Boyel Living Faucets Review & Rating Updated: January 22, 2024
36-54 Main St
3rd Floor
Flushing New York 11354
(323) 982-8955
service@boyelliving.com
Hong Kong Weifei Home Technology Co., Limited
Law Requirements
Warranty Footnotes:1. The company claims a Warranty fof one year on most faucets, but does not specify the parts and components that are guaranteed.2. The company's written warranty, such as it is, dose not even come close to complying with U.S. warranty law.Learn more about faucet warranties.
This Company In Brief
Brightening House, Inc. is a Delaware corporation with a registered address in Flushing, New York.
Its principal products are home furnishings, but it also sells faucets, sinks, and showers.
Brightening House is part of a network of trading companies through which Guangzhou Weifei Network Technology Co. Ltd. trafficks contraband faucets in North America through its trading arm, Hong Kong Weifei Home Technology Co., Limited.
The network, formed by Alipu Huang "to more efficiently import household products into Europe and North America" sell faucets under various brand names including
To view the list of Boyel Living faucets, that are listed as certified as of the dat eof this report, click here.
Black Market Faucets: Most of these faucets are not legal for sale in the U.S. and not legal for installation in a drinking water system in the U.S. or Canada. For more information on contraband faucets and how to avoid these potentially dangerous products, please visit Illegal and Black Market Faucets in North America.
BBrightening House, Inc., a Delaware corporation formed in 2019 with its principal address in Flushing, New York's Chinatown, is a U.S.-based importer of items for the home.
According to its U.S. and Canadian trademark filings, these encompass just about any household furnishing, fixture, or fitting and specifically include:
"Beds; Chairs; Sideboards; Stools; Bathroom and shaving mirrors; Chests of drawers; Cheval floor mirrors; Console tables; Decorative mirrors; Dressing tables; Filing cabinets; Furniture shelves; Furniture, mirrors, picture frames; Hand mirrors; Locker mirrors; Meat safes; Mirrors; Mouldings for picture frames; Office furniture; Personal compact mirrors; Picture frame brackets; Picture frames; Seats; Toilet mirrors being hand-held mirrors; Writing desks."
"Bath fittings; bath installations; bath plumbing fixtures; bathroom fixtures; bathtub and shower enclosures; bathtubs; faucets for pipes and pipelines; hand-held shower heads; mixer taps for water pipes; shower doors; shower fittings; shower stalls; showerheads; toilets; water closets."
Its products are sold under the unregistered trade name, Boyel Living.
Brightening House has applied for the U.S. registration of Boyel Living as a tradename. As of the date of this report, the registration had not been issued. A previous application in 2019 was deemed abandoned in 2022 for failure to provide required documentation.
Application has also been made for the trade name in Canada. This application is also pending.
A "tradename" is just that, a name, or what is known in trademark lingo as a "standard character mark." The stylized Boyel Living logo as shown above is what is called a "trademark." The trademark is not registered and registration of the mark has not been applied for in either country.
Boyel Living products are sold only on the Internet through its proprietary websites, at general merchandise sites such as Amazon, Walmart, and Wayfair, and through big box lumber stores that host independent sellers such as Rona (Canada), Home Depot, and Lowes.
The Boyel Living kitchen bridge faucet in black.
Sales through lumber stores are over the internet only. Boyel Living faucets are not sold in the stores themselves.
Boyel Living Faucet Manufacturers
The company imports its faucets from China. Its known faucet suppliers are
- Kaiping City Aidier Sanitary Ware Co., Ltd. (formerly known as Kaiping City Idea Sanitary Ware Co., Ltd.), and
Shamanda, located in Guangdon, China, sells Savmeya faucets in Asia and Shamanda® faucets in North America through a storefront on Amazon as Shamanda-Bathroom and over its proprietary website.
Aidier sells faucets in North America under the registered Aidea® brand. It also manufactures for a distributor that supplies Chinese-made faucets to a number of North American sellers including Baypointe faucets to the True Value hardware buying cooperative and some of the Aquasource and Project Source faucets sold by
Oubao manufactures stylish faucets of its own designs, one of the very few Chinese faucet companies to do so. It owns over 100 Chinese design patents on its faucet products. It is a newcomer to the U.S. and Canada. It has not certified its faucets to North American standards. All of its faucets are contraand.
