DXV Faucets Review & Rating Updated: October 5, 2026
by
American Standard
One Centennial Avenue
P.O. Box 6820
Piscataway, NJ 08854
U.S.: 800-227-2734
Canada: 800-387-0369
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
DXV, launched as an American Standard brand in 2014, is a luxury kitchen and bath collection designed to replace the company's former European-made faucet lines.
Manufactured in China and Mexico using components from China, Thailand, and Vietnam, DXV products offer good quality but fall short of true luxury.
DXV faucets carry premium price tags but lack the design originality, extensive finish choices, and broad customization options that are typical of elite faucet brands.
The brand's most distinctive offerings are its 3D-printed faucets. However, these experimental models cost up to $20,000 and lack the essential certifications required for legal use in a drinking water system.
DXV's warranty is much weaker than the industry standard lifetime warranty, covering parts and components other than finishes for only two years.
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.
The Last Hurrah
Salem, Ohio, the site of American Standard's factory at 600 S. Ellsworth Ave. has a long history of manufacturing.
The first metal manufacturing operation on the site began in 1872.
It has been an American Standard plant since 1956 when it was acquired from Mullins Mfg. Corp..
Mullins had manufactured pressed steel Youngstown kitchen cabinets at the site since 1940. But, by the mid-1950s Amricans were not buying steel kitchen cabinets, favoring the less industrial look of wood cabinetry.
For the past 60 years, the plant's 250 employees have produced American Standard's Americast® bathtubs — one tub per minute — in the 500,000 sq. ft. facility.
With the closing of the former Crane Plumbing plant in Nevada, Missouri in 2015, the Salem facility is the last plant in North America that still makes steel products for American Standard.
All the rest are gone, their manufacturing offshored to Asia and Mexico.
American Standard has opened not new production facilities in North America since the takeover by LIXIL.
In 2015 it announced plans to build a $22 million facility in LaVerne, Tennessee, but cancelled the plant in November of that same year due to the "economics of the project."
Americast® is a patented laminated material used to make bathtubs. The process bonds a high-quality porcelain surface to a formed steel bathtub reinforced with a composite backing.
The three-layer sandwich construction allows the company to use a lighter gauge steel to reduce weight to half as much as traditional cast iron. It has the same rigidity, better resists warping, has better heat retention, improved sound-dampening qualities, and is very nearly as durable.
Mechanical and hydraulic presses stamp tub shapes out of low-carbon sheet steel in a series of operations that form the tub step-by-step, shaping the steel slowly until a finished tub is the result.
The steel tubs are given a primer that's baked on at a high temperature. A finish coat is also baked on at more than 1,400° F. The top coat of vitreous enamel contains titanium, which gives the finished tub its bright white color.
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 refined workmanship, quality materials, design originality, and extensive customization, including a wide range of finishes. DXV has the high price without much of anything else.
• Materials are adequate, about what we expect in good-quality faucets, but not the very best. At DXV's prices, the very best is a reasonable expectation.
• The faucet styling is bland, featuring small (if any) variations to the mass market, run-of-the-mill designs sold for decades primarily by Chinese manufacturers. Apart from DXV's 3D-printed faucets, there is no design adventure in the brand's collections equivalent to that provided by companies like
• The pallette of six finish (down from seven) choices is sparse. No faucet is available in all six finishes, the average is three or four, and far too many are limited to just Polished Chrome.
• Faucet customization does not exist. Other than finishes, DXV offers no personalization options.
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 brand has been around for a century and a half, the current owner of the name, AS America, is barely two decades old.
American Standard Companies
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 no longer exists.
It was dissolved in 2007, and its various bits and pieces were sold off.
The Dismemberment
The 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 Sun Capital merged the three companies into the new entity, AS America.
Eljer is now just a brand 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 producers.
LIXIL Corporation
Bain sold the Asian assets of the former American Standard Companies' kitchen and bath division to a company that later became part of LIXIL Corporation (Lixil kabushiki-kaisha), a large, publicly traded Japanese building products conglomerate.
The sale included most of the manufacturing and distribution 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.
It almost immediately began shutting down all of American Standard's North American factories, moving manufacturing to Asia.
