There’s a FAUCET in my WINDOW!!!

We can’t tell you how often we hear homeowners poo-poo the idea of a tall faucet in their window while they’re perusing the myriad of options we display in our showroom. Honestly, we just DO NOT UNDERSTAND this dilemma. The faucets we sell are FUNCTIONAL ART. They are beautiful to look at and they are a pleasure to use. And we believe, that when the eye wishes to take in the scenery, it is capable of focusing both near and far: near upon the lovely faucet and far out the window to nature’s beauty. It does not have to be one or the other. A tall faucet can become a beautiful center point in a window. We visited the Houzz website and created an ideabook. Click here to see it.

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Yet another reason you need us

Right now we’re helping someone who ordered his stuff online, from a “good old brand” that’s not so good anymore because it’s mostly plastic. YET ANOTHER REASON TO BUY LOCALLY FROM EXPERTS!! Now his project is delayed, he is buying only what he can get quickly, and he is going to have to take care of handling the return of his online garbage–oops–I mean online plastic fixtures. We will ultimately save you money and headaches and we will help you with warranty down the road.

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Buying Your New Faucets – Avoid Plastic

It’s pretty. It’s expensive. You want it. STOP!!

Before you buy your new faucets or shower fixtures, you need to make sure that they are going to be easy to care for and that they will last. This means that they need to be made by a reputable manufacturer. Buy your faucet from a FAUCET MANUFACTURER, not a furniture manufacturer or a lighting manufacturer or a pillow company. You want your faucet to be made by a faucet specialty company, not a company who outsources their manufacturing because it will be difficult to get parts later. And some of the biggest names that we’ve known all of our lives are no longer that great. Many of them have allowed poor manufacturing in order to hit a price point while guaranteeing profit. I’m not going to name names. Sorry.

But…make sure your product is made of brass or stainless steel. (Yes, several big names actually make PLASTIC FAUCETS!!) Make sure the cartridges are not plastic. (with the exception of mixing cartridges for single handle shower valves and kitchen faucets.) If your faucet has a hot handle and a separate cold handle, the cartridge beneath that handle should be brass or stainless steel, NOT nylon. Several good brands of shower valves and kitchen faucets do have quality ceramic discs encased in plastic cartridges but you need to know what the good brands are. And how will you know this? Ideally, you would walk into my showroom and I would show you. But, if that is impossible, you can either call the company or buy the faucet and take it apart. If you find nylon or plastic cartridges, TAKE IT BACK!! If the part where the handle attaches is plastic, don’t buy it. It will wear out very quickly. It’s going to give you problems and you’ll spend way more time repairing this faucet (or paying $$a plumber to fix it) than you would one that may cost more but be made of more durable materials. Many less expensive faucets are built with planned obsolescence in mind. This means the faucets were built to hit that magical price point but the manufacturer never planned to support it. There are no repair parts. There is no customer service number (or no one will ever answer it). No outside representative has been paid to help us help you. We try to NOT sell brands like this. Expect to pay about $300 to $350 for a high quality entry level kitchen faucet in chrome.

And make sure it has a lifetime warranty. Ask how warranty issues are handled. Ask about the experience the showroom has had dealing with warranty issues. We have seen many less expensive brands enter the market, offer a lifetime warranty, and then be out of business in just a few years which makes the lifetime warranty useless. If you just love the faucet and have to have it even though the warranty radar has been beeping, perhaps you can order your first set of replacement cartridges at the same time you buy your faucet. This will carry you through your first repair.

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