DXV Faucets Review & Rating Updated: August 26, 2026

Imported

China

Vietnam

Thailand

DXV by American Standard
One Centennial Avenue
P.O. Box 6820
Piscataway, NJ 08854
U.S.: 800-227-2734
Canada: 800-387-0369

Rating

Business Type

Product Range

Kitchen, Bath, Prep and Bar Faucets

Certifications

Brands
DXV

Street Price

$553 - $20,500

Warranty Score

Cartridge

2 years

Finishes

Lifetime

Mechanical Parts

2 years

Proof of Purchase

Required

Warranty Registration

Required

Transferable

No

Footnotes:

1. The warranty duration is for the owner's lifetime for finishes, on all other partss and components, it is two years.

Read the the DXV Faucet warranty.

☆ Learn more about faucet warranties.

☆ See how we determine warranty scores.

☆ Understanding the federal Magnuson Moss Warranty Act.

☆ Find out how to enforce your product warranty at The Warranty Game: Enforcing Your Product Warranty..

Download/Read/Print the Model Limited Lifetime Warranty.

This Company In Brief

The quality is good, and the components used in the faucets are acceptable.

We do not, however, think they offer much in the way of actual luxury.

These are Chinese-made products sold for Amer­ican-made prices that do not offer the design originality, finish flexibility, or extensive customization that characterize most luxury faucet lines and justify their higher prices.

The sole unique products in the DXV collection are its 3D-printed faucets, costing as much as $20,000, but are not legal for use in a drinking-water system.

The faucet warranty is substandard—two years on all parts of a faucet except the finishes. Finishes are guaranteed for a lifetime.

DXV is the name of the luxury collections of kitchen and bath wares announced by AS America in 2014. They are intended to replace American Standard's former upscale faucet lines.

We are underwhelmed by the faucets and the collections of which they are a part. We don't think they offer much in the way of actual luxury.

A luxury faucet is defined by more than just its price.

The hallmarks are design originality, extensive customization, and a wide range of finishes. DXV has the high price without the accompanying originality or customization.

The faucet styling is bland, featuring small (if any) variations on the mass market, run-of-the-mill designs sold by Chinese manufacturers for decades.

Apart from DXV's 3D-printed faucets, there is no design adventure in the brand's collections.

The DXV Story

American Standard heralded the DXV line as a celebration of its 15th decade (Decade XV—get it?) in business. The problem is, however, that while the American Standard name has been around for a century and a half, the current owner of the name, AS America, has been in business for just 20 years.

The old American Standard Companies, Inc., founded as the Ahrens & Ott Manufacturing Company in 1875, became American Standard in 1967 and American Standard Companies in 1995.

It pioneered much of North America's sanitary systems, including

Unfortunately, the company was dissolved in 2007 and no longer exists.

Its various bits and pieces were sold off.

Its air-conditioning division became Trane, Inc., owned by Ingersoll-Rand.

The vehicle control division became WABCO Vehicle Control Systems, charted in the U.S. but headquartered in Switzerland.

The kitchen and bath division was sold to Bain Capital, a private equity investment fund, now famous due to its ownership by presidential aspirant Mitt Romney.

Bain divided the old American Standard kitchen and bath assets into three geographic units.

The North American assets were sold to Sun Capital Partners, another private investment group, which formed a new corporation, American Standard America, Inc., to take ownership of the assets.

Sun already owned and Crane Plumbing, Inc., both well established American sanitary ware manufacturers. In 2008 ADA merged the three companies into the new entity, AS America.

Eljer is now just a name assigned to American Standards' discount ceramic fixtures. Its faucets are no longer made. The Crane brand was simply retired.

Bain Capital retained all of the former American Standard assets in Europe, reorganizing them as a Belgian corporation, Ideal Standard International, headquartered in Brussels.

These assets included the German company, both of which were formerly American Standard's upscale faucet providers.

Bain sold the Asian assets of the former American Standard Companies' kitchen and bath division to a company that later became part of LIXIL, a large, privately owned, Japanese building products conglomerate.

The sale included most of the manufacturing facilities owned or co-owned by the original American Standard in China. It was in these facilities that many of the components used by AS America and Ideal Standard, including JADO and Porcher, were actually produced.

Then, in 2013, LIXIL bought AS America from Sun Capital, becoming the owner of the assets of the old American Standard Companies, Inc. in both Asia and North America.

