@ Belaria
Great post, and right to the point. A couple of thoughts.....
Masco (Peerless, Delta, Brizo, and Newport Brass) and Fortune Brands (Moen, Perrin & Rowe, and Rohl) sell about two-thirds of all the faucets sold in the U.S. and Kohler another 15%, which is millions of faucets. All of the hundreds of other faucet companies in the U.S. split the remaining 20% of the market.
The Bigs have a faucet failure rate of much less than 1%, but even a fraction of 1% of millions of faucets is a lot of failing faucets, which is why you see Delta, Moen, and Kohler complained about with some frequency on yelp and other websites.
Keep in mind that the complaints are a tiny, tiny portion of the faucets sold. AND, studies have shown repeatedly that 60-80% of faucet failures are in some way connected to faulty installation rather than a problem with the faucet itself.
Four hundred complaints about Moen in a year is a tempest in a teaspoon. while 40 complaints about a small company like Watermark or California Faucets could point to a major engineering or manufacturing disaster.
We were surprised to learn that In2aqua has started using plastic spray wands. We confirmed it with the company owner. The company has replaced its larger brass pull-out (but not pull-down) wands on its kitchen faucets with polymer because of numerous adverse comments about the weight of the brass components. Only the shell of the wand is plastic, however. The innards have not changed. But, you are right about plastic, it does not wear like brass. Some people like plastic wands. They don't get hot like brass wands. Personally, I wouldn't have one on a bet.
We will add this new information to the In2aqua review in our next update. Thanks for the heads up.
The rasping noise you hear when you pull down the stainless steel braided hose is seemingly unavoidable. We have had that complaint about faucets from a number of upscale companies that use a braided hose. The solution is a silicon spray applied to the hose. This does not eliminate the noise, but reduces it to bearable level. A non-braided hose is not noisy, but the trade-off is that braided hoses are much less likely to break.
We tested an In2aqua pull-down kitchen faucet in one of our tester's actual home kitchen for nearly two years. It got just two complaints (1) the hose noise (until we hit it with some silicon) and (2) the hose is not long enough for the standard American kitchen sink which is larger than the standard European kitchen sink. I believe In2aqua is in the process of changing over to a longer hose. What we did was mosey down to the local plumbing store to fetch a longer hose.
"Kohler has been outsourcing more and more of the production that it used
to do in the United States, and quality has fallen in recent times" All too true. Wish it wasn't.
Most of Waterstone's fabulous finishes are powder coatings - essentially a very tough paint. The company describes them "semi-durable". They require considerable care and attention compared to standard electroplated chrome or any PVD finish which are "buy and forget finishes'. Personally, I am of the "buy and forget" school. Any time my chrome-finish faucets get a wipe down, they think its Christmas come early.
StarCraft Faucet Reviews are of the company and the overall quality of its faucets, warranty and customer service, and its compliance with laws and regulations. We do not review individual faucet models. Every company spits out a dud from time to time, so even if the typical Delta faucet is terrific, there are probably a few that ought to be skunked.
So, once you have decided on a prospect, do the research about that particular faucet - including posting here for other people's experiences with the faucet.
Anyway, I really enjoyed your post, and wish everyone would do the in-depth research you are doing before buying a faucet. Homeowners will spend weeks looking at dishwasher after dishwasher before parting with $500, but will plunk down $800 for for a faucet they saw in the shop window because it's "purty". Not the way to do it.
Let us know what faucet you eventually choose.
Q
With a CGS
Q