Pfister Faucets Review & Rating Updated: June 7, 2024
A division of
Assa Abloy Group
19701 Da Vinci
Lake Forest, California 92610
800-Pfaucet (800-732-8238)
949-672-4000
Law Requirements
Warranty Footnotes:
1. "[A]s long as the original purchaser occupies the residential premises in which the Product was originally installed …"
Download/Print the Pfister warranty.
Learn more about faucet warranties.
This Company In Brief
Formerly Price-Pfister, the brand is now just Pfister and has been owned by Assa Abloy since being purchased from SSpectrum Brands in 2021.
Pfister designs its faucets in California but has them made in China and Korea by contract factories.
They are stylish, of good quality, generally reliable, and protected by a strong limited lifetime warranty.
Customer support, rated "unsatisfactory" as little as three years ago, has improved and is now rated "acceptable."
Faucets are priced to compete with other well-known mid-range American faucet lines, such as
Phister is a faucet brand that has experienced monumental ups and downs since its founding in the early 20th century.
At one time it was the 3rd largest faucet company in North America, manufacturing good quality, innovative faucets in California.
It lost its way after being sold to Black & Decker.
Manufacturing moved to Asia, and the quality of the brand plummeted.
In 2012, however, it was acquired by Spectrum Brands and began a slow but steady improvement in design, manufacturing, and service.
Our initial rating of the company 15 years ago was 5-6 (average to above average) based largely on the poor quality of its faucets. We have since seen it increase step by step to 5-7 (average to good), then 6-7 (above average to good). We now rate the company 7-8 (good to very good).
Considering the depths to which the company had fallen in the early years of the 21st century, its rise is a noteworthy showing.
The Company
Founded in 1910 by Emil Price, Joseph Corcoran, and William Pfister as Price-Corcoran-Pfister, Inc. in Los Angeles, California, the company later changed its name to Price-Pfister Brass Manufacturing. Co.
Its first product was a gasoline-powered generator for farmers who did not have electrical service. It was several years before the company moved into the manufacture of the plumbing fittings that became the core of its business.
In the 1920s, the Price-Pfister expanded its plumbing lines to include more types of faucets, valves, and hose nozzles for indoor sinks and bathtubs.
It added more new products in the 1930s, including its best-selling "Make-A-Shower" system used to convert an existing bathtub into a tub/shower.
The company prospered in the Post-WWII housing boom after its purchase by Isadore Familian in 1941. He redirected the company's focus to supplying the exploding post-war housing industry that completed as many as 5,000 new homes each and every day.
For more on Post-War Mid-Cntury kitchens and baths, see Post-war Housing Styles.
The company introduced faucet styles in atomic-age motifs with swooping curves and streamlined shapes that were very popular with the buying public.
Its Crown Jewel faucet, which made its appearance in the early 1950s, was one of the best-selling faucet designs in U.S. history. The faucets were so popular and so durable that thousands are still in service. Replacement parts and rebuild kits are widely available.
The company grew throughout the 1960s on the strength of its popular plumbing products.
Price-Pfister's Abandonment of U.S. Manufacturing
Price-Pfister's abandonment of domestic manufacturing began in 1993 with a lawsuit by the State of California.
Price-Pfister, along with 20 other faucet companies, was accused of knowingly allowing lead in its faucets at levels that were up to 150 times the legal limit. Price-Pfister won the lawsuit, but settled a spin-off suit by two environmental groups for $2.4 million and agreed to much lower lead limits.
Lower legal lead limits, however, were difficult for the Pacoima plant to meet. The plant used sand casting to mold faucet components, a process that at the time required relatively large amounts of lead in the brass used for casting.
The company gradually shifted Pacoima production below the border to a new plant owned by Price Pfister De Mexico, S.A. DE C.V. in Mexicali until 1997 when the Pacoima plant closed for good. The plant closing sparked in a national boycott of Price-Pfister products, protests, and even a hunger strike[1] by laid-off workers that made front-page news across the country.
Price-Pfister left behind 25 acres contaminated with toxic heavy metal residue located at 13500 Paxton Street, Pacoima, CA. The area became an active EPA Superfund cleanup site in 2004.[2] The EPA found that the site posed a potential risk to human health and/or the environment due to contamination by one or more hazardous wastes.
