Con­cin­nity Faucets Review & Rating Updated: December 5, 2024

Imported

Israel

Italy

Kis­sler & Co., Inc.
Trading as
New Con­cin­nity
770 Central Blvd.
Carlstadt, NJ 07072
(866) 894-4377
(908) 282-9440
(201) 896-9600

Rating

Business Type

Product Range

Kitchen, Prep and Bar Faucets

Certifications

Brands
Con­cin­nity

Street Price

$220 - $1,200

Warranty Score

Cartridge

None

Finishes

Lifetime

Mechanical Parts

Lifetime¹

Proof of Purchase

Required

Transferable

No

Warranty Footnotes:

1. Doe not include "component parts" of faucets.

Read the Concinnity faucet warranty.

For more information on interpreting faucet warranties, see Under­stand­ing Fau­cet War­ran­ties.

This Company In Brief

Kissler & Co. is a distributor of plumbing repair and replacement products. Its inventory of more than 30,000 parts and fittings includes older, hard-to-find items, many of which Kis­sler manufactures itself in its 80,000-square-foot manufacturing and distribution center in New Jersey.

The Company

Founded in 1923, Kissler sells two private brand fau­cet lines, Con­cin­nity and Con­cin­nity is its upscale luxury line made in Israel and Italy. Dom­ini­on, its less costly builders' line, is manufactured by Tai­wan­ese and Chin­ese companies.

faucets are reviewed separately in these reports. (To read the Dominion Faucet Review & Rating report,

The Con­cin­nity brand was owned by I.W. Industries until 2006. ISI, as it was often called, manufactured Concinnity and Barand faucets in the U.S.

New Con­cin­nity has taken nothing from the former brand except its name. The new fau­cets are emphatically not the "Old Con­cin­nity" proprietary designs (See sidebar).

The Manufacturers

Unlike I. W. In­dus­tries, Kis­sler does not design or manufacture its own fau­cets.

New Concinnity fau­cets are supplied by manufacturers in Israel and Italy. The Known manufacturers of the faucets include:

• Hamat Sanitary Fittings & Castings Ltd., a part of the Hamat Group (formerly Merhav Ceramic and Building Materials Center, Ltd.) located in Ashdod, Israel. It supplies the majority of Concinnity faucets.

• Hamat has its own thriving faucet business in North America, trading as Hamat USA, a Delaware Corporation.

• It sells its fau­cets throughout North Amer­ica under the

Some of the Concinnity faucets it provides to Kissler are older styles, no longer in Hamat's own retail catalog. A few, however, are current designs.

An example is the Hamat 30315 traditional fau­cet which is sold by Con­cin­nity as the Yorktown kit­chen fau­cet. It is also sold by

The faucets sold by each vendor are exactly the same Hamat product. The only difference among the four brands is the price, which varies considerably. (See the Com­par­ison Tble, below.)

• Super Inox S.R.L., a designer and manufacturer of brass and stainless steel fau­cets in its state-of-the-art facility in Verbania, Italy. It supplies five Concinnity stainless steel faucets.

• The company is fairly well-known in Europe for its stainless steel fau­cets, but largely unknown in North Amer­ica.

• The fau­cets are made from type 316 stainless, a marine-grade alloy that is highly resistant to corrosion.

• The alloy is considered by most in the industry to be a step above the more common 304 stainless used in fau­cets. These faucets are promoted by Concinnity as suitable for outdoor use.

• WTS S.p.A. doing business as Ottone Meloda, a faucet manufacturer in Italy.

• It is a part of the large WTS S.p.A. group of companies all of which are involved to some degree in water technology.

• In addition to the faucets it supplies to Concinnity, it manufactures some of the faucets sold by two companies owned by Michael Isaac.

All of these manufacturers are vertically integrated. They control everything about their manufacturing pro­cess from the composition of the metal alloys used in their fau­cets to the shape of the box in which the final product is packaged.

They are not just screwing together parts and components manufactured by others.

They are true that machine, finish, polish, assemble, and package their fau­cets in-house and have complete control of the quality of the process from start to finish. As a result, their fau­cets have a reputation for very few defects.

They are all also manufacturers. A major part of their business is the manufacture of cus­tom-designed fau­cets for other fau­cet companies.

Con­cin­nity's fau­cets, however, are not custom.

They are stock fau­cets selected from each manufacturer's largely unmodified except for the adaptations necessary to conform to the common connection sizes used in North America (where we still cling stubbornly to our quaint customary units – inches and feet – rather than metric units adopted by the rest of the civilized world).

