Baril Faucets Review & Rating Updated: 02/06/23

Imported

China

Baril Manufacturier, Inc.
579 Boulevard Ste-Madeleine
Trois-Rivières, QC G8T 9J8
(800) 463-3871
(800) 461-4039

trading as

Baril Design

Rating

Business Type

Product Range

Kitchen and Bath Faucets

Certifications

Brands

Baril,

Street Price

$140-$950

Warranty Score

Baril

Cartridge

Lifetime¹

Finishes

Lifetime

Mechanical Parts

Lifetime

Proof of Purchase

Required

Transferable

No

Meets U.S. Warranty
Law Requirements

No

Warranty Footnotes:

1. The product will be free from defects in material and manufacturing workmanship for as long as the original pur­chaser "remains the owner of the residence of the original installation and of the product" …".

Read the Barill warranty.

Learn more about faucet warranties.

This Company In Brief

Baril Manufacturier, Inc. is an importer of faucets designed in Ca­na­da but manufactured in China.

It formerly sold two brands. Baril, its mid-priced designer brand, and Ja­lo, its economy brand. The Jalo brand was discontinued in 2020 and Les Robinetteries Jalo Inc., a Baril subsidiary, is out of the faucet business.

Baril faucets are of above average to very good overall quality, available in a variety of finishes, incorporating some durable, best-in-class European valve cartridges, and supported by a lifetime warranty on all parts of the fau­cet, including finishes.

Baril faucet styling is a blend of North American and European traditions, some of which is quite distinctive.

Canada hosts several fau­cet companies that design and sell high-quality luxury faucets. Among these are to name just a couple.

Another in this group is Baril Manufacturier, Inc. founded in 1986 as Les Distributions J. L. Baril Inc. by Jacques Baril and Louise Thibeault.

The company is a privately held family-owned company organized as a federal corporation under Ca­na­di­an law. It designs, imports, and distributes faucets along with related decorative plumbing hardware.

The Company

The company does business under several trading names, including J. L. Baril, Inc., a name registered in Québec, J. L. Baril Rob­i­net­ier, and Baril Rob­i­net­ier. Its most common trading name, however, is "Baril De­sign", an unregistered trade name.

The corporation has been managed since 2010 by Marie-Ève Baril, daughter of the founders, from an office/warehouse complex in Trois-Rivières Québec, about 90 miles from its showroom and sales offices on St. Lau­rent Boule­vard in Mon­tre­al.

Baril formerly sold faucets under two brands: Baril, its mid-priced faucets mostly of its own design, and Jalo, an economy faucet line.

"Baril" is a trademark of the company registered in both Can­a­da and the U.S.

"Jalo" is also a registered trademark, but the brand has been discontinued and its faucets are no longer manufactured.

Where to Buy Baril Faucets

Baril faucets are sold in most of Ca­na­da primarily through showrooms.

Baril launched sales in the U.S. in 2017, again mostly through showrooms. The faucets, however, are not yet widely available. U.S. retail locations are largely limited to Washington and Oregon in the West and New England, a few Mid-Atlantic states, and Florida in the East. The brand is expanding, but slowly.

A "find a retailer" guide on the company website will identify the nearest showroom.

Coordinated Collections

Baril bath faucets are part of coordinated collections that may include showers, tub fillers, spouts, and bathroom accessories such as towel racks, wall-mounted shelves, and robe hooks, even a shower squeegee. Baril calls these "sections" in some parts of its website, and "collections" in others.

Kitchen collections are less complete. A Baril kitchen fau­cet may be paired with a soap and lotion dispenser, cold water tap, and hot water dispenser but that's about the limit of coordinated kitchen accessories.

Made in China

The company name translates into English as "Baril Manufacturing."

At one time it may have been a manufacturer, and it still occasionally refers to itself as a fau­cet manufacturer or fabru­icant des robu­inets. This line from its print catalog is typical:

Baril Design has been dedicated to the industry since 1986. Driven by our passion for the unconventional, we excel at designing, manufacturing, and distributing faucets. (Emphasis supplied),

There is no evidence, however, that Baril currently manufactures anything and certainly not faucets. It does not own a facility equipped or licensed to manufacture faucets.

Manufacturing faucets requires fairly dangerous processes, such as casting molten metal, and uses some hazardous chemicals like sulfuric acid (for fau­cet finishing), all of which require permits from various levels of government. There is no indication that Baril has applied for or received the necessary permits.