The company no longer manufactures faucets in the U.S. or Canada, or even in Mexico. Pfister is out of the manufacture of sink faucets entirely. Pfister faucets are made by contract factories in China and Korea.
In 1969 it was purchased by Norris Industries and broke ground on a 525,000-square-foot state-of-the-art factory in Pacoima, Californvia.
When finished, the plant was the largest brass foundry West of the Mississippi. and one of the most automated faucet factories in the U.S., able to produce 5,000 finished faucets daily at peak production.
The vertically-integrated plant enabled the company to keep its production costs low and price its faucets aggressively.
In 1983 Norris (by then NI Industries) sold the company to an investment group headed by Price-Pfister's then-president, Peter Gold.
With the post-war new construction boom tapering off, Gold re-focused Price-Pfister on the growing market for stylish replacement faucets to compete with European imports, targeting the do-it-yourself homeowner with faucets that were simple to install. The company was one of the first if not the very first faucet company to include detailed, step-by-step installation instructions with its faucets to aid the amateur installer.
Pfister introduced new technologies, often far ahead of its competition.
The proprietary Pforever Seal (originally the Flow-Matic) cartridge, introduced in 1980, was one of the first faucet valves to use the ceramic technology invented by [3]
Faucets were guaranteed for the buyer's lifetime by the Pforever Warranty: North America's first-ever lifetime faucet warranty.
Pfister also began a well-remembered radio, television, and print ad campaign developed by Los Angeles ad agency, Eisaman, Johns, and Laws, with a tagline that played off of the company name:
"Price-Pfister, the pfabulous pfaucet with the pfunny name."s
In 1987 the company reached its high-water mark with 1,600 employees and a 14% share of the U.S. faucet market.
Black & Decker: The Long Slide Into Just "Pfister"
The following year, Peter Gold sold the company to Emco Corp., a Canadian plumbing products distributor, which was, in turn, acquired by Black & Decker in 1990.
The acquisition was a disaster for Price-Pfister. The brand was largely ignored for over 20 years as Black & Decker struggled to revive its lagging flagship tool brands and reassert its former dominance in the professional tool market with its Dewalt power tools.
In 2010, Black & Decker merged with Stanley Works, the world-famous hand-tool manufacturer, to form Stanley Black & Decker.
Price-Pfister was buried in the new company's Hardware & Home Improvement (HHI) Group along with True Temper® lawn and garden tools, three lines of locks and security devices (Kwikset®, Weiser®, and Baldwin®), Black & Decker's line of small appliances,[4] and the door and window hardware produced by National Hardware®.
To add insult to indignity, Stanley rebranded Price-Pfister to just Pfister "to best position the company for another century," according to a company press release. It was not a nice thing to do to a proud and famous faucet name.
Spectrum Brands and the Revival
HHI was not a good fit for the newly merged Stanley Black & Decker's core tool business, and the company almost immediately began shopping for a buyer to take HHI off its hands.
In 2012 it found one in Spectrum Brands (formerly Rayovac Corporation), a Fortune 500 company that started life as The French Battery Company in 1906 making flashlight batteries. It has since has evolved into a mega-holding company and a major defense contractor.
Spectrum already owned a diverse portfolio of consumer products, including many familiar brands such as Remington® shavers, Black Flag® pesticides, Rayovac® batteries, Toastmaster® small appliances, and the George Foreman Grill®.
As a Spectrum Brand, Pfister began to revive.
Spectrum knew little about producing and marketing faucets but had mastered the arts of making largely unrelated brands profitable. It was willing to listen to those who knew how to market faucets and willing to devote resources to improving and promoting the faucet brand.
Phister began to regain its lost market share. It is now the number five faucet company in the U.S., behind
According to Dun & Bradstreet, it has about 9% of the U.S. market and approximately 2% of the world market.
Assa Abloy: The New Owner
In 2021, Spectrum Brands sold its Hardware and Home Improvement (HHI) division to Assa Abloy, a "global leader in access solutions," meaning that it manufactures locking and security hardware for both residential and commercial applications.
How the sale will affect Pfister is anyone's guess.
Throughout the first quarter of this century, Pfister has been an orphan brand, owned by companies whose primary focus is on other products. That situation is unlikely to change under Assa Abloy.