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
DXV Origins
As soon as the sale of Grohe to LIXIL was certain, AS America, sellling under its new name, American Standard Brands, quietly announced to selected designers and distributors that it would create a new luxury bath and kitchen wares division to replace JADO and Porcher luxury faucets.
Victorian Style Faucets
The new DXV Luxury line was unveiled on March 13, 2014.
AS American invited six interior designers and architects to form what it calls a "design panel" and create kitchen and bathroom designs around the new DXV bath and kitchen offerings.
At the same time, AS America informed its distributors that Porcher and JADO were being immediately discontinued.
Jado & Porcher Support
DXV Faucet Design
American Standard boasts a 4,200-square-foot industrial design and product development studio that features an open-layout workspace, testing laboratories, and a design center showroom.
The 3D-printed faucets sold by DXV show the incredible range and imagination of its designers. Yet, with the exception of its 3D-printed products, DXV's faucets are bland and pedestrian, exhibiting no design adventure, little originality, and no design cohesion.
Luxury rands such as are defined by by a unique design philosopy that results in distinctive and identifiable styling.
DXV faucets exhibit no such coherent design perspective. They are a design jumble—tweaks and minor variations on established European and North American faucet styles.
The company has the talent and, after over a decade in the luxury faucet business, can certainly do a lot better.
Design Movements and Collections
DXV groups its sanitary ware collections into four "Design Movements," roughly corresponding to four style periods in American architectural history.
- The Classic period covers the late Victorian era from 1890 to 1920. It includes the Oak Hill collection.
- The Golden Era traverses the Arts & Crafts and early Post-War period from 1920 to 1950. Its collections include the Belshire, Fitzgerald, Pop, and Wyatt.
- The Modern period encompasses the post-war housing boom and dates from 1950 to 1990. It includes the Modulus, Etre, and Fresno collections as well as the company's trio of 3D-printed faucets.
- The Contemporary collections represent the current era. The movement contains the Equility, At Spalet, and Cossu collections. [1]
- However, the two monoblock bathroom faucets available in the Equility collection, are identified at most retail outlets as "discontinued." The Spalet and Cossu collections include just three toilets and a toilet seat.
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 a little off target.
Many of the products in each movement do more or less invoke the spirit of the represented era. but many do not. They 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.
• The Roycroft collection, which borrowed its name from a community of craftsmen associated with the Arts & Crafts period, contained just two toilets and two sinks. All of which except a single toilet are now history.
• The Victorian collection included three kitchen faucets, two of which look like they belong, but the third has no characteristics associated with the Victorian Period.
• The most complete collection was the Randall, which included sink faucets, tub fillers, showers, and a few accessories. All of these are now discontinued.
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 At SpaLet collection in the Contemporary movement contains just one product, a washlet-style Japanese smart 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 faucets in total. Some kitchen faucets formerly in the collections have been discontinued.
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 Traditional collection does not appear to be assigned to any particular movement but is intended to support the traditional movements with products that generally complement the movements without being specific to any one movement.
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 $21,000, or about the price of a new car.
Introduced in 2016, they are the world's first-ever faucets made commercially using 3D metal printing (technically, "additive manufacturing using direct metal laser sintering"), which makes possible organic designs "using geometries that could never be achieved using standard casting, machining, or milling techniques."
The process is not new.
Faucet companies have long printed faucet models, generally out of plastic, to see if new designs work before committing to full production.
DXV's faucets, however, were, as far as we know, the first use of 3D printing technology in actual faucet manufacturing to produce faucets available for sale.
Not the last, however.
In the intervening decade, brand of luxury faucets, has come out with its own pinted faucet, the Grid. At $8,200 or more, it is still not a bargain.
another LIXIL holding, introduced the Atrio Icon and Ario Brilliant Icon 3D metal-printed faucets starting in 2019. Prices range from $10,000 to $35,000.
Other companies are experimenting with the process, including the Italian company, Webert. Industry trade shows now routinely feature 3D-printed "concept" designs, most of which are wholly impractical but still very interesting.