The Company
Brightening House, Inc. is a Delaware corporation with its principal business address on the third floor of the Cathay Bank Building in Flushing, New York's Chinatown.[1] It also claims an address in Ontario, California which is actually the address of its fulfillment company (see below).
In a settlement agreement with the California Energy Commission (see below), the company also identified its address as being the same as that of Guangzhou Weifei Network Technology Co. Ltd. in Guangzhou City and its principal as Chang Yi Huang (Also known as Huang Changyi).
Chang Yi Huang has reportedly sold the company. The new owner is unknown.
Brightening House is also associated with Hong Kong Weifei Home Technology Co., Ltd.,[2] a Chinese corporation organized in 2021 as a Hong Kong-registered company.
The Alipu Project
Brightening House is one of the offshoots of a project started in 2014 by Alipu Huang to efficiently import household products into Europe and North America from Chinese factories.
Mr. Huang, a graduate of Foshan University with a degree in international marketing describes himself as having an
"extensive background in sales, business negotiation and market opening in different countries worldwide."
His experience includes a stent as a vendor manager for the major U.S. internet retailer, Wayfair.
In 2014 he started a corporation that became Guangzhou Weifei Network Technology Co., Ltd. to test his theories of efficient international marketing and beginning in 2016 solicited partners in his venture, eventually creating a loose network of internet retailers in North America.
Brightening House is one of these retail partners.
Most likely there are many others. The only ones we are concerned with, however, are companies that sell faucets.
We have identified three of these, all formed in 2019 as Colorado corporations by Qingling Zheng.
- Alipu, Inc. is a corporation that sells under the and brands.
- Mondawe, Inc. is a corporation selling faucets under the brand.
- MM Casa is a corporation owned by Chang Yi Huang. It sells products under the brand.
All of these businesses, including Brightening House, have been in business for less than years but appear to be highly successful.
They have one problem in common, however. None of them has mastered the labyrinth of regulations at several levels of government that control the legal sale and installation of faucets in the U.S. and Canada.
Boyel Living's Fulfillment Centers
Brightening House appears to have minimal direct involvement in its North American operations. Most activities are farmed out to other companies or provided by Hong Kong Weifei Home Technology Co. from China.
The nuts and bolts of most product management in North America have been delegated to specialist logistics companies.
In a typical sale, the customer identifies the product to be purchased, the address to which the product is to be delivered, and pays through a credit card or payment processing service like Paypal.
Once the payment is confirmed, instructions are sent to a North American fulfillment service that specialized in retail sales fulfillment to deliver the product.
Fulfillment companies are specialists in supply-chain logistics. They typically handle product warehousing and inventory, delivery, and product returns, and they do it very efficiently. An experienced fulfillment service can warehouse a product, keep track of inventory, and package and ship the product for much less than you or I pay for the shipping alone.
Brightening House uses at least two commercial fulfillment services. Fulfillment in the U.S. is handled by Enterprise Order Solutions located in Ontario, California with two additional warehouses in Texas, and New Jersey.
In Canada, order processing appears to go through Letian International Logistics in Pickering, Ontario.
Brightening House's basic function is to keep its fulfillment warehouses stocked with products. Weifei Network Technology promises immediate delivery of goods in stock and production times of two months or less for goods not yet manufactured, which greatly eases the problem of keeping warehouses well-stocked.
Boyel Living Customer Service
Customer service appears to be provided by Hong Kong Weifei Home Technology directly from China using English-speaking agents.
The Boyel Living MS-D3411 pulldown kitchen faucet in Black manufactured by Kaiping City Aidier Sanitary Ware Co., Ltd.
English is the second language in Hong Kong, a former British colony, and the primary language of international commerce.
It is entirely possible to successfully support faucets sold in North America without having a support team in North America.
The approach takes advantage of the fact that with smartphones and the Internet, physical proximity to a market is no longer necessary to sell in that market. To a plumber or homeowner located in Miami, Memphis, or Montreal, technical or customer support provided from Hong Kong is just as useful as help from California or Connecticut.
But, to be successful, the time difference between customer and company must be overcome, and an inventory of replacement parts must be maintained in North America.