This sale created an unwieldy situation for LIXIL and Ideal Standard.

Ideal Standard bought faucet components from LIXIL's Chinese factories, which it assembled into Porcher and JADO faucets in Europe, then sold back to LIXIL as completed faucets for distribution and sale in North America.

The final straw was LIXIL's purchase of Europe's largest faucet manufacturer, in 2013. The acquisition put the two companies in direct competition in Europe, the Middle East, and much of Asia.

The full story of the breakup and dismemberment of American Standard Companies is available in our review of

As soon as the sale of Grohe to LIXIL was certain, AS America quietly announced to selected designers and distributors that it would create a new luxury bath and kitchen wares division to replace JADO and Porcher.

AS America introduced the new DXV product line in 2014 and invited six interior designers and architects to form what it calls a "design panel" and create kitchens and baths around inaugural DXV bath and kitchen wares.

At the same time, AS America informed its distributors that Porcher and JADO were being immediately discontinued.

To its credit, the company made it clear that it would continue to provide after-sale parts and warranty support from its U.S. customer support facility to existing North American JADO and Porcher customers, many of whom have a lifetime warranty. However, replacement parts for both brands are nearly depleted, so the support the company can provide under warranty is very limited.

The DXV Collections

DXV groups its collections into four "Design Movements," corresponding to four style periods in American history.

The Equility was originally called the Lyndon collection, a trademark registered by AS IP Holdco, LLC (a LIXIL subsidiary that owns the trademarks and copyrights associated with DXV and American Standard.) The registration was cancelled in 2018 after a challenge by Delta Faucet Company.

The aim, apparently, is that faucets and accessories from a Move­ment can be coordinated with the bathtubs, sinks, and toilets from the same Move­ment, and fit well together.

That may be the aim, but the implementation is sometimes a little off.

Many of the products in each Move­ment do invoke the spirit of the represented time period. but some do not and appear to have been added to a movement solely because there was no better place to put them.

An example is the Keefe collection of Golden Era faucets and showers. It is an industrial, geometric style not the least bit evocative of the Arts & Crafts, Art Nouveau, or Art Deco designs of the Golden Era. It would be more at home in the Modern or Contemporary movements.

Many of the original DXV collections have disappeared.

In subsequent years DXV has fleshed out its collections, but not all equally.

Some contain a range of coordinating fixtures, showers, tub fillers, and faucets along with matching accessories. Other collections are relatively sparsely populated.

The entire Classic Move­ment, for example, consisting of the Oak Hill and Traditional collections, contains just 48 products in total, about 25% of which are minor accessories or spare parts. It includes a mere five bathroom faucets.

The At SpaLet collection in the Contemporary<> movement contains just one product, a washlet-style Japanese toilet in one color, white. The Cossou collection in the same movement includes two toilets, one wall hung and one floor mounted, along with a toilet seat.

Only two collections, Etre and Fresno, both in the Modern move­ment, include kitchen faucets—three kitchen sink faucets in total.

The brand also offers two pot fillers, one (D35402900) to complement traditional styles and one (D35401900) for contemporary styles. These are assigned to the Traditional (also called the Traditional Accent) and Contemporary collections, respectively.

The 3D Printed Faucets

Three DXV faucets are 3D printed: Sadowbrook, Trope, and Vibrato. They are manufactured to order and retail for between $12,000 and $20,000.

Introduced in 2016, they are the world's first-ever faucets made commercially using 3D metal printing, which makes possible designs "using geometries that could never be achieved using standard casting, machining, or milling techniques."

The process is not new.

Companies use 3D printing to produce prototype products of all kinds before manufacturing is ramped up to full-scale production.

The process is also used to create patient-specific orthotics and prosthetics and for small-batch manufacturing where the high cost of tooling for mass production is not justified by the quantity to be produced.

DXV's faucets, however, are its first use in faucet manufacturing.

Innovations

DXV has used the innovation to reinvent the way that water moves through faucets.

In the Trope and Vibrato, the 3D process enables very fine waterways concealed in a lattice-work design, giving the impression that water appears out of the faucet as if by magic when the narrow channels converge at the spout.

In the Shadowbrook, water is separated into 19 waterways near the top of the faucet, then just falls as if emerging from a natural formation, evocative of water flowing over a small waterfall. It is an interesting and almost mesmerizing effect.