The technology is still very far from workable for everyday faucets and needs to become much faster to be a practical alternative to traditional metalworking.
However, it shows revolutionary promise for the future.
Printed Replacement Parts
Design Innovation
American Standard's designers used 3D printing and considerable imagination to reinvent how water moves through faucets.
In the Trope and Vibrato, the 3D process permits very fine waterways to be concealed within 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.
Water in the Shadowbrook is separated into 19 waterways near the top of the faucet, then falls as if emerging from a natural formation—evocative of water flowing over a small waterfall. It is a convincing and almost mesmerizing effect.
Design Awards
The printed faucets created quite a stir in the industry when they were unveiled and have received multiple design awards, including
• Platinum A Design Award: Won in the 3D Printed Forms and Products category for the Shadowbrook faucet.
• Kitchen & Bath Industry Show (KBIS): Awarded "Best of Show" Gold in the Bath category.
• International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA): Earned a Silver Winner recognition from the Industrial Designers Society of America
The technology does have limits, however, apart from the astronomical cost of the faucets.
3D Printing Limitations
DXV uses a 3D printing method called laser sintering.
The technique heats a powdered metal to just below its melting point rather than melting it completely. The 3D-printed faucet is built layer by layer, with each layer measuring between 0.02 and 0.04 mm thick—thinner than a sheet of paper (0.10 mm.
The process requires very precise control of the heat applied, hot enough to fuse powdered metal into a single structural component but not hot enough to melt the powder.
• Lower Metal Density Sintering almost always leaves tiny voids in the material called "sintering pores" usually resulting in 80% to 95% density compared to the 100% density of full-melt casting. The resulting metal is more brittle and not as strong as a cast faucet.
• Water Migration Water can migrate through interconnected or "open" pores in the faucet and between jmperfectly bonded layers,, an effect called "sweating" or, more formally, "exudation." Moisture appears on the surface of what appears to be a solid metal faucet from no obvious source.
• Mineral Buildup: The complex web of very narrow internal lattice channels can trap debris and accumulate mineral and limescale buildup from hard water. These can restrict water-delivery pathways over time, reducing water flow to a trickle.
• Cleaning Complexity: The open lattices and intricate geometric shapes characteristic of the faucets require tedious manual cleaning to remove dirt and water spots.
• Low Repairability: Custom laser-sintered metal structures mean off-the-shelf replacement parts do not exist for the faucets. If they are damaged, they cannot be easily repaired and often cannot be repaired at all. The only viable option at present is to reprint the faucet.
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 by a variety of sanitary wares companies, including LIXIL itself, using traditional metalworking techniques largely unchanged since the faucet was invented by the Guest & Chrimes foundry in 1845.
LIXIL is very cagey about where its faucets are manufactured.
Its announced policy is to treat the identity of its manufacturers as a confidential supply chain detail that is 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. They fear that revealing foreign sources may reflect poorly on the company or its products.
It does not, however, have much to protect. The myth that American Standard faucets are American is long gone. Just about every American still breathing knows by now that American Standard is no longer a North American faucet manufacturer, has not been for many decades, and that its products, with few exceptions, are made elsewhere.
In any case, we did not expect willing cooperation from the company in uncovering manufacturing 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 and found that DXV's regular faucets are made in China and Mexico. At least one faucet, the Equility, was made in Italy, but that faucet has been discontinued.
Here are the manufacturers:
- Seagull Kitchen and Bath Products Co., Ltd. of Guangzhou, China, manufactures the vast majority of the brand's faucets, including the Belshire, Fitzgerald, Keefe, Modulus, and Oak Hill collections.
- It is one of China's oldest faucet manufacturers, established by the communist party of the Peoples Republic of China as a state-owned enterprise at the beginning of the disasterous Great Leap Forward in 1958.
- In addition to manufacturing faucets sold by the various LIXL brands, Seagull produces faucets for among many others.
- It also sells its own Swell, Golden Swell, and Edison brands of contemporary faucets in Africa, Asia. the Middle East, and Oceania (Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific island groups) but is best known on this side of the Pacific as an manufacturer for other faucet companies.
- Solex High-Tech Industries Co., Ltd. of Fujian, China, manufactures the Fresno collection.