Weifei's agents speak good English, are available during North American business hours, and are reasonably well-informed about the company's faucets. What they can do to remedy a customer's problem with a defective nbsp may be limited, however, by a lack of an in-depth replacement parts system.
According to the company, replacement parts for faucets currently in inventory are shipped from centers in North America and take 3-5 days to arrive. However, our chats with fulfillment centers suggest that they do not usually stock spare parts parts for faucets, which is no surprise.
A typical sink faucet has a minimum of 7-10 parts. For the 140+ faucets sold by Brightening House, something over 1,000 parts would need to be stocked by a fulfillment center to ensure the availability of all replacement parts – something that is cost-prohibitive for most small companies. Common replacement parts such as aerators and valve cartridges are probably stocked, but any other part would have to be scavenged from a faucet in inventory or sent from China.
For parts shipped from China, the company claims delivery in 5-7 days. However, our experience is that parts from China usually take much longer to arrive – up to several weeks and sometimes several months.
Additionally, it is unlikely that replacement parts are available for the lifetime of the faucet. Typically parts for Chinese faucets are available only for as long as the faucet remains in production and the parts are still being made. Parts for discontinued faucets are usually not stocked. It may be that Brightening House is the exception to the rule, however, we have no indication that such is the case.
Faucet Construction & Materials
Stainless Steel
Boyel Living stainless steel faucets made from 304 stainless, an alloy that includes chromium and nickel. The nickel gives the steel a crystalline structure which increases its strength. The chromium helps the steel resist rusting.
Why Stainless Steel Does Not Rust: Properly alloyed stainless contains at least 10% chromium (which gives stainless its slight yellowish tinge) and a dollop of nickel. These form a coating of oxides and hydroxides on the outer surface of the steel that blocks oxygen and water from reaching the underlying metal, preventing rust from forming. The coating is very thin, only a few atoms thick, so thin that it is invisible to the eye under ordinary light but thick enough to protect the faucet.
Stainless 304, also known as "food-grade" stainless, is by far the most common alloy used to make kitchen utensils, silverware, cookware, and faucets.
Steel is much harder than brass. It can be made in thinner profiles that use less material and still have more than adequate strength.
Brass
Brass is the preferred material for faucets for two reasons:
- Brass is strong but easy to work with. It casts, forges, and machines with relative ease.
- Brass is naturally anti-microbial. The copper in brass kills bacteria, retarding the build-up of potentially hazardous microbes inside a faucet.
But, brass has one serious drawback. It may contain lead.
Traditional (alpha) brass is a blend of copper and zinc with a small amount of lead (1.5% - 3.5%) added to make the material more malleable, less brittle, and easier to fabricate.
Lead, however, is now all but banned in North America in any drinking water component due to its toxicity to humans, particularly children.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), lead, even in small amounts, causes slowed growth, learning disorders, hearing loss, anemia, hyperactivity, and behavior issues.
Before 2014, a faucet sold in the U.S. or Canada could contain as much as 8% lead and still call itself lead-free.
Now the maximum lead content of those parts of a faucet that touch water is 0.25% (1/4 of 1%), basically just a bare trace. In fact, there may be more lead in the air you breathe than there is in a faucet that has been certified lead-free.
Boyel Living claims that its brass faucets are made from lead-free brass. However, its brass faucets have not been certified lead-free, so this claim has not been independently confirmed.
We do know, however, that Chinese faucet manufacturers tend to use much less expensive leaded brass in faucets made for their home market, and are not above exporting leaded brass faucets to North America. (See Lead in Chinese Faucets.) Hundreds of these very dangerous, illegal, contraband faucets can be found on Amazon alone.
To comply with the restrictions on lead, today's faucet brass replaces lead with other additives to reduce brittleness without adding toxicity. The most common is bismuth.
Bismuth is similar to lead – right next to lead on the periodic table of elements – but it is not harmful to humans.
It is, however, very expensive. It is 300 times rarer than lead, even rarer than silver, which is the reason that bismuth-brass alloys are considerably more expensive than leaded brass.
This increased cost has encouraged many faucet manufacturers to use substitute materials in their faucets where possible.
Zinc & Zinc/Aluminum Alloys
The more common substitute is zinc or a zinc-aluminum (ZA) alloy. One of the most common is called ZAMAK, a composition containing 4% aluminum.