Design Awards

The printed faucets have created quite a stir in the industry and have won multiple design awards, including

Drawbacks

The technology does have limits, however, apart from the astronomical cost of the faucets. These faucets should be viewed as experimental rather than settled technology. No one knows how well they will hold up over the long term.

To view a DXV video explaining and promoting its 3D faucet designs, click here.

DXV's Faucet Manufacturers

Most DXV faucets, however, are not 3D-printed. They are manufactured in China, Vietnam, and Thailand by a variety of sanitary wares companies.

LIXIL's announced policy is to treat the identity of its manufacturers as supply chain details that are proprietary, confidential, and not publicly disclosed.

The usual reason given for such reticence is to protect competitive advantages and prevent poaching by the competition. Our experience, however, is that faucet companies are usually more concerned with public perception, the fear that revealing the sources may reflect poorly on the company or its products.

We are not certain what LIXIL is concerned about. The myth that American Standard products are American is long gone. Just about every American still breathing knows by now that American Standard is no longer American and that its products, with few exceptions, are made in Asia.

In any case, we did not expect willing cooperation from the company in uncovering these sources, and we were not disappointed. All of our email requests for this information were ignored.

We turned to public import and customs records for the information. Here are the results:

DXV's Faucet Materials

DXV faucets are generally described in company literature as having brass bodies and spouts. The brand does not sell stainless steel faucets. The online catalog is silent, however, about the composition of handles and other parts of the faucets—generally, a sign that they are made of something other than brass.

The faucets we examined had zinc alloy handles and base plates. Zinc is less expensive than brass but also not as durable.

The faucets are made using conventional construction in which the body and spout do double duty. They channel the water flowing through the faucet and give the faucet its appearance.

Brass

Conventional construction imposes constraints that directly affect the type of brass that must, by law, be used in the U.S. and Canada to protect consumers from lead.

Brass is the traditional material for fau­cets for two good reasons:

• Brass is strong but easy to work with. It casts, forges, and machines with relative ease.

• Brass is naturally antimicrobial. The copper in brass kills bacteria, retarding the build-up of potentially hazardous microbes inside a fau­cet.

But brass has one serious drawback.

Small amounts (1.5-3.5%) of lead are added to the traditional duplex (alpha-beta) brass used to make faucets. The added lead makes the brass more malleable, less brittle, and easier to forge and machine.

Brass containing lead, however, is a problem in drinking water fau­cets.

Water passing through brass channels can pick up small amounts of lead, and lead, even in small amounts, is a known neurotoxin that disrupts, damages, and kills nerve cells (neurons).

The metal is especially dangerous to children. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), it causes brain damage, slowed development, and speech and hearing problems.

Brass in fau­cets must now be essentially lead-free and the current North Amer­ican lead-free fau­cet standards are the strictest in the world, so strict that lead in fau­cet brass has effectively been banned.

It has been replaced by substitute materials, the most common being bismuth and silicon.

Both are more costly than lead, adding 25-50% to the price of "lead-free" brass.

Bismuth is next to lead on the periodic table, but unlike lead, it is harmless. Also unlike lead, which is plentiful, bismuth is a rare element, rarer than silver, and priced accordingly.

Raw silicon is cheap because it comes from common sand, but pure elemental silicon used in manufacturing does not exist in nature and must be refined through a high-temperature industrial reduction, making it very expensive.

The cost of lead-free brass has forced fau­cet companies to search for ways to minimize its use.

Zinc

LIXIL's solution, like that of most other fau­cet companies, is to use lead-free brass only where it can touch water, essentially the body and spout. Otherwise, some other metal is used, the most common of which is , a zinc/aluminum alloy. ^[1]

Zinc does not have the strength of brass. It 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 , does no harm and may save consumers a few dollars.

Plastic

Plastic is another matter.

Acrylonitrile Butadiene Sty­rene (ABS) and Poly­oxy­methyl­ene (POM), the most common plastics used in faucet manufacturing, are low-cost, easily manufactured, non-toxic, and impact-resistant.

Their use in base plates, aerators, and as casings for ceramic cartridges has been largely trouble-free, but otherwise, their use is suspect, especially if under constant water pressure. ^[3]

Among those suspect uses is in the spray heads (the industry term is "wands") of DXV's kitchen fau­cets.

Proponents of the material give three reasons for the use of plastic:

However, unlike brass or zinc, plastics degrade over time from exposure to ultraviolet and chlorine, a regular purification additive to tap water.

