Forious Faucets Review & Rating Updated: September 9, 2024

Imported

China

Wenzhou Furuisi Building Materials Co.,Ltd.

trading as

Forious^®

No. 3-9

Donggong Haicheng St.

Economic & Technological Development Zone

Longwan District

Wenzhou City

Zhejiang Province

China 325055

888-206-2162

service@forious.com

Rating

Business Type

For more information on the five faucet company business types, see Faucet Companies

Product Range

Kitchen and Bath Faucets

Certifications

Brands

Forious, Furuisi

Street Price

$38 - $150

Warranty Score

Cartridge

Lifetime¹

Finishes

Lifetime

Mechanical Parts

Lifetime

Proof of Purchase

No

Transferable

Yes

Meets U.S. Warranty
Law Requirements

No²

Warranty Footnotes:

1. The entire For­i­ous warranty: "FORIOUS warrants this pluming product to be free of defects in material and workmanship during normal residential use for lifetime of the product."

2. The warranty does not comply with federal law and is not a legal warranty in the U.S. So our score of one star is a weak one star. Additionally, the company's customer service is very unsatisfactory, so making a claim on the warranty is a problem.

Learn more about faucet warranties.

This Company In Brief

Wen­zhou Fur­uisi Build­ing Mat­eri­als Co. is a Chin­ese manufacturer that sells fau­cets in the U.S. under the For­i­ous and Fur­ui­si brands.

It sells only through internet venues, limited to those that host third-party sellers such as Ama­zon, Overstock, Walmart, and Way­fair as well as big box lumber stores like Home De­pot and Lowe's.

The faucets are good quality products that include good components. However, some of the faucets include proprietary valve cartridges that cannot be replaced without special tools that are not provided by Fur­uisi. Consequently, if the valve leaks, the entire faucet would have to be discarded.

Forious products are sold only on the internet, primarily through websites that host third-party sellers. The most prominent of these is Ama­zon. But, the company also sells through Walmart, Wayfair, and big box lumber stores that host independent sellers such as Lowe's and the Home Depot.

Sales through Lowe's and Home Depot are online only. Forious products are not sold by plumbing supply houses or in brick-and-mortar stores.

In addition to selling the faucets under the Forious banner, the company also sells the same faucets at Lowe's and Wayfair under the Fur­uisi brand along with showers, vanities, fixtures such as toilets and bathtubs, vent fans, heaters, and accessories like towel racks and robe hooks.

Selling as Fur­uisi is a relatively new venture for the company in North America. Its three "Fur­uisi" trademark applications covering…

…are still pending at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as of the date of this report.

The Company

Wenzhou Fu­ru­i­si Build­ing Ma­ter­i­als Co. was founded in 2004 to manufacture what the company calls "appliances" for the home, including decorative plumbing products such as faucets and showers, and the accessories that often accompany faucets: towel bars and rings, robe hooks, and toilet paper holders.

The company also trades as

• Wen­zhou For­i­ous Build­ing Mat­er­i­als Co., Ltd.,
• Wen­zhou Fu­ru­i­si Ji­an­cai Co., Ltd., and
• Wen­zhou Fu­ru­i­si Ji­an­cai You­xi­an Gong­si.

The company's North Amer­i­can sales venture has been remarkably successful.

On Ama­zon alone, it has sold over 10,000 products to date.

In part, that success has been due to the good quality and exceptionally low prices of its products. The most expensive Forious kitchen faucet sells for under $150.00. It is also due to some rather high-powered endorsements.

Forbes magazine has named Forious faucets among the best kitchen faucets sold in America in 2022, as has Bob Villa on his home improvement website.

We are not quite as enthusiastic about the faucets as Mr. Villa or Forbes.

The company clearly has ambitions beyond selling faucets in the U.S. Its various trademark filings indicate that it intends to expand its kitchen and bath accessories lines to include:

"Clothes racks for drying; Containers for household or kitchen use; Countertop holders for paper towels; Scrubbing brushes; Soap holders; Toilet brushes; Toothbrush holders; Towel bars; Towel rails and rings; Trays for domestic purposes."