Zinc is not as strong as brass and does not resist water pressure as well as brass. But, its use in non-pressurized parts of a brass faucet such as handles, base and wall plates, and is common even among manufacturers of luxury faucets.
It does no harm when used in these components and may save consumers a few dollars.
Plastics
Plastic is the other commonly used substitute material. It may be safely used in incidental 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 water pressure.
Among those suspect uses is in the spray heads of kitchen faucets. Plastic spray heads (called "wands" in the faucet industry) have become the standard for many manufacturers, including some that sell upscale faucets such as
Boyel Living kitchen faucet sprays are plastic.
Manufacturers give three reasons for their use of plastic:
- Plastic does not get uncomfortably hot in use like metal wands;
- Plastic is not as heavy and is more comfortable to hold for long periods of time; and
- Plastic is a lot cheaper than brass or stainless steel – even cheaper than zinc.
However, plastic wands also fail much more often than metal wands. And although engineers have made significant improvements to their reliability over the past decade, the problem has not been entirely solved.
The Sure Cure for Too-Hot Spray Wands: The simple cure for spray wands that get too hot is to reduce the temperature of the water. Dishes do not need to be rinsed in scalding hot water.
Better wands are made of metal, insulated against excessive heat transmittal.
Boyel Living Faucet Design & Styling
Boyel Living faucets are a mix of contemporary and traditional designs. The designs are conservative – fairly common designs, attractive enough but exhibiting no particular design originality.
The goal of Chinese faucet manufacturers is to sell as many faucets as possible, which means keeping their designs well within the mainstream to appeal to as many potential buyers as possible.
Although some Chinese manufacturers have begun producing original designs, some of which have won awards in international design competitions, the manufacturers of Boyel Living faucets are not among those companies.
Designs are usually adopted from Europe and North America.
How Common are Boyel Living Faucet Designs?
A style that sells well in these major markets will often be imitated by Asian factories (with minor changes to avoid patent infringement). The lag time is usually 3 to 5 years, so by the time a design appears in a Chinese faucet it, is no longer new.
Boyel Living faucet designs fit this pattern. They are pleasant and often smartly styled, but most are over a decade old, some are well past voting age, and a few are looking at their thirtieth anniversary in the rear-view mirror.
Boyel Living Faucet Components
The critical components used in Boyel Living faucets are ceramic valve cartridges and aerators.
Valve Cartridges
We inspected several valve cartridges and determined that they are modern ceramic valves in standard configurations of a type that is made by any number of Chinese manufacturers.
The Faucet Cartridge
Its cartridge is the heart of a modern faucet and should be your very first consideration when making a buying decision.
It is the component that controls water flow and temperature.
Its finish may fail and the faucet will still work. It may be discolored, corroded, and ugly but water still flows. If the cartridge fails, however, the faucet is no longer a faucet. It is out of business until the cartridge is replaced.
It's important, therefore, that the cartridge is robust, durable, and lasts for many years.
Some were imprinted with maker's marks allowing us to identify them as made by (Ningbo) Wanhai Cartridge Technology Co., Ltd.
Wanhai cartridges are more commonly used in Chinese-manufactured faucets destined for the European Union where the company sells cartridges under the Quore brand from offices in Spain and Italy.
The cartridges have been certified to North American standards, meaning the cartridges have passed the North American life-cycle and burst tests.
The standard North American life-cycle stress test requires operating the cartridges through 500,000 cycles under 60 pounds per square inc (psi) of water pressure[4] without a single failure. At one cycle per second, the test takes six days to complete.
The burst test subjects the cartridges to a water pressure surge of 500 pounds per square (psi) inch – 10 times average household water pressure of 40-60 psi for one minute. If the cartridge leaks or deforms under this pressure, it fails.
In other countries, the standards are much less rigorous. The European (EN 817) and Chinese (GB18145) life-cycle requirement, for example, is just 70,000 cycles.
Since Wanhai has certified its cartridges to joint U.S./Canadian standards, we can say with fair confidence that the Wanhai cartridges used in its Boyel Living faucets meet the minimum North American requirements for durability and longevity and should provide years of leak-free service. (Read the Wanhai listing certificate.)
Wanhai cartridges are sold by any number of sellers of after-market cartridges, so a replacement from a company that sells in North America should not be hard to find should the cartridge ever fail.
