Jaclo Faucets Review & Rating Updated: 05/24/24 Our panel of consu­mers and industry pro­fes­sion­als has rec­ognized Jaclo fau­cets as a Best Val­ue in mid-priced fau­cets made or assembled in North Amer­ica. Read the Best Fau­­cet Val­ue Re­port for more in­for­ma­tion.

Assembled in U.S.A.

From Imported Parts
& Components

Durst Corporation, Inc.
Trading As
Jaclo Industries
129 Dermody Street
Cranford, NJ 07016
(908) 654-4433

Rating

Business Type

Product Range

Bath Faucets ^[1]

Certifications

Brands
Jaclo

Street Price

$172 - $920

Warranty Score

Cartridge

Lifetime¹

Finishes

Lifetime²

Mechanical Parts

Lifetime

Proof of Purchase

Required

Transferable

No

Meets U.S. Warranty
Law Requirements

No

Warranty Footnotes:

1. For as long as the fau­cet is owned by the original consumer-purchaser.

2. Living finishes are excluded from any finish warranty. This is, unfortunately, the industry standard.

Download the Jaclo warranty.

Learn more about faucet warranties.

This Company In Brief

Jaclo is a brand of decorative plumbing hardware, including faucets, distributed by Durst Corp­ora­tion of New Jer­sey which has trademarked the Jaclo name.

The faucets are assembled by Durst in New Jersey from components and parts sourced primarily in Asia.

The company offers 35 finishes and up to seven handle styles for each fau­cet.

The faucets are well designed and made, and beautifully finished. They include good-quality components.

The Jaclo warranty has technical legal problems, but they don't affect you as a buyer and may be to your benefit. Its protection is about average for North American fau­cet warranties, providing the industry-standard "lifetime" coverage.

Durst Corporation, Inc., is a New Jer­sey corporation that supplies plumbing sundries and is one of the major suppliers in the plumbing industry.

Its offerings include almost everything a plumber or steamfitter could possibly need in the way of materials, tools, components, or fittings from a nearly 400-page catalog and through independent plumbing supply houses.

The company and its mid-priced plumbing brand, Jac­lo, are very well known to plumbing industry professionals, but mostly a mystery to the buying public.

Jaclo sells some of the better-quality fau­cets still assembled in the U.S. and the consuming public should get better acquainted with the brand and its diverse collections of decorative plumbing products.

The Company

Incorporated in 1988, the current company is just years old, but is the successor to the old Durst Man­u­fac­tur­ing Co., Inc. and claims a heritage of "five generations of [plumbing] industry experience."

Durst Manufacturing Co., Inc. (1912-1960)

Founded in 1912 ^[2] by P.E. Durst to sell "rubber and metal specialties" primarily to the plumbing industry, the company was originally based in New York City.

The 1915 Engineering Directory showed the company at 88-90 Reade Street in Manhattan.

The company was a frequent traveler, however, moving to larger facilities as it grew in size.

By 1922 it had relocated to a then-new building at 119 Chambers Street in Tribeca and had opened a branch at 193 S. 7th St. in Philadelphia.

It could be found at 466 Broad­way in Brook­lyn in 1949 and by 1960 it was at 409-411 Laf­ay­ette Street. Two Durst subsidiaries, Mar­shall Met­al Pro­ducts, Inc. and Laf­ay­ette Brass Man­u­fact­ur­ing, Co., also shared the address.

The building, a Roman­esque Re­vi­val structure, was designed by noted architect, Alfred Zuck­er and completed in 1892. It now houses upscale offices and residences.

The company remained on Laf­ay­ette Street until it moved to New Jer­sey and was re-invented as the current Durst Corp­or­a­tion, Inc.

Durst Industries, Inc. (1960-1988)

Durst Man­u­fact­ur­ing was primarily a distributor.

It manufactured a few specialty products. How­ever, its principal business was supplying plumbers and steamfitters nationwide with all manner of fiber and rubber specialty products.

Its early catalogs show it selling washers, gaskets, ful­ler balls ^[3], rubber bulbs, riser hoses, closet flanges, rubber elbows, and rubber stoppers.

None of these was manufactured by Durst, a fact that was the basis for a complaint by several of its competitors to the Fed­er­al Trade Com­mis­sion disputing Durst's use of the word "manufacturing" in its company name.

The complainants argued that the use of the word was a "deceptive act and practice" ^[4] that gave the company an unfair advantage over its competition.