Its Trois-Rivières complex is a warehouse/office at which Baril does some minor assembly, primarily adding handles, cartridges, and aerators to existing faucets — what is known in the industry as "screwdriver assembly" — but no actual manufacturing or finishing that would result in a "substantial transformation" sufficient to qualify the company as a or even an of faucets.

We classify Baril as a — a company that designs its own faucets but contracts actual manufacturing to outside companies.

In-house design combined with external manufacturing is a model adopted by several excellent faucet companies and one that produces some very high-quality faucets.

Design companies like Baril make no excuses for the fact they consider themselves the creative end of the industry, leaving the nitty-gritty business of actually producing their creations to the less imaginative. Companies known to use this approach include

So, Baril is in some very good company.

See Faucet Basics: Understanding Fau­cet Comp­an­ies for more information about types of fau­cet companies.

The following companies are known to have manufactured Baril faucets over the past 60 months:

• The Sources (3G) Co., Ltd., an manufacturer of faucets and other sanitary wares located in China. It appears to be Baril's primary manufacturer.

• It also manufactures for several other Canadian faucet companies including private brand Tassili faucets for Canac, a 135-year-old Quebec-based chain of home improvement centers, and Nautika, a decorative plumbing hardware distributor also based in Quebec.

• Toya Valves & Metals Co., Ltd. located in central Taiwan seems to be fading as a Baril manufacturer.

• At our last update, only two faucets manufactured by Toya were still in the Baril catalog, the B71-4050-00 Eva and the B72-4050-00 Tradition centerset lavatory faucets. They are not in the current Baril catalog but still may be in store inventories.

• Toya also manufactures two faucets for

• Ningbo Fudy International Co., Ltd., a Chinese manufacturer of contemporary bathwares of all types.

The company also buys faucets through Qian­yang Trad­ing Comp­any Ltd., a broker trading in general merchandise located in Guang­dong Province. These appear to be off-the-shelf Chin­ese fau­cets.

At one time almost all Baril-branded faucets were made in Italy, but that association ended several years ago. There are no fau­cets in Baril's current catalog that are made in Italy or anywhere else in Eur­ope.

Even faucets that were originally designed by Italian companies, such as the Utopia, are now manufactured in China.

Baril's faucets are also no longer made in Taiwan. Toya was Baril's last Taiwanese manufacturer. With the disappearance of Toya faucets from the Baril catalog, all Baril faucets are now made in China.

Faucet Components

"Made in China" does not, however, imply they are poorly made faucets. They are well made using top quality components including world-class valve cartridges and aerators.

Aerators

Faucet used to be simple devices that merely added a little air to the water to soften the stream so it would not splash out of the sink.

Today, however, they are precision components used to limit water volume to the lower flows required by federal and state water conservation laws.

In kitchen faucets with sprays, they are also used to prevent back-flow that can result in the contamination of household drinking water.

It is important, therefore, that this little device, often smaller than a Canadian penny, be the best available. And that, almost by definition, is the Swiss-designed Neoperl^® aerator used in Baril fau­cets.

Baril will outfit a fau­cet with an aerator that limits the fau­cet to the legal flow rate.

Valve Cartridges

Baril single-handle faucets use excellent valve cartridges from the Hungarian firm, Kerox, Kft. Stem cartridges for two-handle faucets are from the German company, Flühs Dreh­tech­nik, GmbH. Both are considered among the best made.

Baril Faucet Design

Baril claims to love audacity and to take risks with its designs, daring to be innovative. The current Baril fau­cet line, however, is tepid compared to the sometimes fanciful faucets created for Baril in the not-so-distant past by international designers of considerable note that included:

• Michel Robichaud, perhaps French Ca­na­da's most famous fashion designer (now retired), created the company's first designer collection in 1989;

• Piet Billekens, a noted Dutch designer who worked for the Italian fau­cet maker, Carlo Nobili Rubinetterie, where he created the Utopia collection for Baril;

• Alessandro Mendini, one of the deans of contemporary Italian design and the creator of the distinctive Grazie collection that included lavatory faucets with a choice among five distinctive and fanciful handle designs; and

• M&Z Rubinetterie, an Italian manufacturer, designed the Fluo collection of lavatory faucets that incorporated trim rings of different colors that glowed in the dark.