However, we cannot affirm that all Boyel Living cartridges are from Wanhai. Other cartridges may be of lesser quality.
Aerators
There are dozens of companies in China that manufacture aerators and spray-head assembles. Most are a least adequate.
Faucet used to be simple devices that merely added a little air to soften the water stream so it would not splash out of the sink. Today, however, they are also used to limit water volume to the lower flows required by federal and state water conservation laws, and in some cases, 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 dime, be the best available.
Unfortunately, Brightening House does not identify the source of the aerators used in its faucets.
We took several apart to see if the devices had any manufacturer identification, but they did not.
Boyel Living Faucet Finishes
Boyel Living offers five finishes on its faucets: Black, Brushed Nickel, Chrome, Gold, and White.
Brightening House does not identify the processes used to produce its finishes, and, as a trading company rather than the faucets' manufacturer, it may not know the processes.
Never buy a faucet you have not heard of.
Unknown brands have often justly earned their obscurity.
From inspection and non-destructive testing, however, we believe that two of the five finishes. Chrome and Brushed Nickel are electroplated. Black and White finishes are powder coats. Gold may be a powder coat, but is more likely applied using physical vapor deposition (PVD).
Electroplating
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.
Finish Durability
Some finishes are more durable than others. Some, the so-called , are intended to fade, discolor, and otherwise show the effect of use and wear over time.
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.
- is the old standby. 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.
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 usually brushed to help hide the inevitable minor scratches.
Physical Vapor Deposition
Physical vapor deposition (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. Its first use was in nuclear reactors. Today the technology is everywhere and the machinery required is getting smaller, faster, and cheaper all the time.
To create a PVD coating, a sealed chamber 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 coating is heated to a temperature so high that the metal dissolves into individual atoms. 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 microns – on the faucets.
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.
A PVD finish can usually be maintained with just an occasional wipe from a damp cloth to remove water spots.
Powder Coating
is usually described as semi-durable
, not as robust as electroplated or PVD finishes, about as durable as the finish on your car, and requiring more care to maintain a like-new appearance.
It is essentially 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.
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.
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.
Boyel Living Faucet Warranty
Brightening House claims to offer a warranty on at least some of its faucets.
The warranty does not, however, comply with the federal Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (15 U.S.C. §2308). This law dictates the minimum content of and sets the rules for consumer product warranties in the United States.
The only statement of the warranty we have found is the following:
During the product warranty period, we will provide free after-sales replacement service for any problems caused by product quality.
This statement of the warranty is woefully deficient under U.S. law.
Maaagnuson-Moss, enacted in 1975, mandates that any product warranty must be in writing and requires a company to adhere to certain requirements in its written warranty. There are three basic rules:
-
The Captioning Rule
: A warranty must be titled as either "full" or "limited." If it is not titled as a limited warranty, it automatically becomes a full warranty (15 U.S.C. § 2303).
- Full warranties give the buyer many more protections, making the seller liable for all of the costs of repairing or replacing a defective faucet, including all costs of shipping, removing the faucet, making the repair, and replacing the faucet, and any consequential or incidental damages caused by the defective faucet such as flooding the kitchen.
- The Boyel Living warranty, as currently written, would almost certainly be designated a full warranty by a U.S. court.
| Specification, Property, or Document | Score 0-5 |
Notes |
|---|---|---|
| ADA Compliance, Yes or No | 0 | |
| Aerator Manufacturer | 0 | |
| Baseplate Included, Yes or No | 5 | Where applicable. |
| Certifications Listed | 2 | Some faucets are identified as not certified. |
| Country of Origin | 0 | |
| Dimensions or Dimensioned Drawing | 3 | Some critical dimensions stated. |
| Drain Included, Yes or No | 5 | Applies to lavatory faucets Only. |
| Flow Rate Maximum | 5 | Flows often exceed 2.2 gpm legal maximum. |
| Installation Instructions | 0 | |
| Materials, Primary (Brass, Stainless, Aluminum, Zinc etc.) | 3 | Brass often misidentified as copper. |
| Materials, Secondary (Zinc, Plastic etc.) | 0 | Not identified. |
| Mounting Holes, Number | 5 | |
| Multiple Faucet Images, 360° Display, or Video Link | 5 | |
| Parts Diagram | 0 | No exploded parts diagram. |
| Spray Head Material | 5 | Where applicable. |
| Spray Hose Type | 0 | Where applicable. |
| Supply Connection Size/Type | 5 | |
| Supply Hose Included, Yes or No | 5 | |
| Supply Hose Type | 5 | If included. |
| Valve/Cartridge Manufacturer | 0 | |
| Valve/Cartridge Type | 3 | Sometimes stated. |
| Finishing Process | 0 | |
| Finish Images | 0 | |
| Warranty Link | 0 | No warranty document on the website |
| Watersense®, Yes or No | 0 | Applies to lavatory faucets only. |
| Download/Read/Print the minimum content required in an online faucet listing to permit an informed buying decision. | ||
-
The Disclosure Rule
: The warranty must state in a single, clear, and easy-to-read document (16 C.F.R. § 701)- The name and full contact information of the warrantor. It is not sufficient that the contact information is available elsewhere on the seller's website. It must be in the warranty itself.