Long-term exposure to chlorine (especially in hot water) or ultraviolet (UV) radiation will cause the polymer to become brittle over time and eventually break down. When this happens the component fails.

UVB, the rays that cause sunburn, are blocked by glass, but UVA rays pass right through, so it is best to avoid plastic sprays on faucets installed under a kitchen window.

Nor are plastics as dimensionally stable as metal.

They are significantly more sensitive to temperature fluctuations, moisture absorption, and a type of mechanical stress called that can result in component failure over time.

These characteristics make plastic wands suspect for long-term use in faucets—products that most consumers consider lifetime products.

They are proven to fail more often than metal wands. According to industry statistics, plastic wands typically last 3 to 7 years, while metal wands have a useful lifetime of 10 to 15 years and longer.

Although fau­cet engineers have made significant improvements to their reliability over the past decade, the problems with plastics have not been entirely resolved.

Better wands are made of metal, insulated against excessive heat transmittal.

DXV's Faucet Valve Cartridges

DXV faucets are all fitted with ceramic valve cartridges, but the faucets' descriptions do not mention which ceramic valve cartridges.

The pre-LIXIL American Standard Companies invented the ceramic mixing cartridge for single-handle faucets in 1972. ^[2] These proprietary mixing cartridges are very robust with very few reported problems, and AS America inherited the technology.

However, the cartridges used in DXV faucets are not the company's proprietary products. They are universal-fit cartridge valves patterned on designs developed by the Italian technical ceramics manufacturer, Galatron Plast S.P.A., late in the 20th century.

They are relatively simple and inexpensive to manufacture and very reliable. Over the intervening years, the Galatron designs have become the de facto world standard and are favored by Chinese manufacturers exporting fau­cets to Euro­pe and North Amer­ica.

American Standard has most likely moved away from its proprietary cartridges for reasons of economy and not because universal-fit cartridges are better.

Proprietary cartridges cost more to manufacture. They are made in smaller quantities and require special tooling.

Universal-fit cartridges, used by hundreds of different faucet brands, are made by the millions. Wholesale costs from Chinese manufacturers ranged from $0.20 to $1.50 per unit in minimum order quantities (MOQ) of 1,000 to 5,000 units.

Moreover, manufacturing a faucet to use a proprietary cartridge requires retooling the faucet itself to fit the requirements of the proprietary cartridge. Whereas Chinese manufacturers are already tooled up to manufacture faucets that are configured for universal-fit cartridges.

In our test faucets we found valve cartridges we could identify as made by Se­dal S.L.U., a ceramics company chartered in Spain that manufactures in China. And one KCG cartridge manufactured by Ku­ching In­ter­na­tion­al, Ltd., a Taiwanese company.

These are good cartridges used in many faucet brands originating in Asia. They have been through the U.S./Canadian certification process at least once, and perhaps more than once.

However, we also found cartridges with American Standard markings or no markings at all. Absent factory marks (American Standard marks are not factory marks), we cannot dtermine where they are made or by whom. One universal-fit cartridge looks very much like every other universal-fit cartridge.

In an email to DXV at its public email address, we asked the company to identify its faucet valve cartridge suppliers. Our receipt tag indicated the message was received and read. We have been waiting days for a response.

DXV's Faucet Finishes

DXV offers just six finishes in total. Some, but not all, faucets are available in as many as five of the six finishes. Most are available in fewer.

All faucets are available in polished chrome. Bathroom sink faucets may offer one or both of the Nickels, and kitchen faucets a stainless finish that the company calls Ultra Steel.

The remaining finishes are Matte Black and Satin Brass.

Some finishes formerly available have disappeared from the company's finish palette.

Faucets in the discontinued Lanfair collection could be finished in what the company called "Carbon Bronze," a dark bronze finish similar to what most other companies call oil-rubbed bronze. Neither the collection nor the finish is currently being offered.

Unfortunately, DXV 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.

The process has been used to finish fau­cets since early in the 19th century.

It can produce 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, and the reason that most of today's nickel finishes are produced using PVD.

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.

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.

Typical plating metals are nitrides of zirconium and titanium, both non-reactive metals that do not tarnish, corrode, rust, or change color.

With the first PVD machines, the mix of gases 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 pushes a button, 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.

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.

