I found some hard black pads with a honeycomb pattern stuck to the bottom of my sink. Some of them are starting to disintegrate and fall apart. Wondering what the purpose of these are and if I need to be concerned about their deterioration and if this is something that needs to be replaced?
These are sound-dampening pads:
(Image from https://www.instructables.com/Easily-Soundproof-a-Stainless-Steel-Sink/)
They aren't strictly necessary, but as the name suggests, they do help reduce how much sound the water makes as it hits the sink. If you remove the old ones and find the change in sound annoying, you might want to replace them.
You can buy new ones in any home improvement store or online, either sold specifically for sinks, or any rubber mat with an adhesive backing.
Seconding Abe's reply, these are sound dampeners. When we got our stainless steel sink it had them attached. One fell off pretty soon and I noticed more noise so I glued it back in place using regular Elmer's type glue.
I think they're mostly used for stainless sinks, our previous porcelain sink didn't have pads. Performance won't be harmed by removing them or not reattaching any that fall off other than more noise when you're running water in the sink.