It also intends to branch out into selling small tools such as:

"Bench vices; Bits for hand drills; Bow saws; Gimlets; Hand-operated cutting tools; Hand-operated jigsaws; Hand-operated nail pullers; Hand-operated scraping tool for cleaning cleats for attachment to sports shoes; Hand tools, namely, augers; Hand tools, namely, hammers; Hand tools, namely, screw extractors; Hand tools, namely, squares; Hand tools, namely, taps; Handles for hand-operated hand tools; Hobby knives; Saws; Scissors; Screwdrivers, non-electric; Spanners; Tool belts; Wrenches,"

And heavy machinery, including:

"Casting machines; Continuous metal casting machines; Electric arc cutting apparatus; Electric arc welding apparatus; Electric soldering apparatus; Electric welding machines; Electrodes for welding machines; Gas-operated soldering irons; Hot metal adhesive glue gun applicators; Industrial robots; Machines for processing plastics; Metalworking machine tools; Molding and die-casting tools, namely, steel pins, molding presses being machine parts for dies and molds; Packaging machines; Plastic processing machines; Plywood finishing machines; Power-operated spray guns; Shaping machines for metalworking; Soldering apparatus, electric; Soldering apparatus, gas-operated; Soldering blow pipes, gas-operated; Soldering irons, electric; Soldering lamps; Stands for machines; Welding apparatus, gas-operated; Welding torches."

Furnishings and softgoods may also be in its future, to include:

"Cushions; Pillows; Sideboards; Bathroom mirrors; Bathroom vanities being furniture; Beds, mattresses, pillows and bolsters; Buffets being furniture; Cabinets; Doors for furniture; Furniture fittings, not of metal; Hand mirrors; Looking glasses; Mirror tiles; Mirrors; Towel dispensers, fixed, not of metal; Washstands; Clothes hooks, not of metal,"

Along with security devices and construction materials such as:

"Safes; Locks of metal for doors; Metal building materials, namely, ceiling boards and floor boards; Metal hinges; Valves of metal, other than parts of machines."

It may also expand into licensing and consulting, including…

"Commercial administration of the licensing of the goods and services of others; Demonstration of goods; Marketing the goods and services of others; Providing commercial information and advice for consumers in the choice of products and services; Provision of an online marketplace for buyers and sellers of goods and services ."

Forious, Inc.

The company has a very minimal presence in North America, although it goes to some lengths to give the impression that it has substantial U.S. facilities.

Furuisi has formed a U.S. subsidiary, Forious Inc., chartered in Washington state in 2019.

This subsidiary, however, is a shell company. It does not have any employees and does not conduct any business.

Its stated address, 3690 Glendale Ave., Los Angeles, CA, 90017, does not exist in Los Angeles County real estate records, is "unknown" to the U.S. Postal Service, cannot be located by either Google Maps or Mapquest, and Melissa Lookups reports "no match."

Furuisi also claims to operate a U.S. warehouse, but our research has not found one. As far as we can discover, primarily from import and customs records, its warehousing is provided by the retail outlets through which the company sells Forious products: Ama­zon, Home Depot, Lowe's, Wayfair, and Walmart.

These websites all provide fulfillment services that receive bulk shipments from China, inventory and store the products in one or more warehouses, pick and pack retail orders as they are received, and ship products to the retail customer. These servicers are very efficient. Typical fulfillment operations can provide all these services for about what you or I would pay for shipping alone.

Amazon's giant fulfillment warehouses are regularly in the news due to worker unrest, but the centers handling goods sold by other Forious internet retailers are almost as massive. Castlegate, the captive fulfillment company servicing Wayfair and its subsidiary companies (AllModern, Birch_^LN, Joss & Main, and Perigold), has sixteen large warehouses spaced throughout the U.S.

Forious, Inc., however, has to list some real U.S. addresses in order to retain its corporate status.

The company's "legal" U. S. business address as listed in its Washington state corporation filing is

10611 Harwin Dr., Suite B, Houston, TX, 77036.

This address, however, is an , one of three worldwide offices of Witmart, Inc. Among other services, Witmart provides mail drops and telephone answering for foreign, primarily Chinese, businesses at its locations in Houston; Toronto, Canada; and Chongqing, China.