- What is being warranted and for how long. The seller must indicate precisely what is being warranted and the length of the warranty. If it does not, then every part of the faucet is presumed to be guaranteed from any and all defects for the lifetime of the faucet.
- How to make a claim under the warranty, including how to contact the company and what information must be provided.
-
The Pre-Sale Availability Rule
: A warrantor must ensure that written warranties are available where the consumer product is sold so that consumers can read them before buying. - For Internet sellers like Brightening House, this means either the full warranty document or a conspicuous link to the warranty document must be on the same page as the faucet listing.(16 C.F.R. § 702)
- If the warranty is not disclosed prior to sale, the buyer is not bound by any restrictive terms in the warranty.
The Boyel Living Websites
We look at a faucet company website for three things:
- Is it simple to navigate?
- How quickly can the user find a faucet with specific characteristics using filters or site search?
- Does each faucet listing provide enough information about the facet for an informed buying decision?
Boyel Living has two websites, a U.S. site and a separate English-language Canadian site. It does not have a French-language site.
The two sites are virtually identical in form, style, and function as well as the information presented. They also sell approximately the same merchandise. The major difference is that the Canadian site is priced in Canadian dollars.
The site gets fair marks for overall navigation. It is menu-drivern and reasonably intuitive.
To find kitchen faucets on the U.S. site, just click on [Kitchen] in the main menu, then on [Kitchen Faucets]. A similar process displays bathroom faucets.
The Canadian site is a little more convoluted. Bath faucets works the same way, but clicking on [Kitchen] displays every item in inventory for the kitchen without being able to select just faucets.
The site search feature is not helpful. The results of a search of "kitchen faucet" includes the one kitchen faucet available, but also a wall-mounted lavatory faucet and three articles about kitchens including "How to Measure a Kitchen Sink."
Once a faucet is found, the information provided about the faucet is far from adequate for an informed buying decision.
The first thing we noticed is that none of the faucet listings include the faucet's model number. The number (or name) is necessary to check certifications. Without the number, it is not possible to determine whether the faucet is certified.
There are no detailed specification sheets or links to installation instructions, a dimensioned drawing, or an exploded parts diagram – links typically provided on faucet company websites.
Boyel Living | |
| The Boyel Living faucets listed in this table and only the faucets listed in this table, are certified free of lead and other toxins, drinking water safe, and compliant with North American standards of reliability and robustness. | |
|---|---|
| MS-D3411-** |  |
| MS-D0674-** |  |
| MS-D0675-** |  |
| MS-D0466-** |  |
| MS-W3374-** |  |
| The ** is a code indicating a faucet's finish. For example, MS-D3411-CP indicates a polished chrome finish. If the basic fauet model is certified, all finishes are also certified. | |
Installation instructions are useful for your plumber to determine whether there might be installation problems in the location you intend for the faucet. Dimensioned drawings help you determine whether the faucet will fit your sink, and explooded parts diagrams are useful to identify a part if you need a replacement.
What the sites do provide is basic information such as valve cartridge type (but not manufacturer), finish (but not finish process), basic dimensions, number of sink holes required for installation, flow rate, and faucet material (sometimes incorrect, often incomplete).
Some specifications are simply wrong. Faucet material is often identified as copper rather than brass – a common mistake on sites originating in China where the terms copper and brass are commonly used interchangeably.