Faucets created for Baril during this extraordinary period in its history included the Form, available with handles in three exotic wood species, and the Fur fau­cet that featured inlays of real leather or fur.

Of these exotic faucets, only the relatively nondescript Utopia is still available from Baril, although other faucets of this older generation may still be in showroom inventories.

The current Baril collection, although not nearly as adventuresome as prior offerings still includes stylish and distinctive faucets.

Many are designed by Alto Design, an industrial design firm in Montreal that created the new B50, B51, B52, and B53 collections for Baril. These designs won a Grand Prix Du Design in 2012 and an International Design Excellence award in 2013.

The most interesting current design is the Marie Haute Couture collection designed by Maison Marie Saint Pierre, a fashion designer based in Montreal. The design won an ADEX platinum design award in 2023.

Baril Faucet Finishes

Baril has greatly trimmed down its finish selections. The 26 psychedelic Benjamin Moore colors formerly available on M faucets including Tequila Lime, Desert Sunset, and Poolside Blue are gone (as are M faucets themselves). The Fluo fau­cet with its rings of six available colors including glow-in-the-dark lime is also gone. Only one color choice remains – black.

The standard Baril finish is chrome supplemented by two nickels, bronze, two golds, copper, and stainless steel. Not every fau­cet is available in every finish. Some faucets are offered in as few as two finishes.

Two are available on a few faucets, white on chrome and "smokey chrome" (pewter gray on chrome). The Marie B35 collection has its own finish palette: Chrome, French Gold, Matte Black, Mist, Glossy Black, and Blush.

Baril does not disclose the processes used to finish its faucets. Most likely, however, Chrome and Nickel are . The rest of the metals are probably applied using (PVD). Colored finishes are usually (but with the extraordinary advances being made in PVD technology, some could be PVD finishes).

involves immersing the fau­cet and the metal to be used as plating in an acid bath, then applying an electrical charge to both objects so metallic ions are drawn from the plating metal to the fau­cet.

Usually, multiple coats are applied, one or more undercoats and then two or more coats of the finish metal.

The top coat may be polished or brushed. Chrome, a relatively hard metal, is usually polished to a high shine. Nickel, a softer metal, is typically brushed to help hide the inevitable minor scratches.

or PVD is one of the latest space-age fau­cet finishing technology, rapidly replacing electroplating as the finish of choice.

Although the technology was discovered in the 19th century, it was not used in industry until the 1950s and then only rarely due to its great expense. Its first use was in nuclear reactors. Today, technology is everywhere and the machinery required is getting smaller, faster, and cheaper all the time.

The process involves reducing a metal to be used as the finish to its individual atoms in a vacuum chamber then blasting the resulting plasma onto the faucet parts to be finished. A calculated mix of inert and reactive gases through which the ions pass gives the finish its color.

Despite being just microns thick, a PVD coating is extremely dense and, in consequence, very hard and durable. By some estimates, it is up to 20 times more scratch-resistant than electroplated chrome. From long experience, we know that PVD is nearly impossible to accidentally scratch or mar, never fades or changes color, and resists all forms of soiling.

is essentially a dry paint in powder form applied using a special low-velocity spray gun. The sprayed parts are then baked in an oven which melts and bonds the powder and changes its structure into long, cross-linked molecular chains that give the coating its durability

The coating is usually described as semi-durable, not as robust as electroplated or PVD finishes, slightly more durable than the finish on your car, and requiring more care to maintain a like-new appearance.

Once the powder is applied, the item being coated is baked in an oven which melts and bonds the powder and changes the structure of the coating into long, cross-linked molecular chains.

These chains are what give the coating its durability, reducing the risk of scratches, chipping, abrasions, corrosion, fading, and other wear issues.

Baril Website

The Baril website is in places a little hard to follow for English speakers. Some of the language seems to have been translated literally from the French and sometimes does not make a lot of sense in English.

Otherwise, the site is crisp and well-designed. Navigation is mostly intuitive although there are a few quirks. The site's search facility is capable but has limits. We had no problem finding individual faucets but some obvious search terms such as "finishes" and "warranty" produced no results.

The site identifies the finishes available on each fau­cet and will often, but not always, display the fau­cet in the selected finish.

A fau­cet can be ordered with a flow rate that complies with any flow limitation including Cal­i­forn­ia's new lower flow rates for bathroom and kitchen faucets.