The three security hardware companies in HHI are a good fit for Assa Abloy. Pfister, however, is once again the outlier.
Plumbing fittings and security devices occupy commercial realms that are poles apart: different distribution channels, dissimilar regulatory schemes, and largely disconnected manufacturing. Almost the only similarity is that both product lines are made of metal, but security devices are usually steel and zinc while faucets are typically brass.
How long Assa Abloy will retain Pfister remains to be seen but we would not be surprised if it is spun off in the not-too-distant future.
Pfister Faucet Design
Pfister designs have received more awards in international design competitions than we can reasonably list. Just since 2012, it was awarded ADEX Platinum or Gold awards for the following faucet designs:
Alea
Alina
Arkitek
Arterra
Auden
Avanti
Breckenridge
Briarsfield
Bronson
Carnegie
Contempra
Deckard
Designer
Elevate
Grandeur
Highbury
Indira
Jaida
Kai
Kenzo
Ladera
Lita
Marielle
Neera
Nia
Norden
Northcott
Park Avenue
Pasadena
Petaluma
Pfirst
Port Haven
Raya
Rhen
Selia
Stellen
Tenet
Tisbury
Tyla
Venturi, and
Zuri.
The ADEX Award for Design Excellence, sponsored by the Design Journal, is the largest international awards program for product and project design in the architecture and interior design industries.
The faucets are still designed mostly in California by Pfister's design team that, according to the company, "includes artists and engineers and lots of smart folks who bring their own unique brand of passion and personality to work every day."
Most faucet styles are in traditional North American motifs with gentle, sweeping curves, in contrast to the angular, more industrial look of popular North European designs. However, if angular and industrial is your preferred aesthetic, the Pfister lineup includes a few Euro-style faucets as appealing as any European brand, and usually a lot less expensive.
Custom Design Service: If the company's stock designs are not unique enough for your new hotel, golf resort, or casino, Pfister's Custom faucet Solutions team will craft a new design just for your project. Figure on a minimum purchase of 300 faucets, however, to make it cost-feasible.
Pfister Manufacturing
Pfister's headquarters is still in California along with its research and development arm, product design, and marketing operations, but the company no longer manufactures faucets in the U.S. or Canada. It is, in fact, out of the manufacture of sink faucets entirely. Pfister faucets are made by contract factories in China and Korea.
Over the past 60 months, the company's known faucet manufacturers have included:
- Seagull Kitchen and Bath Products Co., Ltd. a Chinese manufacturer that makes sink faucets for
- Kaiping Freendo Sanitary Ware Co., Ltd. part of the giant Guangdong Huayi Plumbing Fittings Industry, Co. Ltd.
- Freendo manufactures faucets for
- Its trademarked brand, Compass Manufacturing International.
- Zhongyu Hardware Industry Co., Ltd. a Chinese faucet manufacturer located in Xiamen, manufactures faucets for
- Naidy Plumbing Fittings Co., Ltd of Kaiping, China manufactures and sells the Delica faucet brand in Asia.
- Daelim Trading Co., Ltd of Seoul, Korea manufactures faucets in two factories, one in Incheon and the other in the heavily industrialized Yeongdeungpo district of Seoul.
Recent Pfister Innovations
The above-the-sink installation has not been Pfister's only technological innovation since the introduction in the 1930s of the "Make-A-Shower", which converted an existing bathtub into a tub/shower without tearing up the walls. Some were successful and some less so. But, Pfister keeps trying new things.
- The Pfilter Pfaucet (1997) integrated a filter in a kitchen faucet that provided hot, cold, and filtered water, a successful technology that has been widely emulated, notably in Triflow faucets from
- The Catalina pullout lavatory faucet, the first of its kind, could extend up to 55" for hair-washing at the sink. Sounds like a wonderful idea. But, with the widespread availability of showers, this innovation did not find a robust market and has been discontinued.
- The idea has not been lost, however, and has been picked up by at least one Chinese faucet company represented in the U.S. by
- The Anti-Splash Spray Volume Sprayhead™ was the first volume-controlled sprayhead. The technology has been adopted by a number of major faucet companies, including which has patented its own competing technology.
- The Ashfield™ lavatory faucet – the first-ever bathroom sink faucet to receive the EPA's WaterSense® label.
- Pivot™: The kitchen faucet spray that tilts 360° to reach every part of the sink.