The company's registered address for matters such as service of legal papers is the address at which the corporation's is located. It must be within the state of incorporation. For Forious, the address is…

c/o Northwest Registered Agent, LLC, 522 W. Riverside Ave., Suite N, Spokane, WA 99201-0580.

Where required to provide an actual operating address, to apply for Uniform Product Codes, for example, Forious, Inc. lists Fur­ui­si's address in China.

Remote Selling

It's not impossible to successfully manage U.S. sales from a foreign location without having a physical presence in the U.S.

Several faucet companies do so successfully, including two German luxury faucet companies,

Their approach takes advantage of the fact that with smartphones and the internet, physical proximity to a market is no longer necessary so long as adequate systems are put in place.

Customer support, for example, can be located anywhere. To a plumber or homeowner located in Miami, Memphis, or Montreal, technical or customer support provided from Germany is just as useful as help from California or Connecticut.

To be successful, however, the language and time difference between customer and company must be overcome, and replacement parts must be available for delivery within a few days.

In2aqua and Jörger have ensured that there is very responsive technical and customer support available from English-speaking agents by telephone during North Amer­i­can business hours, and replacement parts are shipped from the U.S.

Fu­ru­i­si has not been nearly as successful.

Construction & Materials

Forious kitchen faucets sold in the U.S. are made from stainless steel. The lavatory faucets are constructed of brass that has been tested and independently confirmed to be lead-free to North American standards.

Stainless Steel

Forious kitchen faucets are made of SAE 304 stainless steel. This alloy, commonly called "food-grade" stainless, is by far the most common stainless used to make kitchen utensils, silverware, cookware, and fau­cets. It includes at least 18% chromium and between 8% and 10% nickel.

Why Stainless Steel Does Not Rust: Actually, it does rust, but so slowly that it is usually not noticed. Properly alloyed stainless contains at least 10% chromium and a dollop of nickel. These form a coating of oxides and hydroxides on the outer surface of the steel that blocks oxygen and water from reaching the underlying metal, retarding rust. The coating is very thin, only a few atoms thick, so thin that it is invisible to the eye under ordinary light but thick enough to protect the fau­cet.

The nickel gives the steel a crystalline structure that increases its strength. The chromium helps the steel resist corrosion.

Steel is much harder than brass. It can be made in thinner profiles that use less material and still have more than adequate strength.

Brass

Forious lavatory fau­cets are made of brass. Brass is the preferred material for faucets for two reasons:

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

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

But, brass has one serious drawback. Unlike stainless steel, it may contain lead.

Traditional (alpha) brass is a blend of copper and zinc with a small amount of lead (1.5% - 3.5%) added to make the material more malleable, less brittle, and easier to fabricate.

However, lead is now all but banned in North America in any drinking water component due to its toxicity to humans, particularly children.

According to the En­vir­on­ment­al Prot­ec­tion Agen­cy (EPA), lead, even in small amounts, causes slowed growth, learning disorders, hearing loss, anemia, hyperactivity, and behavior issues.

Before 2014, a fau­cet could contain as much as 8% lead and still call itself lead-free.

Now the maximum lead content of those parts of a fau­cet that touch water is 0.25% (1/4 of 1%), basically just a bare trace. In fact, there may be more lead in the air you breathe than there is in a modern fau­cet that has been certified lead-free.

To comply with the restrictions on lead, today's faucet brass replaces lead with other additives to reduce brittleness without adding toxicity. The most common is bismuth.

Bismuth is similar to lead – right next to lead on the periodic table of elements – but it is not harmful to humans.

It is, however, very expensive. It is 300 times rarer than lead, even rarer than silver, which is the reason that bismuth-brass alloys are considerably more expensive than leaded brass.

This increased cost has encouraged many fau­cet manufacturers to use substitute materials in their fau­cets where possible.

Zinc & Zinc/Aluminum Alloys

The more common substitute is zinc or a zinc-aluminum (ZA) alloy. One of the most common is called ZAMAK, a composition containing 4% aluminum.

Zinc is not as strong as brass and does not resist water pressure as well as brass. But, its use in non-pressurized parts of a brass fau­cet such as handles, base and wall plates, and is common even among manufacturers of luxury fau­cets.

It does no harm when used in these components and may save consumers a few dollars.