- Solex also manufactures faucets for LIXIL's
- Runner Group, founded in Taiwan in 1976 as Runner Technology Co., relocated to China in 1989 once that country began allowing foreign investment. It manufactures faucets in the Oak Hill collection.
- The Group owns multiple subsidiaries in Asia that manufacture kitchen and bathroom fixtures and fittings, water and air purification equipment, and health care systems. It manufactures faucets or faucet components for several North American faucet companies, including
- AS Maquila Mexico, S. de R.L. de C.V. assembles DXV faucets in the Etre collection. They are assembled in Mexico, most likely at American Standard's massive assembly plant in Aguascalientes. The parts and components, however, originate in China, Thailand, and Vietnam.
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 completely 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 methods in which the body and spout do double duty. They channel the water flowing through the faucet and give the faucet its appearance.
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
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 standard duplex (alpha-beta) brass. The added lead makes the brass more malleable, less brittle, and easier to form 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.
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 lavatory, bar, and kitchen 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.
Lead has been replaced by substitute materials for faucet manufacturing, the most common being bismuth and silicon.
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 plentiful and cheap. It comes from common sand. But for use in manufacturing it must be refined through a high-temperature industrial reduction, making it very expensive.
Lead-free brass costs as much as 50% more than leaded brass, a cost that has motivated 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. [2]
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.
Among those suspect uses is in the spray heads (the industry term is "wands") of most DXV's kitchen faucets.
Proponents of the material give three reasons for the 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, unlike brass or zinc, plastics degrade over time from exposure to ultraviolet (UV) and chlorine, a regular purification additive to tap water. Over time, exposure to chlorine (especially in hot water) or ultraviolet radiation will cause the polymer to become brittle and eventually break down. When this happens, the component usually 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 brand is important simply because some cartridges are better and last longer than others.
The pre-LIXIL American Standard Companies invented the ceramic mixing cartridge for single-handle faucets in 1972. [3] These proprietary mixing cartridges are very robust with very few reported problems, and AS America has inherited the technology.
However, it does not seem to use it much, preferring to buy cartridges from outside the company, and 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.
Universal-fit cartridges 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 range from $0.20 to $1.50 per unit (in minimum order quantities (MOQ) of 1,000 to 5,000 units).
• Modifying an existing faucet to use a proprietary cartridge requires retooling the faucet itself to fit the requirements of the proprietary cartridge. Whereas most 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 determine 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, some in just one, Polished Chrome.
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.
Important
However, from examination [4], we believe that Polished Chrome is
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 to 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.
Finish Durability
Some finishes are more durable than others.
Here are common types of faucet finishes and their durability, from most to least durable.
- (PVD) finishes are 10 to 20 times more resistant to scratches and mars than electroplated chrome.
-
can be 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 a painted coating 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.
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.
Different finish effects are created by using different plating metals and varying the mix of reactive gases.
Titanium, an inert, dull gray metal in its natural state, can be used to create DXV's Satin Brass PVD finish by combining it with nitrogen gas. Adding a touch of methane to the mix reddens the color slightly.
No doubt chemists and materials scientists can explain exactly how and why this magic works. We can't, but it is certainly amazing to watch.
To view faucet components being given their PVD finishes using a process called reactive sputtering, check out this brief video (after you skip past the inevitable advertisement). Be aware that it is very noisy, so you might want to turn down the volume on your player.
Finish Care Instructions
Always read and follow the faucet seller's care instructions.
Careful cleaning and maintenance not only preserve the good looks of your faucet but also your finish warranty.
No faucet company guarantees its finishes against careless cleaning or lack of routine maintenance.
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.
In our admittedly less scientific tests, a Scotch Brite® heavy-duty scouring pad was able to visibly damage a PVD finish slightly, and it took considerable effort. Brillo® pads had no effect at all.
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.
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, 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 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 [5]
- ANSI/NSF 61: ensuring that water flowing through a faucet does not pick up harmful materials. contaminants, or pathogens.
A faucet that passes all of the many tests required for certification is listed in a public database available for all to see.