The Com­mis­sion agreed and ordered Durst to change its name. The company became Durst In­dus­tries, Inc. in 1960.

Durst Corporation, Inc.(1988-Present)

Today, once again reorganized, renamed, and removed – this time to New Jersey – Durst Corp­ora­tion, Inc. is still supplying all manner of plumbing sund­ries to the trades.

It is one of the major suppliers in the plumbing industry.

Durst is privately owned and managed by the Brodey family.

Lawrence B. (Larry) Brodey, the great-grandson of the founder P. E. Durst, is its CEO. Morgan Brodey, formerly the head of its decorative plumbing products division (that includes Jac­lo fau­cets) is president. Carol Brodey its vice-president.

The company describes its Cranford, New Jersey facility as

"… home to our corporate headquarters and design lab and is where we conduct much of the manufacturing process from prototyping, machining, polishing, assembly, testing, and the warehousing of over 100,000 products.

Having everything all in one place not only enables us to carefully monitor every little, minute detail of the process, but the vertical integration also allows us to provide supreme customer service – not to mention one of the fastest turnaround times in the business."

Durst Corporation's annual sales are estimated at $156 million.

Jaclo^® Trade Name

Jaclo is a trade name only, registered in 1976 by the original Jac­lo, Inc. and transferred when Jac­lo, Inc. was acquired by Durst in the 1990s. Jaclo, Inc. no longer exists.

However, Durst Corp­ora­tion routinely trades as Jac­lo In­dus­tries, Jac­lo Plumbing­ing, and Jac­lo Show­er Sys­tems.

Invoices and shipping records are just as likely to refer to these trade names as they are to Durst Corp­ora­tion.

However, none of these exist as separate legal entities. They are unregistered trading names.

Durst Faucets

Jaclo-branded products are not included in the general Durst Catalog. They are sold separately and Jaclo has its own catalog.

Durst sells fau­cets under the Durst brand name, but these are not Jac­lo fau­cets (and are not included in this review.)

Durst-branded fau­cets are basic kitchen and bath fau­cets with styling out of the 1950s and '60s sold primarily to plumbers and facility managers as fau­cets for multi-unit dwellings.

Most include old-technology compression and washerless valves rather than the newer ceramic disc valves usually found in modern fau­cets.

Jaclo Collections

Jaclo products are arranged in eight ^[5] collections ranging in style from traditional to very contemporary.

The collections include fau­cets, tub fillers, showers, tub spouts, drains, and bathroom accessories such as towel bars and robe hooks. The company does not sell kitchen fau­cets under the Jac­lo brand.^[1]

The CUBIX^®, Contempo, Downtown Contempo, Lila, and Uptown Contempo collections are contemporary.

The Roaring 20s collection is actually more reminiscent of a Victorian design than the early 20th century but could work for renovations of either period.

The Astor and Westfield collections would easily fit any Arts & Crafts or Art Deco decor from 1900 to about 1940, and possibly into the Modernist era up to the 1960s.

Jaclo Finishes

Jaclo finishes most fau­cets in-house. Some are outsourced, but all fau­cets are given their finishes in the U.S.

The advantage of local finishing to order is that all of the items in an order – faucets, fillers, showers, and accessories – can be finished at the same time in exactly the same finish. There is little possibility of even minor tonal mismatches.

Most items in a collection are offered in a subset of the company's 36 finishes. However, no fau­cet is available in all 36 finishes. The most we have counted is 31 finishes on an Astor fau­cet.

Some fau­cets are available in in which a base finish is accented with one or more different finishes — black accents on a chrome fau­cet, for example. Split finishes are generally a special order.

The company describes its finishing facilities as using

… some of the most sophisticated finishing processes in the world. From electrochemical deposition to high-temperature curing to tri-alloy formulations, we utilize state-of-the-art techniques to create products with integrity to exacting standards.

Every one of our … finishes not only meets all industry standards, but is sure to meet the standards of even the most discerning customers.

Four processes are used to create Jac­lo finishes. These include the processes commonly used to finish fau­cets – (PVD), , and – and also coatings, a process very new to the fau­cet industry.

Like just about every other fau­cet company, Jac­lo's basic finish is polished chrome. In the industry as a whole, polished chrome outsells all other finishes combined.

Other finishes are priced in bands. Any finish other than chrome adds to the cost of a fau­cet. Finishes in Group A add a little, those in Group D add a lot – moving the price somewhere just short of low earth orbit.