- Auto-Align™ and MagnePfit™: Two technologies that work together to ensure that a pullout or pulldown kitchen faucet spray always retracts firmly and in perfect alignment.
- HydroBladeT: A high-pressure water blade built into Pfister spray heads to blast away hard-to-clean residue on plates, utensils, and cookware.
- Daelim supplies faucets to the Canadian luxury faucet company
- It has received a number of awards for its creative sanitary products.
- Zhuhai Mingshi Ceramics Valve Co., Ltd. located in XiangZhou, China manufactures Pfister's proprietary Pforever Seal ceramic disk cartridges and manufactures proprietary cartridges for
All of these manufacturers are which means they maintain a dynamic quality control program to help assure reasonable product quality.
At one time the Italian manufacturer, Paini S.p.A. Rubinetvterie, supplied some of Pfister's faucets. These included faucets in the Aria, Lago, and Isola collections – now discontinued.
Paini sells faucets in North America under its own La Toscana brand. For more information on La Toscana faucets, see our review of
Construction and Materials
Some Pfister kitchen faucets are stainless steel, but most of the Pfister line is good quality lead-free brass.
Brass is the traditional faucet material. It is strong enough to resist damage from water pressure but fairly easy to mold and shape. It is also hygienic. Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc.[5] Copper kills micro-organisms on contact even more than 100 years after being first installed even if heavily tarnished.[6]
The faucets contain materials other than brass, or stainless steel, however.
Zinc and Zinc Alloys
Parts that do not need the strength of brass or steel are often zinc or a zinc alloy. The substitution is not a bad thing.
Stainless steel and bass, especially low-lead and no-lead brass, are expensive, so it makes sense to substitute a lower-cost material when it results in no sacrifice of quality.
Most faucet manufacturers now use a zinc-aluminum alloy for parts that are not under pressure from water flowing through the faucet including handles, base plates (escutcheons), and and.
Plastic
The other common substitute material is plastic.
Plastic is even cheaper than zinc, but also a lot weaker and, if used under pressure in the water stream, invites problems.
The usual plastic is Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS), a low-cost, easily manufactured, non-toxic, impact-resistant plastic. It can be safely used in incidental faucet parts like base plates and has been largely trouble-free in aerators and as casings for ceramic cartridges, but otherwise, its use is suspect, especially if under constant water pressure.
ABS plastic degrades over time from exposure to ultra violet and is not dimensionally stable. It expands and contacts more than most other plastics with temperature changes making tight tolerances challenging to maintain.
These characteristics make plastic sprays suspect for long-term use in faucets, products that most consumers consider lifetime products.
Most if not all of Pfister's pulldown and pull-out kitchen faucets include plastic spray heads.
Plastic spray heads (the industry term is "wands") are fast becoming an industry standard. Homeowners like them because, unlike metal wands, plastic does not get uncomfortably hot in use. The industry likes them because they are inexpensive to produce. So, win-win.
But, there is still the problem of reliability. Plastic wands have fairly high failure rates, not just in Pfister faucets, but across the industry generally. The technology is getting better but has not approached the durability or reliability of metal wands.
For the moment, we recommend metal wands if you have the choice.
Spray too hot? The sure cure for too-hot brass wands is to turn the water temperature down. Who needs to rinse with scalding hot water?
Pfister Faucet Components
Faucets are essentially simple devices. A handle is attached to a stem which is attached to a valve. Turning the handle opens the valve, letting water flow. Turning it the other way shuts the flow off.
The problem is, however, that water is tricky and insidious. It will flow through any crack or cranny. To seal it so it completely stops flowing is a challenge.
Until the 1970s, valves used rubber seals, but rubber is relatively fragile. It wears out from the constant twisting of the faucet handle and has to be replaced fairly often.
It's not an onerous chore, but it is a nuisance, especially with commercial faucets that see heavy use day after day in restaurants and cafeterias.
In the early 19870s, engineers seeking a competitive advantage over other manufacturers of commercial faucets set out to create a valve with a more permanent seal made of ceramic.
Ceramic, the stuff your coffee mug is made out of, has several features to recommend it.
It is very hard, one of the hardest materials known to man, and does not wear out. It is also inert. It does not degrade when exposed to chemicals, and certainly not the chemicals likely to be found in tap water. When two ceramic discs are polished to near-perfect flatness and pressed together, the gap between them is smaller than a water molecule, so water stops flowing.