Plastic

Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS), a low-cost, easily manufactured, non-toxic, impact-resistant plastic, is also a commonly used substitute material for brass. It can be safely used in incidental fau­cet parts like base plates and has been largely trouble-free in aerators and as casings for ceramic cartridges, but otherwise, its use is suspect, especially if under constant water pressure.

Among those suspect uses is its use in the spray heads of kitchen fau­cets. Plastic spray heads (called "wands" in the fau­cet industry) have become the standard for many manufacturers, including some that sell upscale fau­cets such as

Forious kitchen fau­cet sprays are all ABS plastic.

Manufacturers give three reasons for their use of plastic:

• Plastic does not get uncomfortably hot in use like metal wands;

• Plastic is not as heavy and is more comfortable to hold for long periods of time; and

• Plastic is a lot cheaper than brass or stainless steel – even cheaper than zinc.

However, ABS plastic degrades over time from exposure to ultraviolet and is not dimensionally stable. It expands and contracts more than most other plastics with temperature changes, making tight tolerances challenging to maintain.

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

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

The Sure Cure for Too-Hot Spray Wands: The simple cure for spray wands that get too hot is to reduce the temperature of the water. Dishes do not need to be rinsed in scalding hot water.

Faucet Components

The essential components used in Forious fau­cets are ceramic valve cartridges and aerators. Both are necessary for the faucet to function properly. Valve cartridges are especially critical. If the cartridge fails, the faucet is out of business until it is replaced.

Ceramic Valve Cartridges

All Forious faucets are equipped with modern ceramic valve cartridges manufactured by Wenzhou Hairui Ceramic Valve Co., Ltd. Hairui is not a major player in the faucet valve business but makes a respectable valve that has received generally favorable reports.

Two-handle and single-handle faucets with the a handle on top are fitted with universal standard valve cartridges. These can be removed and replaced with standard cartridges available from most manufacturers of ceramic valves.

The valve cartridges in single-handle, side-mounted kitchen faucets however, are a patented proprietary design. The company calls this valve its F-Valve. According to the company, the ceramic discs in the valve are infused with diamond dust and

"will last up to 5 million uses, far exceeding the industry standard … designed and patented by Forious engineers."

We found several U. S. patents assigned to Fur­ui­si for valve core assemblies. However, the patent applications do not mention diamond dust infusion.

Cramic cartridge disks impregnated with diamond dust are a innovation, introduced in 2008. Delta calls these its "Diamond Seal Technology" (DST) cartridges.

The diamond dust has two benefits. It constantly smooths the ceramic discs, ensuring that they always mesh perfectly, and scrubs any limescale or other minerals that may accumulate on the disk, prolonging its useful life in hard water areas.

DST valves have been tested to 5 million on/off cycles by an independent laboratory. The standard North American certification testing requires life-cycle testing that puts the faucet through 500,000 on/off cycles to see if it will leak. It also includes a burst test that subjects the valve to ten times ordinary household water pressure to see if it will deform.

Forious F-Valve cartridges have passed both tests, so we don't doubt they are adequate for up to 500,000 cycles. However, our inspection of the valves did not reveal any evidence of diamond dust infusion. So, before we believe 5 million on/off cycles, we would have to see some impartial third-party test results.

Our request to the company for a copy of any such test results has received no response.

F-Valves do not appear to be removable or, if removable, require special tools.

Before the cartridge can be extracted, three (PEX) hoses attached to the back of the cartridge need to be disconnected.

Two of these hoses bring water in from the hot and cold shut-off valves under the sink. These are screw-threaded. The third hose sends water out to the faucet spout or spray head. This hose appears to be press-fitted and probably cannot be removed without damaging the cartridge.

We don't believe the cartridge is removable.

If it is, then special tools are required to reach far inside the faucet body to loosen and remove the PEX hoses. The special tools needed are not provided by Fur­ui­si with the faucets, are not available for purchase from Forious or any retailer, and are not mentioned in any of the company's literature.

Absent removability and the availability of the F-Valve cartridge in the U.S. or Canada, the only solution for a leaking valve is to replace the entire faucet.

