Are Expensive Faucets Worth It?
Every year, as a certified and professional interior designer, I am required to attend classes to continue my education. This is of benefit to you because I can stay on top of what’s new and interesting in the industry and can share it with you.
So, this past week, I attended a live online factory tour of Waterstone Faucets in Southern California. I’ve always loved tours to see how things are made and I bet you do too. 😉
Ok, there are always reasons why things cost what they do, and faucets are no exception. Why do some faucets cost as little as $100, and some are $2000? Let’s start with the concept and design of a faucet. The average development time needed is 36-man hours! Here’s an illustration of what I mean. Check out how many parts are involved!
There are 4 stages of manufacturing for a faucet. The first stage is about obtaining raw materials and machining the parts. Good parts start with solid brass. Have you noticed that the cheaper products seem to be plastic on the inside? And they may not be manufactured here in the US.
Stage two is called Part picking, polishing and quality control. Here are a couple of pics of that process in action. Imagine if the wrong parts get into the wrong box. 😬 What a pain to have to return the box and start over or worse…wait for the missing part to arrive. Any time you go out of the ordinary supply chain, the process gets messy. Best to do it right the first time. That’s what we call quality control!
Stage Three is all about plating (coating with a metal finish) or powder coating (applying a powder to “paint” the product).
And the last Stage is called assembly, testing and packaging. Here are a couple of pictures of the process.
I think you can see why it’s important to buy a quality product over a “knock off”. In the long run, you’ll save time and money having to replace it, and maybe also paying a plumbing to fix whatever has broken. And… consider the warrantee too. Just sayin’. 🤗
I came across this 2-1/2-minute video from another manufacturer in the industry and he happened to be talking about this very thing. And you’ll never guess who he thinks is the “best in the business” for faucets!
Thank you to Justin Tracey of Waterstone Faucets for an informative tour and for sharing your photos with me. I appreciate it!
I hope you enjoyed tagging along this week. Let me know what else you’d like to learn about, and I’ll see what I can do!