Wolverine patented a ceramic disc valve for its two-handle faucets in 1973.
Pfister introduced its proprietary Pforever Seal ceramic cartridge valve seven years later along with a promise that if it ever leaked, the company would replace it for free.
Today, however, the proprietary Pforever Seal valve is long gone. What are called "Pforever seal" cartridges are nothing more exotic than standard ceramic cartridges available from almost any ceramics cartridge manufacturer.
Pfister claims that the Pforever Seal valve has "advanced ceramic disc valve technology." Our research, however, revealed nothing about the valves that is particularly advanced such as the diamond-impregnated discs used in
No doubt all of Pfister's valves, Pforever Seal or not, are very durable or Pfister would not guarantee them for a lifetime against leaking. We do not know who makes them, however, or where they are made. We have asked for this information several times without receiving a response from Pfister.
For more information on ceramic cartridges and the difference between robust cartridges that will give years of leak-free service and those that won't, see Faucet Basics, Part 2: Faucet Valves & Cartridges.
Pfister Faucet Finishes
Pfister offers thirteen faucet finishes in total, one of which, stainless steel is the material of the faucet buffed and polished to a nice shine. Two of the finishes are in which a base finish is paired with an accent finish.
Except for stainless steel faucets, all Pfister faucets are available finished in polished chrome. Some collections are chrome only. No other finish is available.
Most, however, are also available in other finishes such as Brushed Nickel, Tuscan bronze, and Matte Black. Finish availability largely depends on what finishes the individual manufacturers of the faucets can provide. No faucet is offered in all thirteen finishes. Five finish options were the most we found on any one faucet.
The finishes in which a faucet is available are clearly identified on the Pfister website.
Unfortunately, Pfister does not identify the processes used to produce its finishes. The process used makes a difference to the durability of the finish.
However, from examination, we believe that Polished Chrome is (PVD).
Electroplating
Electroplating is a process of coating one metal with another using an electric current to transfer the metal ions through an acid bath.
Finish Durability
Some finishes are more durable than others.
Here are common types of faucet finishes and their durability from most to least durable.
- (PVD) finishes are 10 to 20 times more scratch-resistant than electroplated chrome.
-
, electroplating is a process of coating one metal with another using an electric current to transfer the metal ions through an acid bath. `It is a tough finish that will stand up to most abuse, but its durability depends on the metal used.Chrome is durable, nickel less so because it is inherently a softer metal – the reason chrome replaced nickel as the faucet finish of choice in the early 20th century.
- is essentially a paint applied in a powdered form and then heated in an oven to cure. It is considered semi-durable with about the same resistance to scratches and mars as the finish on your car.
The process has been used to finish faucets since early in the 19th century.
It produces a tough finish that will stand up to most abuse, but its durability depends on the metal used. Chrome is durable, nickel less so because it is inherently a softer metal – the reason chrome replaced nickel as the faucet finish of choice in the early 20th century.
Usually, multiple coats are applied, one or more undercoats, and then two or more coats of the finish metal. The undercoats are required because many plating metals do not bond well with brass. An undercoat of copper or nickel is usually applied as a primer. They bond well to brass and chrome bonds well to copper and nickel.
Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD)
PVD is one of the latest space-age faucet finishing technologies, 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. Today, PVD technology is everywhere, and the machinery required is getting smaller, faster, and cheaper all the time.
The PVD coating is applied in a sealed chamber that is loaded with unfinished faucet components. All the air is removed and replaced by a carefully calculated mix of nitrogen or argon and reactive gases.
A rod of the metal to be used for the finish is heated to a temperature so high that the metal dissolves into individual atoms. Typical plating metals are nitrides of zirconium and titanium, both non-reactive metals that do not tarnish, corrode, rust, or change color.
The atoms mix with the various reactive gases to get the desired color and finish effects and are then deposited in a very thin film – 2 to 5 – on the faucets.
With the first PVD machines, the mix of gasses was left up to the operator who had to be part scientist and part artist to reliably reproduce a finish time after time. Today, however, the mix is controlled by computer. To get a particular finish, the operator merely selects the finish in the computer and the machine takes care of blending the proper gas mix.