Split finish treatments are generally special orders and also more costly.

Jaclo does not identify the type of process used to produce a particular finish, a serious omission in its fau­cet specifications. (But, see our finish chart elsewhere on this page for that information.)

Physical vapor deposition (PVD)

If you have a choice, a PVD finish is the finish to get. They are, nearly indestructible.

The finishes are applied in a vacuum chamber loaded with unfinished fau­cet parts. All the air is replaced with a carefully calculated mix of inert and reactive gases.

A rod of the metal used for the coating is heated to a temperature so high that it dissolves into individual atoms creating a plasma that is bombarded onto the fau­cet parts to create a very thin (2 to 5 microns) but very dense coating.

PVD finishes are very hard (Rockwell HRC-80+, Vicker HV-2600+) and bonded to the fau­cet at a molecular level, essentially becoming an integral part of the fabric of the fau­cet.

In standard abrasion tests, PVD finishes are regularly found to be 10 to 20 times more scratch-resistant than the old standard, electroplated chrome.

Electroplating

The oldest process used to produce fau­cet finishes is electroplating. It has been around almost since the first modern fau­cet was invented.

It 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. Chrome is the most commonly used plated metal, followed distantly by nickel.

In most instances, electroplating is a multi-coat process. Undercoats of copper or zinc usually precede the final decorative coating.

Some metals, chrome being one, do not adhere very well to naked brass. One or more nickel undercoats are used before the chrome is applied so the finish does not flake or peel.

Another purpose is to even out any imperfections in the fau­cets before the final finish is applied. This is less important these days than it formerly was. Faucet parts to be finished are usually machined and polished by robots to near perfection before any undercoats are applied.

Most of Jac­lo's metallic finishes are electroplated. Some are "then cured with what the company describes as a cut­ting-edge deposition process".

We had never heard of such a process, so we asked the company about it.

It turns out to be nothing more exotic than a spray-on top coat of a synthetic polymer (essentially a durable lacquer) that may be tinted to achieve special finish effects.

Jac­lo claims that its technology is unique in the industry. However, we know of several other companies using a similar process. It may not be exactly the same process, but it's probably pretty close.

Lacquer-spraying is involved and exacting.

As any auto body shop finisher will tell you, it takes quite a bit of experience and practice to spray an even coat of lacquer without sags, drips, or overspray. So a lot of skill and a bit of a "touch" are needed for the process to produce that flawless fau­cet finish.

The electroplated Jac­lo fau­cets we examined for this report were free of even the tiniest flaw in their sparkling finishes.

Lacquer these days is a hardy finish, but not nearly as durable as all-metal finishes.

Improper maintenance can destroy a lacquer finish very quickly, It is important to pay close attention to the company's care and cleaning instructions, avoiding abrasives or harsh chemicals when cleaning the fau­cet including the use of products containing alcohol or ammonia (e.g. Windex^®).

Properly maintained, however, a lacquer finish will retain its new look year after year.

Jaclo guarantees these finishes for as long as the original buyer owns the fau­cet, so management seems to have quite a bit of confidence in their long-term durability.

Powder Coatings

Some Jac­lo finishes, including most of the bright colors, are powder coats, which are essentially a durable powdered paint.

Jaclo never uses the words powder coating. In Jac­lo-speak the finish is a

"...cutting-edge elec­tro-chem­ical deposition process."

which is a good technical description of powder coating.

However, it seems so much simpler and more easily understood by consumers to eliminate the mystery and just say "powder coating."

Powder coatings are not at all "cutting-edge" despite Durst's claim.

The technique has been around for nearly 80 years, developed during the Second World War as an alternative to slow-drying liquid paint to speed up wartime production of armaments, most of which needed to be painted.

Over the intervening years, the technology has gotten better but is essentially unchanged since the 1940s.

The powder used to powder coat really is a powder, similar to baking flour, sold by the pound in over 65,000 different colors which can be blended to produce a nearly unlimited rainbow of hues and tones.

It is usually applied with a special low-velocity spray gun that disperses the powder while giving it a positive electrical charge. The particles are drawn to the fau­cet which has been given a negative charge.

The fau­cet is then baked in an oven which melts and bonds the powder and changes the structure of the coating into long, cross-linked molecular chains. These chains are what give the coating its durability, reducing the risk of scratches, chipping, abrasions, corrosion, and other wear issues.