Testing and Certification
Drinking water 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. [6]
"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 momentary wave of high pressure pulses through your water pipes.
To test resistance to transitory surges, a valve cartridge is subjected to water pressure ten times the average household water pressure for one minute to see if it will deform or leak. [7]
If it does, it fails and is not certified for use in North America.
Ten Times Household Water Pressure
Other Standard Tests
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 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. The lack of certifications under these circumstances usually suggests an imminent discontinuation of the collection.
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, 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.
- ANSI/NSF 372 ensures that material that touches water flowing through the faucet contains no more than 0.25% (1/4 of 1%) lead in its composition.
- ANSI/NSF 61: guarantees that water passing through the faucet does not pick up lead in a concentration greater than 5 parts per billion.
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.
- Safety Failure: 89% of top-selling uncertified foreign faucets failed safety standards testing.
- Lead Leaching: 58% of the tested fixtures leached lead above allowable levels, with one exceeding legal limits by over 500%.
- Toxic Chemicals: 79% of tested faucets 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 harbour 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.
The Basic Faucet Buying Rule
The basic buying rule for faucets is simple: never, ever buy a faucet unless it is certified and the seller can prove it is certified.
Established and well-known faucet brands like are safe bets.
But if the faucet is a brand you have never heard of, demand the listing certificates from the seller. If the certificates are not forthcoming or you are not sure they are valid, don't buy the faucet.
We can help you identify safe faucets.
Go to our Index to Faucet Reviews to find the 300+ most-sold brands in North America.
Our review will reveal whether the brand is certified and score its quality and reliability, the level of warranty protection, and whether it is an overall good value.
If it has not been reviewed, most likely it is a contraband faucet, but to be certain, send the brand name to us by email at starcraftreviews@yahoo.com.
We will check it out and respond within 1 business day, and there is no charge for this service.
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 remodelling 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. [8]
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".
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 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.
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 Certification Report Card
Not every DXV faucet is fully certified as required by law.
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.
The Iron Rule of Warranty
The Iron Rule of Warranties is very simple and, if you think about iy, fairly obvious:
A warranty discloses management's true opinion about the quality of its faucets.
The company may promote its faucets as the greatest things since water was invented, but to find out what management really thinks, look to the company's warranty.
A warranty requires a company to stand behind its faucets with its own dollars.
How long management is willing to bet the company's cash is the most reliable indication of how long it truly expects its faucets to last without developing problems.
From DXV's warranty, we surmise that management expects the mechanical elements of its faucets to last about two years bofre something fails.
Something to keep in mind if you are considering a DXV product.
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.
If a problem develops 3, 5 or 10 years after the faucet is discontinued, odds are that there will be no parts to fix it.
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 lawyer, however, must have been paid by the word. Its 762 words could easily be shortened to half that word count without compromising the document.
What Are Consequential & Incidental Damages?
It was most likely written by a lawyer, which may seem an oddi thing to bring up. But the fact is that, in our experience, most faucet warranties are not written by lawers, resulting in numerous defects, some of which are completely illegal.
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 all of the critical parts of the faucet, the components that make it work—valve cartridge, aerator, and spray head (on kitchen faucets). It is the shortest warranty on these essential components provided by any major faucet company.
The warranty extends just to the original consumer buyer. It is not transferable to any subsequent owner.
It becomes effective only once the owner completes with …
"… the warranty registration process … via the internet or telephone per the warranty registration instructions.
The warranty …
"… does not cover any liability for consequential or incidental damages, all of which are … expressly disclaimed."
For its two-year limit on non-finish defects, 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.
See Price in Cart
"See price in cart" is a common online retail practice to get around a MAP restriction.
A product's price is not displayed on the product page. Online customers must add the item to their shopping carts to see the actual selling price.
A retailer can't publish a lower price, even on its website, but it can sell at a lower price. It just has to be a little cagey about it.
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 designers, architects, and 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.
The DXV brand is largely a marketing program involving "premium positioning"—ta marketing strategy that places a brand, product, or service at the high end of the market to signal superior quality, uniqueness, and high value without the actual characteristics of a high value product.