Despite being just microns thick, a PVD coating is extremely dense and, in consequence, very hard and durable. By some estimates, PVD chrome is up to 20 times more scratch-resistant than electroplated chrome.
Powder Coating
A powder coat is usually described as semi-durable
, not as robust as electroplated or PVD finishes, somewhat more durable than the finish on your car. In use, it requires more care to maintain a like-new appearance.
It is a dry paint in powder form applied using a special low-velocity spray gun that disperses the powder while giving it a positive electrical charge. The particles are drawn to the item to be finished which has been given a negative charge.
Finish Care Instructions
Always read and follow the faucet seller's care instructions.
Careful cleaning and maintenance not only preserve the good looks of your faucet but also your finish warranty.
No faucet company guarantees its finishes against careless cleaning.
Once the powder is applied, the item being coated is baked in an oven to melt the coating, changing its structure 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.
Spot Defense
Some Pfister faucet finishes are given a final coating to combat water spots and fingerprints. The company calls finishes with this coating "Spot Defense" finishes.
The only information we could find about the coating on the company website was that the coating …
"… defends against fingerprints and water spots."
Which is not very illuminating.
Presumably, it is what is known as formulated at the molecular level to shed water. Because water does not stock, it does not dry on the faucet leaving mineral deposits that are called "waterspots."
Typically these coatings are applied on top of the faucet finish. They are very thin, as thin as 2-4 , so thin that they do not obscure the finish under the coating or change its appearance.
We have seen no data on the durability of the Spot Defense coating. Pfister undoubtedly has such data but has not seen fit to make it public.
Whatever the finishing technology used, however, Pfister guarantees all faucet finishes, including Spot Defense finishes, for a lifetime, indicating a very high level of confidence in the durability of the coating.
For detailed information on the processes used to produce faucet finishes and the advantages and disadvantages of each, see Faucet Finishes.
Where to Buy
Pfister faucets are widely available, sold at decorative plumbing showrooms, plumbing supply houses, big box lumber stores (Home Depot, Lowes, Menards, and Sutherlands), local hardware stores (Ace, Do-It-Best, and True Value), and at Walmart.
The products can also be purchased at online plumbing suppliers such as Build.com and Faucetdirect.com as well as at general merchandise e-tailers (Amazon, Overstock, and Wayfair).
The company has cultivated special relationships with big-box lumber stores ever since there have been big-box lumber stores.
It sold faucet models through the Home Depot that were available only at HD stores. This arrangement faltered for a while but appears to have been revived. Pfister also supplied some of Home Depot's early store brand faucets. It no longer does so.
The company also has a special relationship with Home Depot's scrappy competitor, Lowes stores. Certain models of Pfister faucets and showers are offered to the public exclusively through Lowes and are not available elsewhere.
Easy-Installation Faucets
Pfister has not forgotten its early emphasis on easy-to-install faucets designed for do-it-yourselfers.
TwistPfit
It introduced TwistPfit™ bathroom faucets in 1999 that, unlike a typical faucet, could be installed from above the sink using only an Allen wrench, rather than from below the sink using a belt-full of tools.
The original TwistPfit faucet, the Georgetown was followed by the Bedford, Parisa, and Carmel faucets.
Pfister heavily promoted the technology. It sponsored contests in which plumbers competed for the fastest installation of a TwistPfit faucet. Supply House Times reported that the winner of one contest with over 5,000 participants installed a TwistPfit faucet in 23 seconds flat.
Unfortunately, TwistPfit did not find widespread acceptance among plumbers or the buying public and was finally discontinued in 2008. None of the original TwistPfit faucets are still made, and the company has removed all mention of the technology from its website.
TopPfit
Undeterred, Pfister is once again promoting above-the-sink installation technology, this time with kitchen faucets.
TopPfit™ offers the same convenient installation but requires a special tool (included with the faucet).
As of the date of this report, the
Arvada,
Celon,
Miri,
Ladera,
Masey,
Rancho,
Ridgeline,
Seahaven,
Talega,
Tasso, and
Wray
kitchen faucets are available with TopPfit installation.
The technology has not yet migrated to Pfister's lavatory faucets but that is to come according to the company.
To help ensure you don't lose the special tool (which will be needed to uninstall the faucet), it stores by clipping on one of the water supply lines under the sink where it is secure, easy to find, and always handy.