Faucet Components

The components used in Con­cin­nity faucets are some of the best available.

Hamat makes most of the components that go into its faucets in-house. But, its cartridges are made by outside suppliers with technical ceramics expertise. Hamat is somewhat cagey about the sources of its cartridges. Several inquiries asking for the source of its cartridges went unanswered.

Some Hamat single-handle fau­cets, particularly its older designs, are fitted with cartridges made in Italy, a country that produces excellent technical ceramics, by Hydro­plast, S.r.L.

Hydroplast supplies the cartridges used in

For its newer designs, Ha­mat appears to be moving away from the Italian ceramic cartridges to mixing cartridges made by Kerox Kft, a Hungarian ceramics manufacturer, for its single-handle fau­cets.

Kerox has a reputation as the manufacturer of the world's best mixing cartridges for single-handle faucets.

It started as a manufacturer of dental ceramics (which it still makes) and is well known for its high-quality ceramic discs which it sells to other cartridge manufacturers, including Delta for its Diamond Seal Technology^® super cartridges.

Kerox cartridges are known to be used in

The single-function stem cartridges used in Hamat two-handle faucets are more of a mystery. Again, from visual inspection, we believe they are made by Flühs Drehtechnik, GmbH, a firm located in Lüdenscheid, Germany since 1926. Flühs (sometimes spelled Fluehs for English speakers) is world-renown for its precision machining and is generally thought of as the manufacturer of the world's best single-function stem cartridge. Its brass cartridges are heavy-duty products with an established reputation for leak-free reliability.

Faucet Finishes

The Con­cin­nity fau­cets manufactured by Hamat are available in three of Hamat's twelve finishes: polished chrome, satin nickel, and oil-rubbed bronze.

Oil-rubbed bronze is what is known as a . It is designed to vary in appearance with use over time.

Chrome and Nickel are finishes in a multi-step process in which the bare brass is first plated with one or two layers of nickel to create an absolutely smooth surface, then two or more layers of chrome. The chrome finishes we examined for this review were impressive: gleaming and highly polished.

Concinnity's stainless steel finishes are not applied coatings. They are the material from which fau­cets are made, buffed to produce a pleasing finish, either natural (low luster) or polished (high shine). Polished steel is shinier than the native metal but not nearly as gleaming as chrome.

Concinnity Website

The Con­cin­nity website is very basic. It consists of a "where to buy" page and a home page that has links to sections of the company catalog, one section for each of the Con­cin­nity design categories: Traditional, Transitional, and Contemporary.

The site also provides a link to Kissler's "Legal Notices" and another link to download the entire Con­cin­nity catalog. It's a very economical way of producing a ready-made website, saving hours and hours of website building. But, it is missing information essential to making an informed buying decision. If the catalog is also going to act as the company website, it needs to be augmented somewhat.

The material of the fau­cet (brass or stainless steel) is identified along with its flow rate, type of installation (single-, two- or three-hole), and the finishes available on the fau­cet. A measured drawing, useful for determining whether a fau­cet will fit your sink, is also shown.

Each fau­cet is illustrated with a single 3/4 or side view. Easily displayed, multiple views would help a buyer better visualize a fau­cet, including at least one view of the installed fau­cet.

The cartridge is identified only as "Ceramic Disc Cartridge", which is not very helpful. Almost every modern fau­cet is built around a ceramic disc cartridge, some good, some not so good. The actual identity of the cartridge's manufacturer allows the buyer to judge whether he or she wants to take a chance on the cartridge.

As Con­cin­nity appears to use only high-quality cartridges, it should not be bashful about disclosing their identity. Many faucet companies do so successfully as part of their marketing strategy.

Other missing information includes a link to installation instructions (useful to your plumber in determining whether there might be any issues with installing the fau­cet in the location you have planned for it), an exploded diagram identifying all of the parts of the fau­cet, and the fau­cet's warranty.

Concinnity Warranty

The Concinnity faucet warranty is nowhere to be found on the Con­cin­nity website or even in its printed catalog. We had to ask for a copy from customer support.

The warranty is barely a warranty at all and certainly not what U.S. warranty law defines as a consumer warranty. It was written by someone who knew very little about writing warranties.

A "Barnum" Warranty

Concinnity's warranty is what we call a Barnum Warranty after the famous huckster and showman, P. T. Barnum, who reputedly sold an entire boxcar of white salmon by promising that it would not turn pink in the can – something white salmon cannot possibly do.