They do tend to fade, however, especially in darker tones. Many companies overcoat their powder coating with a UV-reducing topcoat to retard fading.

Powder coating is considerably less burdensome to the environment than electroplating which uses toxic chemicals that have to be disposed of carefully, and much less expensive than PVD finishes that require a large initial outlay for equipment to produce the finish.

The disadvantage of powder coatings, however, is that they have to be applied in relatively thick coats to avoid defects like orange peel — a mottled, uneven surface. The thickness can obscure fine detail.

They are also not better than semi-durable, not nearly as hardy or robust as uncoated electroplated or PVD finishes, but considerably more robust that the paint on your car.

Thin Film Ceramic Coatings

Powder coatings are falling out of favor in the fau­cet industry as PVD is coaxed by engineers and materials chemists into reliably producing the colors and finish effects that were once available only as powder coats.

Also promising is a new type of liquid paint called (TFC) which is making inroads into the fau­cet industry.

Initially used to protect hard-use items like fire­arms and military field equipment, TFC has begun appearing on fau­cets.

Some of Jac­lo's painted finishes are produced using this technology.

Its advantage over powder coatings and the secret to these coatings are microscopic ceramic particles. Em­bed­ded in the material, these nano-ceramics create a nearly impenetrable armor that makes the finish very resistant to wear, scratches, and most other environmental hazards.

TFC coatings can still be undone, however, by harsh cleaning chemicals, however, so pay attention to the company's care and cleaning instructions.

The advantage of TFC over PVD is that it does not require a large upfront investment in specialized equipment that may cost upwards of $100,000 to produce a super-durable finish.

It needs only a standard spray booth and a low-temperature industrial oven to cure the paint – equipment that most coatings applicators already own.

Faucet Components

One of the reasons that Durst management is confident enough in its fau­cets to offer a lifetime-of-the-buyer guarantee is that the fau­cets are fitted with components that are some of the best available.

Among the most critical to the longevity of the fau­cets are valve cartridges and aerators.

Valve Cartridges

Jaclo uses good quality cartridges in its fau­cets, which is important because its cartridge is the heart of a modern fau­cet.

Two-handle Jac­lo fau­cets such as the Astor are outfitted with excellent single-function stem cartridges made by Flühs Direhtechnik of Lüdenscheid, Germany. Flühs (often spelled Fluehs for English-speakers) makes a stem cartridge that is generally considered among the best in the world.

The dual-function mixing cartridges used in Jac­lo's single-handle fau­cets like CUBIX^® are made by Sedal SA a company headquartered in Barcelona, Spain, but manufacturing in China at two facilities: Sedal Technical Ceramics in Jiangmen and Sedal Kaiping.

The Sedal cartridge is generally not considered equal to the very best European mixing valve cartridges, but it is a good cartridge that should give reliable, leak-free service for many years.

It will not last forever, however.

The cartridges have been tested through 500,000 on/of cycles in order to be certified for use in North America – equivalent to about 80 years of average bahtroom use.

But, this test uses distilled water. Your household water is anything but distilled. It probably contains a generous assortment of the dissolved minerals that will eventually wear out almost any cartridge.

Still it should reasonably last 10 - 15 years without any misadventures. If it does not, Jaclo will replace it free of charge under its warranty. Or, you can buy a new cartridge for about $10.00 from any seller of replacement cartridges. Sedal cartridges are sold nearly everywhere.

Aerators

The fau­cets also include made by Neoperl^®, the Swiss engineering company that arguably makes the world's best aerators.

Faucet aerators were at one time just simple devices, fitted at the spout opening to infuse a little air to soften the water stream so it would not splash out of the sink.

Today, however, they are precision products used to shape and moderate the water stream emitted from the fau­cet, limit water volume to the lower flows required by conservation laws, and prevent back-flow that could contaminate household drinking water.

It is important, therefore, that this little device, a little larger than a dime, be the best available. And that, almost by definition, is the Swiss-engineered Neoperl^® aerator.

Faucet Design

According to the company, Jac­lo fau­cets are designed by Jac­lo which has its own design studio.

Jaclo can design and prototype fau­cets and will design a custom fau­cet just for you if you happen to own a mega-mansion, hotel, resort, or casino that needs several dozen to several hundred custom fau­cets.

Jaclo designs are appealing but fairly conservative. They introduce no design innovations. Most are variations on already-proven fau­cet designs, many of which have been around for decades.