Aerators and Spray Assemblies

Faucet aerators used to be simple devices that merely added a little air to soften the water stream so it would not splash out of the sink.

Today, however, they are also used to limit water volume to the lower flows required by federal and state water conservation laws, and in some cases, to prevent backflow that can result in the contamination of household drinking water.

According to the company, the aerators used in some Forious kitchen fau­cets are made by Neoperl^®, considered some of the world's best. We did not examine every one of the dozen or so basic faucet models and cannot affirm that every model includes a Neoperl aerator.

We could not identify the source of the spray mechanism used in pull-down-spray kitchen faucets. From examination, we can say with some confidence that they are all plastic and very simple devices.

They do not have any positive docking features such as MagnaTite^®docking on Delta faucets or Moen's Reflex^® docking system. The spray head is held in place by friction and a weight attached to the spray hose.

Faucet Design and Styling

Forious fau­cets are a mix of contemporary and traditional designs. Some of the designs sold by Fur­ui­si are patented faucet designs. A patented design cannot lawfully be used by any other company without permission.

Design patents are not that hard to get. Even a minor variation on an existing design is sufficiently original enough to get a patent.

Apart from these patented designs, Forious faucets are close copies of existing designs with just enough variation to avoid infringing on some other company's design patent.

Chinese companies are seldom hotbeds of design innovation. The goal of Chinese manufacturers is to sell as many fau­cets as possible, which means keeping their designs well within the mainstream to appeal to as many potential buyers as possible.

A style that sells well in these major markets will often be imitated by Asian factories (with minor changes to avoid patent infringement). The lag time is usually 3 to 5 years, so by the time a design appears in a Chinese fau­cet, it is no longer new.

Forious's designs are pleasant and often smartly styled, but well within the design mainstream.

Faucet Finishes

Forious offers six finishes on its faucets: Black, Brushed Nickel, Chrome, (Gunmetal) Gray, Gold, and Oil-Rubbed Bronze.

A few fau­cets are available in in which a base finish is paired with an accent finish. Split finishes include Black/Chrome, Black/Nickel, and Black/Gold.

Forious has not disclosed the processes used to produce its finishes. From inspection and non-invasive testing, however, we can often determine the likely process.

Chrome is usually electroplated. Black and Gray finishes are probably powder coatings. Gold may be a powder coating, but is more likely applied using physical vapor deposition (PVD).

Forious Brushed Nickel is a special case.

For lavatory faucets, it is either an electroplated or physical vapor deposition finish over the brass material of the faucet.

Kitchen faucets are made of stainless steel which looks like nickel, so "brushed nickel" on these faucets is not nickel at all. It is the steel material of the faucet buffed, polished, and brushed to create a "finish."

Electroplating

Electroplating involves immersing the fau­cet and the metal to be used as plating in an acid bath then applying an electrical charge to both objects so metallic ions are drawn from the plating metal to the fau­cet.

Usually, multiple coats are applied, one or more undercoats and then two or more coats of the finish metal.

The process is potentially hazardous to the operator and the environment. It involves toxic and corrosive chemicals that must be disposed of safely. No other coating technology even comes close to the dangers involved in electroplating.

The top coat may be polished or brushed. Chrome, a relatively hard metal, is usually polished to a high shine. Nickel, a softer metal, is usually brushed to help hide the inevitable minor scratches.

Physical Vapor Deposition

Physical vapor deposition or PVD is one of the latest space-age fau­cet finishing technology, 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, even then, only rarely due to its great expense. Its first use was in nuclear reactors. Today, the technology is everywhere and the machinery required is getting smaller, faster, and cheaper all the time.

The process itself is almost out of science fiction.

Load a chamber with unfinished fau­cet components, remove all the air, and add back a carefully calculated mix of nitrogen or argon and reactive gases.

Add a rod of the metal to be used for the coating. Heat that rod to a temperature so high that the metal dissolves into individual atoms. The atoms mix with the various reactive gases to get the color and finish effects you want and are then deposited in a very thin layer – 2 to 5 microns – on the fau­cets.

A micron is one-millionth of a meter or 1/26,000 of an inch. The average human hair is 83 microns thick. The smallest the human eye with excellent vision can see without magnification is about 5 microns.