At first glance, the warranty appears to promise a lot but a detailed analysis reveals that it actually promises almost nothing.

The warranty starts out generously, providing a "lifetime" warranty to the "original buyer" on "all mechanical parts" guaranteeing them "to be free of defects in material and workmanship under normal usage".

But, then the second sentence takes that generosity away with the declaration that "Component parts are not part of this warranty."

Exactly what part of a faucet is not a "component part?"

Concinnity
Limited Lifetime Warranty

CONSUMER LIMITED WARRANTY: CON­CIN­NI­TY provides the following warranties on its products: This warranty is only granted to the original owner of the faucet and is not transferable. Proof of purchase is required from one of our authorized dealers.

MECHANICAL WARRANTY: A lifetime mechanical warranty is provided on all mechanical parts to be free from defects in material and workmanship under normal usage. Component parts are not part of this warranty.

FINISH WARRANTY: Polished Chrome, Sa­tin Nickel, and PVD finishes carry a lifetime warranty against tarnish assuming no detergents have been used to clean the faucet. Oil Rubbed Bronze is a living finish that is intended to gradually change over time. Therefore this finish is excluded from our warranty.

The body, spout, handle, valve, and aerator are all components. If "component parts" are excluded from warranty coverage, there is nothing left to guarantee – the entire faucet is nothing more than components.

The finish warranty is no better.

It guarantees against one defect and only one defect: tarnish. It does not guarantee against any other finish problem like peeling, spauling, delaminating, or discoloration. And, its guarantee is against a problem that cannot occur on its finishes: tarnish.

Tarnish occurs on unprotected brass and some native bronzes but never on chrome or nickel.

A stainless steel finish is not an applied coating but the stainless steel fabric of the faucet, buffed and prettified. It cannot possibly tarnish. It might rust, but even rust is extremely rare and indicative of a problem with the stainless steel alloy.

This is a Barnum Warranty in all its splendor, a guarantee against nothing but a single defect in the faucet finish that cannot possibly happen.

The message that this warranty conveys to a potential buyer is that the company has no confidence whatsoever in the durability or longevity of its faucets.

Barnum Warranties: For more on Barnum warranties, see The Warranty Game: Enforcing Your Product Warranty.

Violations of Federal Warranty Law

The warranty has paid no attention whatsoever to the minimum warranty requirements mandated by the federal Mag­nu­son-Moss Warranty Act. (15 U.S. Code § 2301)

Among other matters, the Act requires a warranty to include the following:

• Warranty Claim Instructions:

• Magnuson-Moss requires …

• "[a] step-by-step explanation of the procedure which the consumer should follow to make a claim under the warranty including the mailing address or telephone number to use." (16 CFR § 701.3(a)(5))

• The required step-by-step explanation is missing from the Concinnity warranty.

• What Kessler Will Do to Remedy a Defect:

• A consumer warranty must include …

• A statement of what the warrantor will do in the event of a defect, malfunction, or failure to conform with the written warranty, including the items or services the warrantor will pay for or provide, and, where necessary for clarification, those which the warrantor will not pay for or provide. (16 CFR § 701.3(a)(3))

• In the absence of any limiting language, the law presumes the company will do whatever is needed to repair or replace the fau­cet no matter the cost or inconvenience to the company; and presumes it will be done at no cost to the consumer.

• A Clear Statement of Duration
• Magnuson-Moss requires a statement of …

• [T]he time period or other measurement of warranty duration. (16 CFR § 701.3(a)(4))

• The duration can be stated as a specific period (10 years) or an easily identifiable future event.

• Simply stating that the warranty is for a lifetime without specifying whose or what lifetime is not nearly enough certainty.

• Does the warranty end when the consumer dies, the fau­cet finally stops working, or the company is dissolved?

• The consumer, the fau­cet, and the company all have a "lifetime", and they are all different. We don't know from the Con­cin­nity warranty to which of these lifetimes the warranty refers.

• However, ambiguity in a warranty is always interpreted to favor the consumer, so a court most likely would at very least enforce the warranty as long as the consumer is alive.

• Required Language:
• A consumer product warranty must include the following statement:

• "This warranty gives you specific legal rights, and you may also have other rights which vary from State to State." (16 CFR § 701.3(9))

• The Concinnity warranty does not contain the statement. The courts have not made clear the legal consequence of omitting this language, but most likely it simply voids the warranty.