One example is the CUBIX^® single-handled fau­cet. Based on a design from the 1970s, it is very similar to fau­cets available from a great many other fau­cet companies.

Another is the Contempo wall-mounted fau­cet is a close copy of the wall-mounted fau­cet introduced by Danish architect and designer Arne Jacobsen in 1968.

Some Jaclo fau­cets offer as many as seven handle options to expand the range of appearance choices available from a modest number of fau­cets.

Faucet Assembly

Jaclo is not a as we define the term. It does not cast or machine the fau­cet parts and components used in Jac­lo fau­cets. These are manufactured by other, mostly Asian companies.

The company's claim that it does its own machining is true only in part.

Durst has always had the capacity to machine just about anything and has a reputation for being able to accurately reproduce machined parts to restore heritage plumbing fittings that are no longer made.

Our researchers found that it does indeed do some very minor machine work to prepare Jac­lo fau­cets for finishing.

The major machining, however, is done by the companies that supply Jac­lo with its fau­cet parts. Most components are received fully machined and assembly-ready except for finishes.

Jaclo assembles its fau­cets from these imported components. The degree of assembly varies depending on the type and complexity of the fau­cet, but, in general, the assembly appears to be transformative ^[6] and qualifies the company as an of its fau­cets.

Under U.S. law, Durst can claim that Jac­lo fau­cets are "Assembled in U.S.A." or "Made in U.S.A. From Imported Components" but cannot claim an unqualified "Made in U.S.A." An unqualified claim requires all or substantially all of the components of a fau­cet to also be made in the U.S.

The term "assembly", however, is relative.

Rarely is a fau­cet delivered to a customer fully assembled. If it were fully assembled it would have to be partially disassembled to be installed.

A fau­cet is usually delivered as a kit of partly assembled components in a box. The kit contains all of the parts needed to install the fau­cet.

Unlike a fully assembled coffeemaker that needs only to be plugged in to be fully operational, a fau­cet has to be put together on site. It has to be attached to a sink or countertop and its various components connected together.

Actual final assembly does not occur until the plumber (or homeowner) installs the fau­cet.

Where To Buy

Jaclo products are widely available, but not as widely available as they should be.

Durst sells Jac­lo fau­cets at venues popular with its traditional customers: plumbers, builders, and remodelers. It does not sell at the retailers frequented by the general public such as general merchandising sites (Amazon, Wayfair) or big box lumber stores (Home De­pot, Lowes).

This lack of exposure is undoubtedly one of the reasons Jac­lo fau­cets are not better known.

The company's preferred retailers are decorative plumbing showrooms.

Its most ubiquitous reseller is probably Fer­gus­on En­ter­pris­es (Wolse­ley in Canada), the British-owned plumbing supply company that has outlets or showrooms in just about every city, town, and hamlet in North Ameri­ca and multiple online stores, including Build.com, Fau­cets­Direct.com, and Fau­cets.com.

In addition to Ferguson, Durst sells Jac­lo fau­cets at many of the plumbing supply outlets that carry Durst-branded plumbing products.

Examples are General Plumbing Supply with six locations in the Oak­land, Cali­i­forn­ia area, Cent­ral Ar­i­zona Sup­ply, and Vic Bond Sales in Mich­i­gan.

Jaclo fau­cets are also available at non-Fer­gu­son-aligned online retailers including Plumb­ingSup­ply.com, Fau­cet De­pot, and Qual­ity Bath.

If you are looking for just a fau­cet, an online retailer will serve but if you intend to coordinate fau­cet, shower, tub filler, and accessories, you would be better served working with a showroom professional to make sure you include all of the pieces and parts you are going to need.

You can find the nearest authorized retailers on the Jac­lo website under "Where to Buy" at the very top of the screen.

However, "Where to Buy" identifies only what Durst calls its "Dealers," described as

"… trusted partners and showrooms through which you can purchase our products. JACLO products are sold in other locations and are not limited to just these locations."

No matter where you buy a Jac­lo fau­cet, do not expect deep discounts. Jac­lo maintains a Minimum Advertised Pricing (MAP) policy which prohibits authorized retailers from advertising a price below the minimum price set by Jac­lo.

The Jaclo Website

The Jaclo website is well-designed with easy, intuitive navigation, a vast improvement over its earlier efforts. Faucets are easy to find and the information provided about each fau­cet is comprehensive, including most of what's needed to make an informed buying decision but, unfortunately, not everything.

