There
are many superior faucet companies selling in North America, offering a large
number of good to excellent faucet values.
In fact, there has never been a better time to buy a faucet. The technology is edging ever closer to producing
an actual lifetime faucet that never leaks, never tarnishes, and never needs
repair. We are not there yet, but we
are oh so close.

There
are also a lot of mediocre faucet companies selling products that are a
not-so-good value. Distinguishing the
good from the average and the average from the poor is what we try to do in our
faucet
reviews and ratings of over 100 faucet brands. And, once a year or so, usually in the late summer when things
slow down a bit, we sit down to suss out the best of the best. Not necessarily the best faucet, but the
best faucet for the money.

This
year it was a tough decision. But after lengthy consideration,
we have come up with our three best value companies.

The
factors we weight in judging a faucet company are:

1. The quality of its faucets, averaged over the past five
   years. We look especially for companies
   with high average scores that are improving from year to year.

2. The
   strength of its warranty. No
   company with a less than lifetime faucet warranty on its mechanicals,
   cartridges or finishes can hope to compete.
   We do not think a 5- or 10-year warranty on a product that most buyers
   expect to last a lifetime is a sufficient guarantee of quality. So, if
   the company's warranty is is not a lifetime warranty, the company will
   probably not even be considered.

3. Post-sale
   customer and warranty service. Many
   companies offer lifetime warranties on their faucets, but do not have a
   post-sale warranty service that is prepared to handle warranty and parts
   issues
   effectively. We test post-sale customer
   service and score it on a 0.0 to 5.0 point scale. No company that
   scores less than 4.0 can hope to compete against the top performers
   like Moen and
   California
   Faucets.

4. Safety,
   reliability and lead-free certifications. A contender must have had its
   faucets certified as complying with the joint U.S./Canadian standards for
   safety and reliability (ASME A 112.18.1/CSA B125.1), and with the North
   American lead free standard (ANSI/NSF 61.9).
   An alarming number of faucet companies do not certify their faucets. Not
   having these mandatory certifications disqualifies a faucet company from
   consideration. A faucet must have been
   tested by an authorized independent testing facility and certified to meet both
   of these mandatory standards to be legal for installation in the U.S. and Canada. We have no reason to even look at a faucet
   that cannot be legally installed in North America.
   
   

   
   

Best
Value: North American Faucet

Delta

Delta Faucet Company

55 E. 111th Street.

P O Box 40980

Indianapolis, IN 46280

800-345-3358

Overall
Rating: 6-9 (Above Average to Excellent)

The Delta Faucet Co. is a division of the giant Masco
Corporation. It manufactures Brizo,
Delta and Peerless faucets. This
ranking applies to just the company's mid-priced Delta faucets.

Delta is the faucet company that has been counted out so
many times, that it should be punch drunk by now. When Moen
came out with its single-handle washer-less faucets in the 1950s, everyone
predicted that the long reign of Delta Faucets as the best selling brand in
North America was over. Delta
counter-punched a few years later with the Delta ball valve, a better valve in
many ways than Moen's washer-less cartridge, less likely to wear out and easier
to repair. Delta regained its crown.

In the 1990s with the
rush of European imports featuring the newest technology ceramic disk valves,
Delta was again predicted to be soon on the ropes. Year after year passed as Delta clung stubbornly to its increasingly
antiquated ball valve technology.

Then, in 2008 after nearly two year's of persistent rumor
that Delta was going to announce something big, it unveiled its Diamond Seal
Technology® (DST) ceramic cartridge and InnoFlex® faucet waterway — Two innovations that are a leap ahead of
existing technology.

The DST cartridge pairs a diamond-powder-coated stationary
ceramic disk with a non-coated rotating disk.
Delta says this feature helps keeps the disks absolutely smooth since
the diamond-coated disk continuously scrubs and polishes the other disk so they
always mesh perfectly. It also continuously grinds away any mineral deposits
that may insinuate themselves between the disks. The more you use it, the
smoother it gets.

The InnoFlex waterway is an equally impressive
innovation. In an era during which faucet
companies are scrambling to reduce the lead in their brass faucets in order to
comply with the new lead-free limits of not more than 0.25% in a faucet, Delta
simply bypassed the problem by routing the water in its faucets through a PEX
tube. Water never comes in contact with
the metal in the faucet, so it cannot possibly pick up any lead. PEX is a cross-linked polyethylene material
that is flexible and very strong. It is
now used in place of copper pipes in most residential plumbing installations.

The new technologies,
now seven years old and rapidly replacing the older technologies in Delta
faucets, are, by all accounts, a stunning success. DST cartridges have been tested using the standard U.S./Canada
disk durability protocol to 5 million off/on, hot/cold cycles without a failure
-- or about 700 years of typical kitchen use. Delta makes faucets in Greensburg, Indiana, Jackson,
Tennessee; and Morgantown, Kentucky. It has two more plants in Ontario: one in
London and another in Cambridge, that mostly serve the Canadian market. Delta
employs over 1,300 Americans in the U.S., and nearly the same number of
Canadians in its various Canadian operations.

Delta's customer service and warranty support is second only
to Moen. Moen has the customer service organization
that is the model to which others aspire but rarely reach. Delta's service is close, but was scored
down again this year for hold times exceeding 5 minutes -- a problem that Delta
does not seem able to cure.