Pfister Collections
Pfister faucets are part of collections that may include showers, tub fillers, accessories (towel bars, soap dispensers, robe hooks, etc.), even cabinet drawer handles and console vanities.
Selecting items from within a collection ensures stylistic coordination among the various elements of a bathroom and, to a lesser extent, the kitchen.
Pfister Lifetime Warranty
Price-Pfister pioneered the lifetime limited warranty that has now become the North American standard, adopted by virtually all domestic and many foreign companies that sell faucets in North America.
Its Pforever Warranty has changed little since its introduction. Its promise is very simple. Pfister will provide the parts required to repair a defective Pfister faucet. If the faucet cannot be repaired, Pfister will replace it with the same or a similar faucet.
The warranty lasts as long as the original buyer "owns the home"[7] in which the faucet is originally installed and covers all parts and finishes except electronic components.
The Pfister warranty on electronic parts is five years. This short duration is in line with the industry, which generally does not include electronic parts in lifetime warranties. In fact, Pfister's electronics warranty is generous. The typical electronics warranty is one to three years.
Our warranty panel found just one issue with the warranty.
This is the phrase "owns the home."
The phrase excludes renters, tenants, or lessees from warranty coverage. Since they do not "own the home" in which the faucet is installed, they technically have no warranty coverage.
However, in practice, Pfister does not discriminate. Non-home-owners are treated the same as homeowners.
Customer Support
Post-sale customer support has historically been wanting, a problem that started under Black & Decker ownership.
It did not improve under Spectrum, which decided to save a few pennies by moving its call center to the Dominican Republic.
Customer service agents speak fluent English, but sometimes with a pronounced accent. Combined with a scratchy, creaky telephone system, the accent can make each customer service contact more of an adventure than one would typically want.
Agents scored well in our customer service tests for courtesy and willingness to help, but dismally for product knowledge. They knew little more about Pfister faucets than the information available on the company website.
One agent explained that his job was to provide parts, and that was all he knew how to do.
| Better Business Bureau Rating | |||||
| Company | Complaints | BBB Rating | BBB Accredited | Reasons for Rating | |
| Last 3 yrs. | Last 12 Mos. | ||||
| American Standard | 110 | 49 | F | No | Unresolved complaints. Failure to respond to complaints. |
| Delta | 132 | 51 | A+ | Yes | |
| Kohler | 75 | 40 | A+ | No | |
| Moen | 50 | 15 | A+ | No | |
| Pfister | 11 | 3 | A+ | No | |
| Rating scale: A+ (Exceptional) to F (Fail). | |||||
Hold times are getting better. At our last update, the shortest wait time we encountered during our research was over 30 minutes (with a basso radio announcer voice straight out of Central Casting informing us every 60 seconds that "one of our representatives will be with your shortly"). The longest was over 45 minutes, our maximum. (Our testers are instructed to hang up after 45 minutes.)
Any hold time over 3 minutes is too long and over 5 minutes is unacceptable.
At present hold times are usually under ten minutes, an improvement, but still not great.
Once we actually got in contact with a service agent, we had to set up an account with Pister before even the simplest question would be answered, a process that took another seven or eight minutes.
Apart from hold times, the does well with handling customer problems. It has greatly improved its Better Business Bureau rating – now A+, the BBB's highest grade.
Compared to other major U.S. faucet companies like American Standard or Moen,, Pfister gets very few BBB complaints indicating that most customer issues are resolved internally.
Pfister is not, however, accredited by the BBB and therefore is not pledged to conform to the BBB's high standards of business ethics.
We rate customer service as "acceptable". Nonetheless, it is an area that needs further improvement. Moving it back to the U.S. would be a good start.
Testing & Certification
CalGreen® Certified: Some Pfister faucets comply with the energy-saving requirements of the California Green Buliding Standards Code. For a faucet to display the CalGreen label, it must have been tested for compliance with CALGreen Chapter 4, Residential Mandatory Measures, Section 4.303 Indoor Water Use and certified by an independent testing organization.
Comparable Faucets
Made-in-Asia faucets comparable to the quality of Pfister faucets with a lifetime warranty include
Conclusions
Plumbers don't seem to like Pfister faucets very much and can get rather vocal about it.