Some faucets, pictured in a black finish, were identified in the text as having a gold finish. Specified flow rates often exceed the North America maximum of 2.2 gallons per minute (gpm), and far exceed the 1.5 gpm required in some states and Canadian provinces and the 1.2 (bath) and 1.8 (kitchen) gpm allowed in California.
We rate the sites B for navigation, B- for ease of finding a specific faucet, and F for adequacy of the information provided about the faucets. (See the Minimum Website Faucet Information table above.)
Testing & Certification
Legal Actions
In 2021 Brightening House entered into a settlement agreement with the California Energy Commission for failing to comply with California's Title 20 requirement that faucets and showers meet certain maximum flow rate requirements. The company agreed to a reduced fine of $43,406 USD payable in monthly installments of $5,425.75.
It also agreed to take each of the following actions for any and all regulated faucets and showers it will sell or offer for sale in California:
a. Test all basic models, utilizing the applicable test method, to ensure conformance with the Appliance Efficiency Regulations.b. Certify all basic models in MAEDbS, and ensure listings are kept current and up to date.c. Use a new model number for any of the basic models … that have been redesigned to meet energy efficiency standards.d. Add the required marking to each unit.
Comparable Faucets
Faucets made in Asia comparable to Boyel Living in quality with the same or a better warranty, but not necessarily comparable for design or price, include
Conclusions: Boyel Living
With all of the choices available in the marketplace of safe, certified faucets (as shown in the listing above), there is no earthly reason to risk your family's health or possible fines and civil penalties by buying and installing any Boyel Living faucet except the faucets shown in the certified faucets table, above.
The company has the potential to become a highly rated provider of reasonable quality faucets at discount prices, but it is far from being ready for prime time at the moment, or even for an initial rating.
- It needs to substantially improve its website to provide the information about its faucets required for an informed faucet-buying decision.
- Its warranty need to conform to U.S. laws and regulations as well as providing a gurantee that is far stronger than the paltry one-year warranty currently offered – far below the standard North American lifetime faucet warranty. Its current one-year warranty signals to potential buyers that it has very little confidence in the durability and longevity of its faucets.
- A North American source of basic replacement parts needs to be considered, not just for its warranty period, but for the expected lifetime of its faucets.
- Its major problem, however, is that all but five Boyel Living faucets are uncertified contraband – illegal to install in a drinking-water system anywhere in the U.S. or Canada and illegal to sell in the U.S. Since its faucet suppliers are in a county where leaded brass is feely used in faucets, it needs to be especially careful to ensure that the faucets it imports are certified safe through third-party testing.
A plumber probably will not install an uncertified Boyel Living faucet for you, If you install it yourself and are caught, the very least that will happen is you will have to replace the illegal faucet at your expense and possibly pay a small fine. In an increasing number of jurisdictions, however, authorities are taking water quality more seriously and you can go to jail for knowing and intentional violations.
We are continuing to research the company. If you have experience with Boyel Living faucets, good, bad, or indifferent, we would like to hear about it, so please contact us or post a comment below.
Footnotes
- An out-of-state corporation doing business in New York is required by law to register with the New York Secretary of State as a foreign corporation. There is no indication that Brightening House, Inc. has registered in New York.
- The company's Chinese name translates to Hong Kong Weifei Home Furnishing Technology Co., Ltd. It is commonly referred to be either name.
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The newer faucet construction method, and almost certainly the wave of the future, is called "core and shell". The water channel is provided by the core components, typically consisting of copper or composite tubes that are guaranteed to be lead-free. This core is then concealed inside the decorative outer shell that provides the faucet's shape and style. Because it never touches water, the shell can be made of leaded brass, and because it is not subject to water pressure, it does not need to be structural and can be made of much thinner material.
The technology is actually not all that new. Wall-mounted faucets have always been core and shell. The core (usually called the "valve") is mounted in the wall and the shell (called the "trim") conceals the core. What's new is that the technique is now being applied to faucets other than wall-mounts, and the core, rather than being brass is some other lead-free metal, usually copper, and some companies are experimenting with composite cores, eliminating metal entirely.
faucets are already all core and shell construction with a zinc alloy shell.
- Normal household water pressure in North America is between 40 and 60 psi, so this test is conducted with pressure on the high side of normal.