One key bit of missing information is the identity of the ceramic valve cartridge manufacturer.

The cryptic "ceramic cartridge" does not provide enough information. All modern fau­cets are built around a ceramic cartridge. But, there are very good and very poor ceramic cartridges made in this world. The best will last a lifetime, the worst a few years at most, which is why the actual identity of the cartridge maker helps in deciding which fau­cet to buy.

As Jaclo uses good cartridges, it should have no problem disclosing their identity.

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

Better still would be a 360° visualization capability such as that provided by

Click on the 360° icon and the fau­cet is displayed in a box that allows you to rotate the fau­cet with the mouse to view it from any angle. No more imagining what the back of the fau­cet looks like, just rotate it with the mouse until the back is revealed. The feature takes the guesswork out of selecting a fau­cet from one or a few static images.

All of the finishes in which a faucet can be ordered are displayed as buttons. Clicking on a button displays an image of a faucet handle in the chosen finish, a feature that immensely aids visualization of what the faucet will look like in that finish.

Unfortunately, the site has a bad habit of referring to finishes by their codes rather than their names. An example is the note that Astor faucets are "[n]ot available in BKN, PCU, PG, & ULB." Much better would be "not available in Black Nickel, Polished Copper, Polished Gold, and Unlacquered Brass."

One odd bit of information on each fau­cet page is the "Estimated List Price". We don't know what that is. The manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) or list price is never estimated. The manufacturer sets the price and knows what it is. No estimating involved. If this is supposed to be an estimate of the street price, it is a little high.

Each fau­cet page provides a link to a downloadable .pdf cut-sheet that summarizes the fau­cet's features — essentially a printable version of the website fau­cet page — the handle styles available for the faucet, if applicable, and a dimensioned drawing.

A second link to installation instructions is useful in determining whether there would be any difficulty in installing the fau­cet in the location planned for it. The installation sheet also has the exploded parts list

For some faucets, the installation instructions contain Jac­lo's written fau­cet warranty. In others, the reader is referred to the website for the warranty.

There is n link to the warranty from any faucet listing page, something that would be simple to provide as a download, and which the company should provide because it is now the law.

The Jaclo Warranty

The Jaclo warranty is clearly intended to be a limited lifetime warranty that reads, in relevant part, as follows:

Unfortunately, it is not well-written. It makes excessive and unwise use of the word "void", a common beginner mistake. It refers to finishes by their codes, not their names, something that will not sit well with the federal rule that warranties must be written in "simple and readily understood language" understandable by the average consumer. (16 CFR § 701.3(a)) And, it includes a fair amount of unnecessary verbiage.

It seems to be a common tendency among amateur warranty writers to try to make one warranty work for many diverse products with different warranty requirements. It can be done but must be done skillfully and carefully to avoid legal complications. The Jaclo warranty evidences a lack of the required skill and care.

But, its major problems are that it fumbles several major legal requirements imposed by the Mag­nu­son-Moss War­ranty Act (15 U.S.C. §2308), the federal law that dictates the form and minimum content of consumer product warranties in the U.S.

Warranty Designation

To be a limited warranty, the caption or title of the warranty must clearly designate the warranty as limited with the magic words "limited" and "warranty".

The words can be arranged to make a variety of acceptable captions: "Limited Warranty", "Limited Product Warranty", "Limited Lifetime Warranty", "Jac­lo Limited Lifetime Warranty", and so on.

So long as the words "limited" and "warranty" are included, it gives fair warning to the buyer that the protection the warranty is intended to provide is limited, and it is treated under the law as a limited warranty. (15 U.S.C. §2303(a))

The Jaclo warranty is captioned just "Warranty". The word "limited" is nowhere to be found. And, although it is clear from the text of the warranty that Durst intends to offer a limited warranty, the missing "limited" in its caption automatically converts the warranty to a full warranty. (16 CFR §700.6)

Owners' Rights Under a Full Warranty

A full warranty gives a buyer many more rights, voiding many of the restrictions written into the Jac­lo warranty. These rights include the following:

Any attempt to exclude or modify any of these rights is simply void.

Jaclo's Obligations Under its Full Warranty

A full warranty means that if a faucet breaks, Jaclo is liable for

This may not be at all how Jaclo intended its warranty to work, but that's how it chose to write the warranty, and these are the legal consequences of that writing.

