One nice alternative if you want but can't have an instant hot is an electric kettle---we got one a few months before our remodel, and have been using it for all sorts of things. It boils far faster than our kettle did on the gas stove, and I also love the auto shutoff. No more trying to remember if I turned the stove off after I'm at work! It will have its own space in the new kitchen, and will be the primary source for hot water. We are also in the extreme minority in GW land and only have one water source in the kitchen---not even a fridge line! (Okay, technically it's split for the d/w, so I guess that's 1.5...) It's what we had before and we liked it, so we kept it that way. Works for us. I like the idea of an instant hot, but we have a small kitchen and the under-sink real estate was too valuable to put one in. I contemplated a pot filler, but our stove is close enough to the sink that we wouldn't gain that much. Friends who have one that is very close to the sink still love it because it allows them to fill pots with a child in one arm. You still have to put the child down to empty it, of course, but makes it a little easier! We have a hot water dispenser at work, which I do use, but I do find the water is not quite hot enough for tea. I use it anyway for that since I'm lazy, though. :) (You also may be able to change the settings; no clue how it works, exactly.) I've seen steamers (someone around here who posted a finished kitchen recently has one, I think) and they're very cool, but really only logical to have if you steam things virtually every night or if you have a really large kitchen with space that isn't needed for other things.

Good god, people love to dump on someone and belittle their concerns, rather than contributing anything that might be useful. Read a bit about environmental toxins, and you might change your mind. Otherwise, put a sock in it. I am also concerned with reducing my exposure to environmental toxins. People live longer, yes, but they also are getting diseases linked to chemical exposure with more frequency as well. Also, there is NO SAFE LEVEL of lead, period. Lead is a neurotoxin, and particularly for people with growing brains (eg. children) this is an extremely valid and serious concern. Why do you think the government keeps lowering the allowable amount of lead? Have you read anything about the link between lead and lowered cognitive ability, or aggressive and antisocial behavior? You can keep burying your head in the sand, but those of us who care will not. And your patronizing condescension won't make an iota of difference. You can thank us later when you've been drinking from your faucets that have vastly less lead than they used to have (though I'm going for faucets that are 100% lead free).

what i hear is that both of you like them. Get one. It makes you look like you are serious about cooking. Or making spaghetti. Be aware that there is no place to put the water if anyone toys with opening it when a pot is not under it. I think that they are all high flow. As high as allowed. The theory is that you need to save 1.7 seconds when you fill your largest pasta pot. And, they only blast water; you cannot get a gentle stream. But, this might be all wrong: it is impossible to try faucets with real pressurized water in the supply lines in the showroom. I wish we could try them all out and post the videos. Do you have more than one source of water in your kitchen? A prep sink? Cool water from a fridge water line? A filtered drinking water tap? If there's only one faucet, you have a workflow bottleneck. There are a few, very few, kitchen sink faucets that let you get water from two sources at the same time through the one cartridge (mixer valve); these are usually the pro style faucets that look like storks and cranes with a spring neck; they have both a swiveling spout and a power wash spray on a hose housed in a spring. How far away is your sink from the cooktop? Distance. Hth.

Pot fillers aren't 'just a faucet': most have 2 joints that are expected to flex constantly with no drain and no leaking: no other plumbing in your home is expected to stand up to this. Everyone reccomends double valve fillers, so the supply of water can be cut off ahead of the joints, so it's obvioulsy an issue. A kitchen large enough to make the trip from stove to sink inconvenient should be large enough to have a prep sink if its designed well. Yeah yeah, the prep sink will take up precious counterspace and cost a bit more [though some pot fillers are obscenely expensive], but compare the functionality: Pot filler: -fills pots Prep sink: -fills pots -drains pots -wash veg/meat -wash hands/knives/cutting boards -wash and drain salad -thaw frozen products -catch/dispose of veg peels -get hot/cold water when main sink is busy -dispose of cold coffee/warm beer etc. without disturbing main sink A prep sink gets you a true zone kitchen, where cooking and cleaning don't interfere with each other. A pot filler gets you only part way there. But no one gets testy if anyone questions the need for a prep sink-- they aren't for every one, or every kitchen-- but any suggestion that the pot filler isn't a 'must have' gets people really upset. People get awfully invested in this issue, not sure why...