Registrations and Certifications

Faucets are a part of your drinking water system, and every part of that system, right down to the solder joints, is strictly regulated.

Not just anything with a shiny finish that delivers water is a fau­cet, as the laws of the land define fau­cets.

To be a fau­cet, the product must be legal to sell as a fau­cet and legal to use as a fau­cet in a drinking water system.

If it is not legal to sell or use as a faucet but is advertised and sold as a faucet, then something illegal is going on.

The usual legal term for such activity is "fraud."

And not a little fraud, but fraud committed daily and on a massive scale. Hundreds of illegal faucets are sold daily by the likes of

It is illegal to import, advertise, offer for sale, sell, deliver, or otherwise distribute a faucet "in commerce" in the U.S. unless it …

• Has a maximum flow rate of 2.2 gallons per minute or less as certified by an independent accredited laboratory. (10 CFR § 430.32),

• Is registered with the Department of Energy and appears in the DOE's CMS database of registered products. (10 CFR §430),

• Has been certified by an independent, accredited laboratory to contain a weighted average of metallic lead in its waterway of 0.25% (1/4 of 1%) or less. (SDWA 1417(a)(1)(A)),

Use in a Drinking Water System in North America

A faucet that hasn't been certified by an independent, accredited laboratory as meeting all U.S./Canadian standards cannot be legally used in a household water system (including a private well system) in the United States, its overseas territories, or in Canada.

These standards are

• ASME A112.18.1/CSA 125.1 setting standards for the design and performance of fau­cets, including durability, reliability, longevity, ease of use, and serviceability.

• ANSI/NSF 372 banning lead in the waterway of a faucet ^[3]

• ANSI/NSF 61: ensuring that water flowing through a fau­cet does not pick up harmful materials. contaminants, or pathogens. ^[3]

A faucet that passes all of the many tests required for certification is listed in a public database available for all to see, including Walmart if it bothers to look.

Testing and Certification

Faucet certification is not just something that is nice to have or recommended; it is the law everywhere in North America.

There are no exceptions.

Even the sale of uncertified fau­cets is prohibited. Civil fines under the U.S. Safe Drink­ing Wat­er Act can be as much as $71,000 per day for each day the violation continues, and repeated or flagrant violations can lead to criminal prosecution.

Testing and certification is so critical that the law does not allow a company to test and certify its own fau­cets; they must be tested and certified by an accredited independent laboratory.

The tests are rigorous, some of the most uncompromising in the world. As an example of how tough, consider the following:

• Life Cycle Testing

• A faucet's valve is the heart of a fau­cet. It is the component that actually controls water delivery, turning the water on and off and regulating temperature.

• Valves are tested for durability and longevity by cycling the fau­cet on and off 500,000 times in a robotic testing chamber.

• That's not a misprint. The test requires a full half-million test cycles without a single failure. At one cycle per second, twenty-four hours per day, the test takes almost six days to complete.

• In other countries, the standard is much less rigorous.

• The European durability standard (EN 817) requires 70,000 cycles, and the Chinese (GB18145-2014) test is a mere 30,000 cycles.

• A half million cycles are probably far more than the fau­cet would ever go through in a lifetime, equivalent to about 70 years of use in a typical kitchen or bath. ^[4]

• "Burst" Testing

• A second test, formally a "hydrostatic pressure test" and informally the "burst test", confirms the valve's resistance to sudden surges in household water pressure.

• Every time you abruptly turn off a faucet, a wave of high pressure rushes through your water pipes.
• To test resistance to momentary pressure surges, water pressure ten times the average household water pressure for one minute to see if it will deform or leak. ^[5]

• If it does, it fails and is not certified for use in North Amer­ica.

Every legal fau­cet sold in North America has passed these two tests and dozens of others to ensure, among other things, that:

• The design of the fau­cet permits the repair of most common problems from "above the sink," without having to uninstall the fau­cet.

• Faucet finishes are durable enough to withstand moderate abrasion and contact with common household chemicals without damage.

• Flow rates do not exceed the maximum legal flow rate of 2.2 gallons per minute. It can be less (and in some states, like California, must be less), but it cannot be more.

• Backflow protection is installed where needed to avoid drinking water contamination.

• Faucets do not contain harmful contaminants like lead, mercury, or arsenic nor harbour pathogens that can end up in the water flowing through the fau­cet.