We are not sure of the origin of the animus but suspect it has more to do with feeling left out by Pfister's historical focus on do-it-yourself homeowners and with the fact that the faucets are made in Asia than with any organic problems with the faucets themselves.
Faucet Street Price Comparison
In U.S. Dollars
These are American-designed, Chinese-made faucets from well-respected manufacturers.
The fact that they are made mostly in China does not give us pause. The manufacturers used by Pfister have excellent reputations for quality manufacturing.
While many economy and discount faucets made in China are mostly junk – and sometimes dangerous junk at that – a great many good to excellent quality faucets are also made in China.
Pfister faucets are, in general, of good quality with capable valves. We believe they are suitable for even the busiest kitchen or main bathroom. The Pforever Warranty ensures that if something bad does happen to the faucet, Pfister will do its part to fix the problem.
The faucets are priced competitively with faucets of similar design and quality sold by other companies, and overall slightly lower.
Overall, we judge the faucets to be a good value.
We are continuing to research the company. If you have experience with Pfister faucets, good, bad, or indifferent, we would like to hear about it, so please contact us or post a comment below.
- David Bacon, Price Pfister Workers Go Hungry to Save Jobs, November 30, 1996.
- Steven Mikulan, "Pacoima's Lot", L. A. Weekly, September 22, 2005.
- Pfister has always claimed to have been the first company to adopt ceramic faucet cartridge technology. However, our research shows that Wolvverine Brass Works, the company that invented the ceramic cartridge, was the first to use it in a faucet. Pfister, however, was the first to adopt the technology for its entire line of faucets. The technology was key in allowing Pfister to guarantee its faucets against leaks for the lifetime of the faucet. It was the first faucet company to do so. (For more information, visit Faucet Basics, Part 2: Faucet Valves and Cartridges.)
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Black & Decker purchased General Electric's line of small appliances for $300 million in 1984 hoping to create a profitable housewares division to offset the lackluster cash-flow from its power tools divisions. The sale removed the leading manufacturer of small appliances from the business, something GE's competition (Sunbeam, Rival, Hamilton Beach, Norelco, and several European brands) had been trying unsuccessfully to accomplish for decades. GE, longing to leave the appliance business behind and concentrate on its heavy industrial products, sold its remaining large appliance lines to the Chinese company Haier in 2016 for $5.6 billion along with the right to use the GE name and logo on the appliances until 2056.General Electric, formed from the merger of Edison General Electric and the Thomson-Houston Co. in 1892, sold its first electric appliance, a table fan invented by GE engineer James Wood, in 1895 and introduced the first practical electric refrigerator in 1927. The sale to Haier marked the end of its appliance empire which at one time was the largest in North America.
- Common yellow or "alpha" brass is about 63% copper, the rest being zinc and small amounts of other metals such as aluminum (for added strength) and lead (for malleability, which makes it easier to shape and form). Lead content for brass used in drinking-water faucets is limited by law to not more than 0.25% (1/4 of 1 percent) by volume. Brass that meets this standard is considered "lead-free". To retain malleability, lead has been replaced with other materials such as silicon and bismuth. Bismuth is 300 times rarer than lead, even rarer than silver, and much more costly, which is the reason that lead-free brass alloys are considerably more expensive than leaded brass.
- It has long been well known that copper kills all forms of microbes (bacteria, viruses, and fungi) but not how. All sort of theories were advvanced to explain the phenomenon. In 2020, however, scientists were able to view the process using electron microscopy and discovered that a free electron in copper's outer shell spinning at 1,367 miles per second (New York to LA in two seconds) simply shreds them so quickly that under a microscope they seem to explode. (Jim Morrison, "Copper's Virus-Killing Powers Were Known Even to the Ancients", Smothsonian Magazine, April 14, 2020.)
- The exact language of the warranty is "as long as the original purchaser owns the home …" which could be a problem for the increasing number of purchasers in both Canada and the U.S. that rent their homes. Since they never "own the home", the warranty does not apply to them. Pfister's practice, however, is to honor its warranty to these buyers as long as they "occupy" the home. (In fact, Pfister rarely asks if the purchaser owns the home when honoring a warranty claim or even if the claimant is the original purchaser.) Still, better warranty language would be "as long as the original purchaser occupies or resides in the home …" to clear up any ambiguity in the warranty.