Prices are set well above market average to act as a psychological signal of high prestige and quality. DXV faucets, however, are in no sense premium products.
To be premium, however, a faucet must have more going for it than just good quality and a high price. You can get the good quality from without the high price and with a much stronger warranty.
The defining characteristics of true premium faucets are unique designs, elevated craftsmanship, and superior materials throughout. Most also offer a large array of finishes and extensive customization.
DXV faucets have none of these premium characteristics. The craftsmanship is very good, but not better than the usual well-made Chinese faucet sold under hundreds of faucet brands from
The materials are no different from those used in a good quality mid-priced faucet line, and most of the designs are uninspired derivatives from existing styles with very little, if any, originality.
Where the brand has won an international design award, it is for the process used to produce the faucet or the collection that includes a faucet, and not for the faucet itself.
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!" But, at between $1,000 and $1,600 depending on the finish, we would probably opt for the Memoirs. It offers very similar styling and equivalent or better quality at nearly half the price, backed by a much stronger and longer warranty.
Companies like sell unique designs not found elsewhere, in dozens of finishes, 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.
DXV's available six faucet finishes are not nearly enough choice. The selection consists of just the basic finishes, available from almost every company that sells faucets: black, brass, chrome, two nickels, and stainless steel. Many faucets are offered in chrome and only chrome.
Most true luxury brands provide much more variety. The Italian company, offer nearly 40 finish options. The American company, has over 30, and the finish chart contains 24.
The reason for the disparity is simple. Most American-based luxury faucet companies have extensive in-house finishing capabilities, giving them almost unlimited finish flexibility, dozens of standard finish choices, and available special finishes (at an additional cost). DXV owns no finishing facilities and does not produce its own finishes. It buys faucets already finished from its various suppliers. Consequently, the brand has very little, if any, finish flexibility.
The luxury companies that concentrate of quality rather than design, such as make up for that deficiency with peerless engineering, exquisite craftsmanship, superior materials, top-drawer components, and expansive lifetime warranties. (The warranty of one of these companies, In2aqua, even covers the cost of a plumber's labor to repair a faucet, often the most expensive part of restoring a broken faucet to full function.)
The feeble DXV warranty is a concern. The two-year warranty on every element of a faucet except its finish is far below the North American standard lifetime warranty.
| Comparison of Luxury Faucet Companies Based in North America | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brand | Parent | Made In | Price Range | Finishes | Warranty | Rating |
| Brizo† | Masco | China, U.S. | $250 - $1,600 | 20* | Standard | 7-9 |
| California Faucet† | N/A | U.S. | $250 - $1,600 | 26* | Standard | 8-9 |
| DXV | AS America A Division of LIXIL Group (Japan) |
China, Mexico | $150 - $1,500†† | 6 | Far Below Standard | 6-7 |
| Graff† | Meridian Group | Poland | $350 - $3,800 | 30 | Below Standard | 7-9 |
| Kallista | Kohler | U.S., China, Taiwan, Italy | $600 - $4,500 | 16* | Standard | 7-8 |
| Newport Brass | Masco | U.S. | $600 - $2,000 | 30* | Below Standard | 7-8 |
| Waterstone† | N/A | U.S. | $585 - $6,500 | 32* | Below Standard | 7-8 |
|
† Brands listed as
Best Value Faucets in various luxury faucet categories.
* Brands that offer additional "special" finishes for an added cost.
†† The price range does not include DXV's 3D printed faucets priced between $12,000 ad $20,000.
|
||||||
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 short.
The plastic spray heads are also concerning.
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.
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.
Our rating panel, with one exception, would not buy the faucets, citing the high prices, run-of-the-mill styling, and weak warranty.
Nothing about the faucets—the prosaic designs, the adequate but less than stellar cartridges, the severely limited finish palette, the use of plastic in an important structural part of kitchen faucets, or the weak warranty—suggests these faucets are luxury products.
Balancing good faucet quality against the faucets' design, prices, and warranty protection, we judge the brand's price-to-value ratio to be "poor." [9]
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.
Please note: we do not answer questions posted in the comments unless they are of general interest. If you have a specific question, email us at starcraftreviews@yahoo.com.