The Delta lifetime warranty on every component in its faucets,
except the electronics in its hands-free faucets, is a big plus. Other companies limit the warranty on hoses,
sprayers and some finishes to as little as one year. Delta, which uses only the latest technology PVD finishes,
guarantees every finish for as long as you own the faucet. PVD finishes are
variously estimated to be 10 to 20 times more durable and scratch resistant
than the standard faucet finish: plated chrome.

Delta is easily our value pick of the domestic faucet
companies. For the price there is not
another faucet in the world that can touch it.

Best
Value: European Faucet

Cifial

Cifial USA

6540 Peachtree Industrial Blvd.

Suite A

Norcross, GA 30071

800-528-4904

Overall Rating:
7-8 (Good to Very Good)

Cifial, a relative newcomer to North America, just became
eligible for consideration this year, and immediately jumped to first place
ahead of our value leader for the past three years, Grohe.

Cifial faucets are made in Portugal by Cifial S.G.P.S., S.A. a
Portuguese manufacturer of mid-priced designer faucets. It is one of the better
European designer faucet companies that sell in the U.S. and Canada, but also
one of the least well known.

Founded in Portugal in 1904, Cifial has over a century of
plumbing and hardware manufacturing experience, and has a solid reputation in
Europe for quality products. Cifial designs and manufacturers its own faucets
in its state-of-the-art facility in Riomeao.
Its talented in-house design staff has led the company to a number of
prestigious European design awards since 1994, including the internationally
coveted Red Dot award for design excellence.

Cifial designs are traditional and transitional and fit well
in most kitchens and baths. The company's Techo designs are contemporary,
but conservative, far from pushing the envelope.

The ceramic cartridges used in its faucets are from Flühs Drehtechnik, GmbH, a German firm located
in Ludenscheid, Germany since 1926. Flühs (sometimes spelled Fluehs for English
speakers) valves do not require lubricant, which can wear or wash away, making
thee faucet operation stiffer over time. Flühs cartridges have a
well-established reputation for reliability.

Cifial guarantees its
finishes, except living finishes, and all of the other components of its
faucets for as long as the "original buyer owns the home in which the
faucet is installed."

Living finishes are not guaranteed, as is the industry
custom.

We rate Cifial's customer service good to very good. In our
tests it scored 4.4 on a 5 point scale. Any score above 4.0 is acceptable.

Customer service agents were knowledgeable, and went the extra
mile to be helpful. Our installation tests, involving purely imaginary (but
creative) problems with a faucet installation, were passed with ease. The installation
instructions were clear and well illustrated.

The company has no record with the Better Business Bureau,
which generally means that the BBB has never received a complaint about the company.

Priced at 30-50% below the prices of similar faucets from
other European companies, the faucets are an exceptional value. Unlike other European faucet companies such
as Franke
and Blanco
that no longer manufacture their own faucets, Cifial actually makes its faucets
in its own factory, and in Europe, not in Indonesia, Viet Nam or Turkey. The
lifetime Cifial warranty easily surpasses the five- and ten-year warranties
offered by competing European companies selling faucets of equivalent quality.

Cifial easily earns
our nod as the best European faucet for the money sold in North America.

Best
Value: Asian Faucet

Danze

Globe Union Industrial Corp, Ltd.

2 Territorial Ct., Suite A

Bolingbrook, IL 60440

888-328-2383

Overall Rating:
6-8 (Above Average to Very Good)

Introduced to the U.S. in 2000, Danze is a name under which
Globe Union Industrial Corp. has grown a major brand identity in the U.S. It is
the most actively promoted of the many faucet, fixture and accessory brands
owned by the gigantic Asian company controlled by the Ou-yang Ming family of
Taichung, Taiwan.Globe Union is the dominant faucet
manufacturer in Asia under its GOBO brand. Its faucets are made primarily in
mainland Chinese factories by its subsidiary Shenzhen Globe Union Industrial
Corp. (with a small bow to Canada for some automatic faucets).

Globe Union is a full line manufacturer. Like the Masco line
of Peerless/
Delta/
Brizo
faucets, Globe Union's products range widely in quality, an effect of making
products at every price point. In the Globe Union lineup, Danze is positioned
as the mid-upper tier faucet line, roughly equivalent to Delta.

As a whole, the Danze line seems to be well made. Many of
the faucets are very stylish, and while Globe Union in the past mostly copied
existing European and American designs, the company has recently begun
introducing its own styles and they are good, some are even excellent.

Danze has been a marketing success, having grown to
impressive proportions in fifteen years with hundreds of brick and mortar
retailers and a strong internet presence.

Globe Union seems to have conquered the parts and warranty
issues that plagued the brand's early years. In our latest customer service tests, Danze scored above the 4.0 out of
5.0 that we consider satisfactory.

We believe the Danze faucets are a good to excellent value for the
price. They are generally of better
quality than the run-of-the-mill Chinese faucet. The proprietary Danze ceramic cartridge valve is very good, and
the Danze lifetime warranty, even with its procedural defects, where most
importers of Chinese faucets offer 10 years at best, seals the deal.

Danze is our choice for best value in Asian-made faucets.