Faucet descriptions are concise and accompanied by downloadable specification sheets and installation guides in the universal Portable Document Format (.pdf).

But, the information provided is not quite complete or adequate for an informed buying decision.

There is, for example, no indication in the specifications that the faucets are certified as safe, reliable, and lead-free to North American standards — something prospective buyers might like to know.

Nor is there an identification of the ceramic cartridges used in the faucets, which is odd as Baril faucets use excellent cartridges from top-notch cartridge manufacturers.

Installation instructions are clearly written (in two languages) and well-illustrated. Our plumbers had no problem installing our test faucets, rating the installation "very easy" on a four-point scale from "very hard" to "very easy".

The instructions include an exploded parts drawing with all parts numbered but there is no corresponding legend that identifies the parts that correspond to the numbers – a limitation that greatly reduces their usefulness.

We found a few broken internal links on the site resulting in a "404 - Page Not Found" error, and some things are hard to find. For example, the warranty is at the top of each page under "Resources". It took a little trial and error to find it. Current U.S. warranty law requires it to be linked from each faucet listing, whether its placement at the top of the page under "Resources" substitutes for that link is unknown. The law is too new to have any court decisions.

Baril Warranty

The Baril warranty is the standard limited lifetime warranty for the North American market.

The company warrants the mechanics of its Baril faucets and all cartridges against manufacturing defects to the original owner for "as such person remains the owner of the residence of the original installation and of the product." Very clumsy wording, but not as clumsy as some other provisions of the warranty. What it means is that as long as the buyer owns the faucet and owns the residence in which the faucet was first installed, he or she has a warranty.

Finishes are also guaranteed for "life." In Baril's older warranty, they were guaranteed only under "standard conditions of use," whatever that means. That limitation has now been removed.

The warranty has drafting problems and does not comply with the minimum requirements specified in the Mag­nu­son-Moss War­ranty Act (15 U.S.C. §2308). This Act is the federal warranty law for consumer products sold in the United States. And, it has some very odd provisions.

Exclusion of Non-Homeowners

For example, to get warranty coverage in the first instance, the Buyer has to own the residence of "original installation." If the Buyer does not own a home at the time of purchase, the warranty never attaches because the condition required for warranty coverage does not exist.

This provision eliminates a significant portion of the buying public, especially seniors, who have transferred ownership of their homes to a living trust or some other entity as part of their estate planning. It also excludes renters, lessees, and tenants who together constitute about 40% of the U.S. and Canadian population.

It seems unlikely that Baril meant to exclude almost half of the faucet-buying public from warranty coverage, but that is the legal effect of the way its warranty is written.

To be fair, we know of no instance in which a warranty claim has been refused because the buyer did not own his or her house, or even an instance in which Baril has asked about home ownership.

But, a claim could lawfully be denied for lack of home ownership, and that's what we have to look at when assessing a warranty – what the company could do lawfully under the terms of its warranty.

Exclusion of Implied Warranties

The warranty attempts to exclude "all other warranties, including, but not limited to, any mandatory warranty of merchantability or suitability for use."

In the U.S., however, such exclusions are illegal.

The basic scheme of the Magnuson-Moss is that a seller's written warranty supplements but does not displace state law warranties. In consequence, the Act prohibits the exclusion of state law implied warranties. (15 U.S. Code § 2308)

Missing Required Provisions

Some provisions required in the U.S. are missing from the Baril warranty.

Most notable is the absence of instructions for making a warranty claim, including the mailing address, telephone number, and/or e-mail address to be used. This provision must be a part of every consumer warranty offered in the U.S. (16 CFR § 701.3(a)(5))

The Baril warranty should be examined by an attorney conversant with U.S. warranty law, and rewritten to comply with that law.

Testing & Certification

Faucets comparable to Baril that are sold in the U.S. and Ca­na­da include

We judge the Baril line of faucets to be a good value. The faucets are well-made using top-quality components. The finish palette is broad enough to encompass any finish preference. All faucets have been tested a certified to comply with North American standards. Baril's warranty, despite its multiple drafting defects, provides the North American standard lifetime coverage against manufacturing defects.

Baril prices are at or slightly below prices for similar faucets made by its competitors.

We are continuing to research the company. If you have experience with Baril faucets, good, bad, or indifferent, we would like to hear about it, so please contact us or post a comment below.