Despite being just microns thick, a PVD coating is extremely dense and, in consequence, very hard and durable. By some estimates, it is up to 20 times more scratch-resistant than electroplated chrome.

From long experience, we know that PVD is nearly impossible to accidentally scratch or mar, never fades or changes color, and resists all forms of soiling.

It can usually be maintained with just an occasional wipe from a damp cloth to remove water spots. (And some PVD finishes are given a final chemical coating that resists water spots, so even the damp wipe is made largely unnecessary. A dry buff will do.)

Powder Coating

Powder coating is usually described as semi-durable, not as robust as electroplated or PVD finishes, about as durable as the finish on your car, and requiring more care to maintain a like-new appearance.

Compliance with U.S. Laws & Regulations

Furuisi does not comply with laws and regulations governing faucet warranties ( See more below) or minimum labeling requirements for faucets sold or offered for sale in the U.S.

For example, some Forious faucets do not…

"… bear a permanent legible marking to identify the manufacturer. This marking shall be the trade name, trademark, or other mark known to identify the manufacturer. Such marking shall be located where it can be seen after installation." (16 CFR § 305.24(a)(2)

Nor does the packaging in which the faucets are sold contain labeling that discloses

" the [maximum] flow rate in gallons per minute (gpm). The flow rate value shall be the actual flow rate. Each flow rate disclosure shall also be given in liters per minute (L/min).(16 CFR § 305.24(a)(4)

It is essentially a dry paint in powder form applied using a special low-velocity spray gun that disperses the powder while giving it a positive electrical charge. The particles are drawn to the item to be finished which has been given a negative charge.

Once the powder is applied, the item being coated is baked in an oven which melts and bonds the powder and changes the structure of the coating into long, cross-linked molecular chains.

These chains give the coating its durability, reducing the risk of scratches, chipping, abrasions, and other wear issues.

Finish Care Instructions: Always read and follow the fau­cet seller's care instructions. Careful cleaning and maintenance not only preserve the good looks of your fau­cet but also your finish warranty.

Faucet Warranty

The company offers a lifetime warranty on its faucets that is admirably brief and extremely generous. Here is the entire warranty:

"FORIOUS warrants this pluming product to be free of defects in material and workmanship during normal residential use for [the] lifetime of the product. This Warranty only applies to plumbing prodcuts purchased and installed in USA/Europe/Japan/Canada/Mexico."

Warranty Compliance with U.S. Law

Unfortunately, the abbreviated statement of the company's lifetime warranty does not even begin to comply with the minimum requirements for consumer product warranties in the U.S. contained in the federal Mag­nu­son-Moss War­ranty Act (15 U.S.C. §2301). In particular, it does not …

• Disclose what Forious will do to remedy a defect under warranty. Absent some reasonable limitation on what it will do, the law assumes that Forious will do whatever is necessary to fix the problem no matter the cost. (16 CFR § 701.3(a)(3))

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

• Include the following statement, required to be in every consumer warranty:

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

Practical Warranty Issues

In addition to the legal issues, there are practical problems with the warranty.

While the warranty itself does not disclose what the company will do to fix a problem with a faucet, in practice the company is evidently of the opinion that it needs do no more than replace the defective parts or, if that fails, the whole faucet.

But, that's not the law.

As written, the warranty commits the company to doing whatever it takes to fix the faucet and, in addition, any other damages caused by the faucet. The company's liability has no limit.

Consider this situation:

A Forious faucet leaks, flooding the kitchen and doing serious damage to the cabinets and flooring. The water also leaks through the floor damaging the ceiling and walls, carpet, and most of the furnishings in the rec room in the basement below. The cost of repairing and replacing the damage will run to several thousand dollars.

Because all the damage can be traced directly back to the leaking faucet, Furu­i­si Build­ing Mat­er­i­als is liable for the entire cost of repairing all the damage to the kitchen and rec room.

The company also needs to consider the duration of its warranty.

As written, it is a "forever" warranty, transferring to each subsequent owner of the fau­cet for as long as the fau­cet is in service. Its service life could well be over 100 years. We routinely encounter fau­cets that have been in use since the 1880s.