• Testing for Metallic Lead, Deadly Pathogens, and Other Contaminants

Faucets are tested for the presence of harmful substances by filling them with water specially formulated to extract contaminants.

After 19 days, the water is removed and tested for the presence of toxins and harmful organisms in concentrations greater than safe limits.

If any are found, the fau­cet fails and is not certified for use in North America.

he material from which most fau.

Lead is a special concern with fau­cets made in China, where leaded brass is commonly used, and there are no regulations banning or limiting lead in fau­cets. (See the sidebar Lead in Chin­ese Faucets)

It has been identified by both the En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agen­cy (EPA) and the World Health Organization (WHO) as a neurotoxin that is very hazardous to health.

Neurotoxins specifically target and destroy the nervous system, disrupting critical communication between neurones.

Children younger than six years are especially vulnerable to the effects, which can severely affect mental and physical development, decreasing cognitive ability and, in extreme cases, to retardation.

In the past, brass could include up to 8% lead and still be used in fau­cet construction. But that ended in 2014 with an amendment to the federal Safe Drinking Water Act and to similar legislation in Canada. (See, e.g., the Ontario Safe Drinking Water Act.)

Today's brass fau­cets must, by law, be made of an alloy that contains no more than a bare trace of lead, if any.

To ensure that a fau­cet is free of lead, it must pass two stringent tests.

That's billion with a "b," almost no lead at all. The air you breathe probably contains more lead than the tap water you drink.

Uncertified Faucets Are Dangerous

Research leading to a Consumer Product Safety Commission recall of illegal faucets in 2025 found some disturbing facts about uncertified faucets.

• 89% Failure Rate: Testing of top-selling uncertified foreign faucets found that 17 out of 19 units failed safety standards.
• Lead Leaching: 58% (11 of 19) of the tested fixtures leached lead above allowable levels, with one exceeding legal limits by over 500%.
• Toxic Chemicals: 79% (15 of 19) contained dangerous organic compounds or chemicals linked to cancer, organ damage, and birth defects.

Safe, Durable Faucets

How successful are the safeguards provided by certification?

Very.

Safety

The drinking water flowing from a certified fau­cet is safe. And a lot of time, effort, and money go into keeping it that way from treatment plant to kitchen or bathroom sink.

A certified faucet does not contain any harmful minerals that can contaminate the water flowing through the faucet and does not support the growth of biofilms that can harbor dangerous pathogens.

Water out of a certified faucet is as safe and probably safer than the bottled water you buy at the grocery.

An investigation by Consumer Reports in 2020 found several brands of bottled water with "forever chemicals" (PFAS) and arsenic far above safe levels.

A four-year review by the Natural Resources Defense Council, published in 2025, comparing bottled vs. tap water concluded that 22% of bottled water brands "contained chemicals at levels above state health limits" that "[i]f consumed over a long period of time, some of those contaminants could cause cancer or other health problems."

Durability

Certified faucets are not just safe; they are also incredibly durable.

If you have ever wondered why fau­cets seem to last forever, the answer is certification.

Certified fau­cets are beastly tough, unlikely to ever fail in a lifetime of use. Fewer than 5% develop a problem resulting from a design, manufacturing, or material defect.

In our day job of remodeling vintage kitchens and bathrooms, we encounter faucets that are well into their second century and still going strong.

Faucets are usually replaced, not because they fail, but because tastes change and they simply go out of style. Newer, often more convenient, designs and novel finishes make that old faucet seem old indeed. But it's not old at all, not for a faucet, that is.

And, odds are it still works.

Leaking is now very rare due to improved valve technology that no longer relies on rubber rings and washers to control water flow.

With the near-universal adoption of almost indestructible ceramic disc valves, the dreaded midnight drip, drip, drip is largely a thing of the past.

It is becoming even less common with the introduction of super-cartridges that use ceramic discs treated to prevent mineral deposits—accumulated minerals from "hard" water that are the usual suspects if a ceramic valve leaks. ^[6]

To learn more about how consumers are protected by fau­cet regulation at all levels of government, go to Faucet Basics, Part 3: Keeping Faucets Safe & Reliable.

Listing Certificates

A faucet that passes all required tests and meets all North American standards is listed in a certificate issued by the testing authority called, simply enough, a Certificate of Listing or, even more simply, a listing certificate.

The certificate must be issued before the fau­cet is placed on the market, then reissued annually thereafter for as long as the fau­cet remains for sale.

