside bothered me. Now I like it. I don't care if my SS sink gets scratches. In fact, the little feet of my grid have made tiny little scratches. What I like the best, and which others also mention, is the grid gives you a relatively flat surface above the bottom of the sink, on top of which you can set things to dry while the water sloshes down below. I often dry things there and the criss-cross makes it easy to stack many cookie trays on end. As for cleaning, I do this once a week: Take my grid out of the sink and give my sink and good scrub with Ajax (or the cleanser of your choice). Then I put the grid in upside down and scrub with Ajax, flip over and scrub the other side. Then spray rinse. Takes me maybe 5 minutes. I got a positive reveal on my sink, never knowing that the right size cutting board will sit there. I never do that, because I too would forget and turn on the water full blast and wet myself.

Mine is 18 gauge. It is not loud. It is heavy duty, hard working and IIDSSM pretty dadgum awesome. I don't really think that there is a big difference unless you plan on living in a kitchen that works closer to a small restaurant than a regular home cook's kitchen.

All wonderful suggestions and considerations. This is my first post and I am ever so grateful for the replies. I do favour the offset drain and will find out this week if it will be a fit or not, otherwise I have found this. Any thoughts? https://www.prochef.ca/en/product/model/IH75-TS-27209/ Great point about the faucet, I actually recognize that picture from a previous search of mine and I did check last night as a matter of fact our new faucet does have the ability to forward face if required. I’ve heard mixed reviews about Kohler sinks (surface rust?). I do have access to a Kohler Tocatta http://ca.kohler.com/onlinecatalog/detail.jspfrom=thumb&frm=null&module=Kitchen+Sinks&item=244202&prod_num=3348-3&section=1&category=5&resultPage=0-1849799992 and a vault but I’m not keen on the zero radius corners on the vault. I would love a Kraus sink but again amazon only sells a 33” pax (zero radius) and an two pack of 25” sinks. Really weird.