All of this is very good for the buyer, but is undone by three factors:

• It is highly unlikely that the company will be around nearly anywhere like 100 years. Shadow sellers from China pop up for a while, then disappear in the fog behind the Bamboo curtain never to be heard from again. The average lifespan is less than years. Its warranty, no matter how strong, ends as a practical matter when the company ceases business in North America.

• There is no effective channel for making a warranty claim unless you are the original owner and have an order number.

• If the company does not pay, its warranty would be hard to enforce in a courtroom. The company is safely ensconced on the Chinese mainland and difficult to serve with legal process. (Not impossible, however.)

Customer Service

A faucet warranty, no matter how comprehensive or generous, is only as effective as the company's customer service. The Forious website claims that…

"Forious provides 24/7 customer service. Reach out at service@forious.com for any queries."

We have "reached out" to the company dozens of times with "queries" about its faucets and other matters but have yet to receive a reply.

Our emails are tagged to inform us if and when they are opened. They were opened, and presumably read, but the company did not respond. We have also reached out through the website's contact-us page, again with no result.

The +01 2130000 number provided on the company's troubleshooting page is not a valid telephone number anywhere in the world. The toll-free customer service telephone number, shown in the heading above, is answered with a recorded message that invites the caller to leave a message or press zero for the operator. Pressing zero, however, merely leads back to the same recorded message.

If you leave a message, an English-speaking representative will call back in one or two days. If you miss that call, however, you will need to leave another message to start the process all over again.

The return caller knew next to nothing about the technical details of Forious faucets, however, and could not answer even basic questions about the company or its products.

A warranty claim sent by email or telephone will get a response that requests a screenshot of the "faucet order ID", whatever that is, and "images or a video (espeially of the problem location)."

If you recently purchased the faucet, you may have a copy of the sale document.

If you don't have a proof of purchase, you are out of luck. A number of buyers have complained to us of being unable to get a warranty replacement from Forious for lack of the sales document. This is actually a violation of the warranty. Nothing in the warranty requires proof of purchase before warranty service will be provided. The company may reasonably require some evidence that you actually own a Forious fau­cet, for which purpose a clear photo is all that is needed.

In one of our response tests, we indicated that we could not provide a faucet order ID or an image of the faucet leak because it had been replaced by a temporary faucet. At that point, Forious ceased responding to our emails.

Nothing about the company's customer service supports its claim that…

"customers … are at the heart of everyghing we do…"

Based on over two months of testing the company's customer service, we found it largely unresponsive and rate it "very unsatisfactory."

This lack of responsive support is a problem if your Forious faucet has developed a problem and you need replacement parts right away.

Installation & Serviceability

Furuisi claims that Forious faucets are easy to install, a claim that our plumbers confirmed.

Installation instructions are in English and very clear. The faucets easily passed our installation tests, ranging from "very easy" to "easy" on a four-point scale of "Very Easy" to "Very Hard."

Side-handle kitchen faucets equipped with the company's F-Valve, however, failed serviceability.

This test determines whether basic servicing can be performed without uninstalling the faucet. The most basic servicing is replacing the valve cartridge.

We found, much to our surprise, that side-mounted F-Valves cannot be removed or, if they can be removed, require special tools. Even with special tools, however, the fau­cet would have to be uninstalled to replace the cartridge.

Forious Website

Fu­ru­i­si does not have a website under either its English or Chinese names.

Forious, Inc. does have a U.S. website, but this site – Forious.com – based on a Shopify template, is more than a little unfinished. It has improved over earlier versions when most of its pages were blank but is still not quite done.

For example, the invitation to "pop in for a cup of fresh tea and a cookie" lists the pop-in address as

"8808 Ave Dermentum, Onsectetur Adipiscing, Tortor Sagittis, CA 880986."

This is not a real address: it is merely a placeholder in the Sopify template until the actual address is entered.

On the other hand, according to Los Angeles County real estate records and the U.S. Postal Service, its claimed address of 3960 Glendale Ave. in Los Angeles is not a real address either. So don't plan on tea and cookies in the near future.

We suspect that the site was created solely because third-party hosting sites like Ama­zon strongly encourage hosted sellers to have an English-language website to increase the perceived legitimacy of the seller. Forious does not, however, seem to be taking it seriously.