In addition, the testing authority will periodically take fau­cets from the seller's inventory, and sometimes right off the production line, for random retesting.

A certified fau­cet must be identified by

• An indelible mark on the faucet itself indicating the certifying authority and standards to which the faucet is certified (see sample marks in the sidebar Valid Faucet Listing Certificates) and
• By brand and model name (or number) on the certificate of listing.

If it is not marked, not listed, or the listing does not show the brand name and model under which the fau­cet is sold, it is not certified. And, no matter how long or loudly the seller insists that it is, it isn't.

Learn how to recognize a valid faucet listing certificate.

The listing certificates are public documents, posted on the web.

Many traffickers of contraband fau­cets claim compliance with some or all North American fau­cet standards but sell fau­cets for which required certificates do not, in fact, appear in web databases.

We know because we check, and if a certificate is not in the database, it does not exist.

No one, not even the most experienced professional, can tell by looking at a fau­cet (or a picture of a fau­cet on a website) whether it is free of lead and other contaminants, that its valve is good for at least 500,000 on/off cycles, or that its finish won't fail in ordinary use.

Testing and certification is the only way to be sure that fau­cets are safe and reliable.

DXV's Registration & Certification Report Card

Not every DXV faucet is fully certified.

The three printed faucets are certified to the basic faucet standard but not the lead free or drinking water safety standards. We don't know that dangerous materials or pathogens may be hiding inside those faucets.

Faucets in the Equility collection were at one time certified by NSF International (formerly the National Sanitation Foundation) as the Lyndon collection.

We found no current certifications under either name, and the company has candidly admitted that the faucets in the collection are not certified.

Here are the results of our certification survey:

CalGreen^® Certified: Some DXV faucets comply with the energy-saving requirements of the California Green Building 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.

The DXV Faucet Warranty

Our first objection to the DXV warranty is that for any defect other than a finish, it is much too short.

Our second objection is that the company promises to have replacement parts on hand for discontinued faucets for just two years. Since the company discontinues faucets with some frequency, that limitation is a problem.

The terms of its warranty are fairly clear. It is not wholly written in the "simple and readily understood" language required by federal warranty law, but it's close.

The warranty was obviously written by a lawyer, although one that must have been paid by the word. Its 762 words could easily be shortened to half that word count without changing the import of the document.

The warranty promises that if a covered defect in a DXV faucet occurs, the company will …

"… provide, free of charge, at its sole option, replacement part(s) or product (or if no longer available, a comparable product) to replace those which have proven defective in materials or workmanship …

… for as long as the original owner owns the product if the defect is in the finish, otherwise for a mere two years.

The two-year limitation applies to the critical parts of the faucet, the components that make it work—valve cartridge, aerator, and spray head (on kitchen faucets).

The warranty extends to the original consumer owner pnly. It is not transferable to any subsequent owner.

The warranty becomes effective only once the owner completes …

"… the warranty registration process … via the internet or telephone per the warranty registration instructions.

There does not appear to be a time limit for registering a warranty, howver.

Presumably, it can be registered the same day you make a claim under the warranty, provided the registration takes place before the claim is made.

The warranty …

"… does not cover any liability for consequential or incidental damages, all of which are hereby expressly disclaimed.

The 2-year warranty term on non-finish defects is very short, far shorter than the North American standard "lifetime" warranty.

We score the warranty "far below standard."

Comparable Faucets

Where to Buy

DXV sells at showrooms throughout the U.S.

The faucets can also be found at online sellers specializing in building and plumbing products, including Fer­gu­son Home (formerly Build.com), eFau­cets.com (another Fer­gu­son online outlet), and Houzz.com.

It also sells at big-box home improvement websites, like Home Depot and Lowe's, as well as general merchandise outlets such as Amazon and Overstock.

In Canada, the fau­cets are available at Home Hard­ware and Ama­zon.ca.

Minimum Advertised Pricing

No matter where you buy a DXV faucet, do not expect a deep discount. For almost any DXV faucet, every retailer advertises exactly the same selling price.

The identical pricing is no accident.

DXV enforces a strict Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) policy to keep online and showroom pricing consistent across authorized sellers. MAP is a form of price fixing that has been legal since the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Leegin Creative Leather Products, Inc. v. PSKS, Inc.

DXV sets the minimum price at which a U.S. retailer can advertise DXV fau­cets.