For reasons known only to the company, the warranty does not mention the usual exclusion of consequential and incidental damages flowing from a defective fau­cet.

If a Con­cin­nity fau­cet leaks and floods the buyer's kit­chen, damaging the floor, walls, and cabinets, the company is liable for the cost to repair all of this consequential damage as well as for the repair of the fau­cet itself.

Kissler is also on the hook for incidental damages: the consumer's cost of making and enforcing his or her claim, including packaging and shipping costs to return a defective fau­cet, the cost of having a plumber uninstall the fau­cet, court costs, and attorney fees, if any.

These are not nearly all of the issues with the Con­cin­nity warranty, just the more blatant and obvious. The warranty needs a hard look from an experienced consumer product warranty lawyer.

For more on interpreting fau­cet warranties, see Un­der­stand­ing Fau­cet War­ran­ties.

Testing & Certification

Only those Con­cin­nity fau­cets made by Hamat are certified safe, reliable, and lead-free. None of the fau­cets from Super Inox or Ottone Meloda have been submitted for certification to any of the seven accredited testing organizations that test and certify faucets.

Faucets that are not certified are illegal to install in a drinking water system anywhere in the U.S. or Canada (including private well systems because while you may be willing to risk poisoning your family, the government is not going to let you pass that risk to the families that may live in your home in the future).

This is a problem for Kis­sler, but more so for the buyer. In most localities, it is the homeowner who pays the penalties for installing an illegal fau­cet and the cost of replacing it with a legal fau­cet.

Con­cin­nity has also not filed the certifications required by the U.S. Energy Policy & Con­ser­va­tion Act (EPCA) attesting that Con­cin­nity fau­cets comply with the legal maximum water flow limit for sink fau­cets.

The EPCA prohibits the distribution in commerce of a fau­cet unless the required certification is on file with the U.S. De­part­ment of En­ergy for that fau­cet, which means that Con­cin­nity fau­cets may not be legally imported, sold, advertised, offered for sale, or delivered after the sale in the U.S. (See more information below.)

This is a problem only for Kissler. Under the EPCA, a consumer can legally buy a faucet that Kissler cannot legally sell. So, the buyer has no risk. But, for Kissler, the violation of this regulation could get very expensive.

If the Department of Energy decides to take enforcement action, the company is looking at penalties of $560 per day for each fau­cet in violation or about $14,000 per day for the 25 basic fau­cet models Kissler has placed in commerce.

Kissler has been in the plumbing business for a long time. The company knows the regulations that govern the sale and installation of sink fau­cets, and for the most part, complies with the regulations.

So, it is somewhat surprising to find that some of Con­cin­nity fau­cets are not certified drinking-water safe, lead-free, or compliant with basic North American faucet standards, and none have been registered with the DOE as certified compliant with the water conservation regulations.

For a more in-depth understanding of how consumers are protected by laws and regulations that help ensure the safety, conservation, and minimum reliability of drinking water fau­cets in North America, see Keeping Faucets Safe & Reliable.

Comparable Faucets

Faucets made in Europe or Israel comparable to Con­cin­nity in price and quality include

All of these fau­cet companies sell fau­cets that are legal to install in a drinking water system and most offer a much stronger warranty.

Conclusions

Concinnity fau­cets have the potential to be a top-rated brand. The basics are there: reputable manufacturers, top-quality components, good designs, and a well-thought-out mix of styles to satisfy any buyer's preferences.

But, the company rushed to market long before it was ready.

Its website is rudimentary and could definitely use more than a little polish. It barely has a written warranty, and what it does have grossly violates federal consumer protection law.

It did not ensure that all of the regulatory and legal issues incumbent on a start-up fau­cet company were taken care of before offering fau­cets for sale.

In consequence, Concinnity's distribution of sink fau­cets (and showers) in interstate commerce in the U.S. is not legal under federal law. And, if the fau­cets were legal to sell, only those made by Hamat could be legally installed in a drinking water system in the U.S. or Canada. The others have not been certified to joint U.S./Canadian safety and reliability standards as of the date of this report.

Concinnity needs to take a step back, figure out all of the things it needs to do to get legal, then do them.

The consensus of our rating panel is that dur to a lack of law compliance and the almost non-existent warranty, it would pass on a Concinnity faucet until the company's problems are straightened out.

Most of the faucets sold under the Concinnity brand can be purchased elsewhere for roughly the same price from companies that are meticulous about certification and law-compliance.

Continuing Research

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