The sight is not entirely useless, however. It shows images of all of the faucets and accessories sold under the Forious brand, and what appear to be MSRP or list prices. Often the list price stated on the website differs from the price in the literature that accompanies the faucet in the box and appears to have little relationship to the actual sales price.

One Forious "5 pieces bathroom hardware set, 24 inch" is listed on the site for $0.00. We did not find any retailer selling at that price, however.

Pseudo Exclusive Models

Furu­i­si sells about a dozen basic faucet models in North America. The exact number varies from time to time.

The company assigns a unique prefix to its model numbers for each of its major retailers and a finish suffix for each finish, a practice that inflates the apparent number of faucet models.

Counting all of the prefixes and suffixes, it has a total of nearly 400 different model numbers for its dozen basic faucets.

The 0023 kitchen fau­cet, for example, is the

• LHH0203xx for Home Depot,
• LLL0203xx for Lowe's stores,
• OS0023xx for Over­stock,
• WM0023xx for Wal­mart,
• WW003xx for Way­fair, and
• FF0203xx for all other sellers, including Am­a­zon.

The "xx" represents one of ten available finish codes. (See the sidebar "For­i­ous Model Num­bers" for finish codes.)

The faucets are exactly the same but the different model numbers allow each seller to claim that:

• The faucet is exclusive, sold only by that seller and

• The seller has the lowest price on that particular model.

The faucet must be exclusive and have the lowest price because is the only seller with that particular model number.

This marketing sleight-of-hand is not unique to For­i­ous fau­cets. All of the major fau­cet companies, including do very much the same thing.

Testing & Certification

At our last update early this year, only Forious stainless steel kitchen faucets had been tested and certified to all joint Canadian/U.S. faucet standards. As of this update, all Forious faucets have been certified.

Universal certification does not mean, however, that all Forious faucets are legal for sale in all states and provinces. Many states and provinces have their own unique requirements that Fur­ui­si does not meet.

Here are the details of Fu­ru­i­si's certifications.

Comparable Faucets

Faucets made in Asia comparable to Forious in quality with the same or a better warranty, but not necessarily comparable for design or price, include

Conclusions

Forious prices are very reasonable for the quality of the product. However, you should consider a purchase only if the lack of a legal warranty, some cartridges that cannot be replaced, and inadequate post-sale customer support don't bother you.

The Pros

• Certification: The company's faucets are certified safe, dependable, and lead-free.

• Quality: The faucets are well-made using what appear to be good cartridges and top-line aerators

The Cons

• Labeling: Neither the company's faucets nor its packaging comply with the labeling requirements of U.S. statutes, making the faucets illegal to sell in the U.S.
• Warranty: The company's warranty does not comply with the content requirements of U.S. warranty law. Although the company claims a lifetime-of-th-product all-risks warranty, it does not explain how to initiate the warranty process or what it will do to fix a problem with a Forious faucet.
• Customers' experiences suggest that it does nothing more than provide replacement parts, a limitation that is not disclosed in its warranty. Claimants must also provide an order number. Without that number, the company will not honor a warranty claim.

• U.S.-Based Product Support: The company provides inadequate after-sale support. The process of getting replacement parts or making a warranty claim is managed from China and is, at best, cumbersome and lengthy – weeks if not months. The complaints we have received about the company primarily relate to post-sale customer support.

• Replacement Valves: As far as we can determine, there is no source for replacement ceramic valves on this side of the Pacific. Our request to the company to identify where replacement parts and, particularly, replacement valves could be obtained went unanswered. F-Valve cartridges cannot be replaced (if they can, in fact, be replaced) without special tools that Forious does not provide.

Rating Panel Comments

Our rating panel was impressed by the quality of the faucets, but the panelists would not install one in a busy kitchen or bath absent reliable after-sale support, particularly citing the lack of a replacement parts source in the U.S. or Canada. As a prep or bar faucet or one in a little used guest powder room, some of the panelists would take a chance.

Keep in mind, however, that the company could pull out of the North Amer­i­can market at any time, taking its lifetime warranty with it. The absence of a substantial physical presence or recognized distributor in the U.S. suggests that it is not in the North Amer­i­can market for the long haul.

Contining Research

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