The policy has a legitimate purpose. It protects brick-and-mortar showrooms from deep discounting by online sellers that enjoy a much lower overhead.

MAP is not rigid. It allows flexibility in the final sale price.

Retailers will often discount below the minimum price when a customer buys a whole bathroom suite, for example. It is also customary to offer a discount to the building trades, especially regular customers. But the retailer cannot advertise the discounted price to the general public.

Since selling below the minimum price is usually more trouble than it's worth, most retailers take the easy route and sell at the minimum allowed price.

Hence the price identity among all or almost all online retailers of DXV fau­cets.

In Conclusion

We have looked carefully, but we just cannot find the "luxury" in these luxury faucets.

To be a luxury product, a faucet must have more going for it than just good quality and a high price. We can get the good quality from without the high price and with a much stronger warranty.

The defining characteristics of true luxury faucets are unique designs, elevated craftsmansip, and superior materials.

DXV faucets have none of these. The craftsmanship is very good, but not better than the usual well-made Chinese faucet sold under a hundred brand names from

The materials are no different from those used in a faucet, and most of the designs are not only uninspired but also not especially apropos to the historical era they are meant to represent.

Only the Belshire collection made any impression on our in-house design team—and that was on the realm of "Not bad" rather than "Wow!"

At between $1,000 and $1,600, depending in the finish, we would probably opt for the Memoirs for analogous styling and the same quality at half the price.

Companies like sell unique designs not found elsewhere, in dozens of finishes, and with the ability to custom reconfigure a faucet to suit individual tastes.

California Faucets' "Flex Design" takes design flexibility to an extreme. Decorative items such as spouts and handles for each model fau­cet are often interchangeable, so a great many different configurations can be created without altering the mechanics of the basic fau­cet.

Customers can select from one of the company's hundreds of pre-defined fau­cet designs. But the company also allows customization to a previously unheard-of degree.

DXV's available six faucet finishes are not nearly enough choice.

Luxury brands like the Italian company, offer nearly 40 finish options. has over 30, and has 24.

DXV offers just the basic five finishes, available from almost every company that sells faucets: black, brass, chrome, nickel, and stainless steel. Many faucets are offered in chrome and only chrome.

The reason for the disparity is simple. DXV owns no finishing facilities and does not produce its own finishes. It buys faucets already finished at factories in China. Consequently, the brand has very little, if any, finish flexibility.

Most American luxury faucet companies have extensive in-house finishing capabilities, giving them almost unlimited finish flexibility. Companies like Waterstone offer almost unlimited finish possibilities. You will pay, sometimes handsomely, for a finish not in the company's standard palette, but at least the finish is available.

The luxury companies that don't concentrate on design, such as make up for that deficiency with peerless engineering, exquisite craftsmanship, superior materials, and lifetime warranties.

The DXV warranty is a concern. The two-year warranty on every element of the faucets except its finish is far below the North American standard.

Luxury faucet companies tend toward short warranties, 5 or 10 years, because their clients are usually wealthy enough not to care much about warranties. Still, even by luxury faucet company standards, two years is chintzy.

Odds are very good that with a little diligence you can find a faucet in the same style family with the same quality, a much stronger warranty, and a much lower price.

In a little less than 15 minutes, we found five suitable alternatives to the DXV Fitzgerals faucet, all of which are a close style match and all but one of which are less costly.

The plastic spray heads are a concern. Most luxury faucet companies do not equip their upscale kitchen faucets with a component that is almost rigorously relegated to mid-priced and economy faucets. We expect to see plastic wands at but not DXV. The wands should be metal, preferably brass, but a zinc alloy will serve.

Our rating panel, with one exception, would not buy the faucets, citing the high prices, run-of-the-mill styling, and weak warranty.

Balancing good faucet quality against the faucets' design, prices, and warranty protection, we judge the brand's price-to-value ratio to be "poor." ^[7]

Nothing about the faucets—the prosaic designs, the adequate but less than stellar cartridges, the severely limited finish palette, or the use of plastic in an important structural part of kitchen faucets—suggests these faucets are luxury products.

We believe they are essentially high-priced American Standard faucets, nothing more.

Continuing Research

We are continuing to research the company. If you have experience with DXV faucets, good, bad, or indifferent, we would like to hear about it, so please starcraftreviews@yahoo.com or post a comment below.

Footnotes