If it wants different results, it needs to write a different warranty.

Jaclo Customer Service

A strong warranty means little unless the service backing up the warranty is also good. Fortunately, Jaclo's customer service is very good and sometimes excellent.

We did not perform our usual formal customer service tests which for small companies often do not work. Agents quickly figure out they are being tested.

We did, however, make inquiries designed to determine the depth of knowledge among service agents about Jac­lo fau­cets and judge the agents' helpfulness, product knowledge, and courtesy. Our testers telephone or email at various times from different parts of Canada and the U.S. over a three-week period to asked one of 27 questions we use for testing. Some are easy questions, some more difficult, and some deliberately as stupid as we can make them to test the agent's patience.

We found attitudes to be excellent: friendly, cheerful, and patient to a fault. But, product knowledge was low to medium.

Customer service representatives frequently had to refer our questions to a more knowledgeable respondent for an answer. And even that did not help in every case.

In many instances, agents gave out incorrect information. When asked where the parts and components of Jac­lo fau­cets were made, for example, the answer was "in the U.S.", an answer that we know to be wrong.

However, Jac­lo scored a gold star for not using automated telephone answering — one of the most annoying features of our digital lives.

When you call Jac­lo, your call is answered by a real, live person and directed to the appropriate recipient without having to listen to an interminable list of options (which "have recently changed") or wait on hold listening to music you loath while a recorded voice interrupts periodically to tell you that "Your call is very important to us."

For this convenience alone, Jac­lo could be forgiven a whole host of customer service sins.

The ]ness Bureau grades Jaclo a C on a scale drom A+ to F for its handling of two consumer complaints filed with the Bureau in the past three years. Both compaints were essentially the same: failure of customer service to respond to e-mails. (Click for an overview of how BBB Ratings are determined.)

We do not agree that two complaints in two years indicates a serious problem with Jaclo's customer support, but we do think better training of its agents on Jac­lo products would be a good idea. Agents are the company's ambassadors – generally its only contact with customers – so it is imperative that they represent the company knowledgeably and well.

Testing & Certification

Comparable Faucets

Faucets roughly equivalent to Jac­lo in quality, features, and price — but not necessarily design or finish options and either made or assembled in North America include

Conclusions

If you are in the market for a well-made bathroom sink fau­cet with an unusual and striking finish, Jac­lo may be the fau­cet for you.

We like the fau­cets. They are well designed and made, contain, good quality components, and on average priced below similar faucets of equal quality.

The Jac­lo warranty has problems, but they don't affect you as a buyer. They expose Durst to additonal liability and may, in fact, be to your benefit.

It is about average for North American fau­cet warranties, providing industry-standard protection. The industry standard is not wonderful, but it's what we have.

It's unfortunate that the company has not complied with the registration requirements of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) and cannot legally sell fau­cets in the U.S. But, once again, this lack of compliance exposes Durst to serious liablities, but does not affct you as a potential buyer.

We are not reviewing Durst-brand fau­cets in this report, but note that these fau­cets are also not registered as required by the EPCA.

A Jaclo spokesman informed us in April 2020 that the company was unaware of the requirement, which we find hard to believe of a business selling plumbing products for five generations. He also stated that the company was in the process of filing its registrations. However, years after that statement, the registrations are still not on file.

As a buyer, however, whether Jcalo complies with EPCA is of no concern. Jac­lo risks the massive civil fines that the Department of Energy routinely hands out for non-compliance, not you.

Our rating panel was unanimously in its opinion of Jac­lo fau­cets. All members indicated that they would not hesitate to install a Jac­lo fau­cet in their bath "without reservation."

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

Footnotes:

1. All kitchen fau­cets distributed by Jac­lo are from the line of stainless steel kitchen fau­cets manufactured by Hornbeam Ivy Limited in the U. K. Steam Valve Original fau­cets are rated separately and are not included in this report. To read the Steam Valve report, click here.
2. Durst as a company was founded in 1901, but not incorporated as Durst Manufacturing until 1912.
3. For more information on fuller ball valves, see Faucet Valves & Cartridges
4. In the Matter of Lafayette Brass Manufacturing Company, Inc., et al., 57 F.T.C. 704 (1960).
5. Jaclo actually offers nine collections, but the ninth collection, Subway Line, does not include sink fau­cets.
6. A fau­cet is considered "Assembled in U.S.A." when "its principal assembly takes place in the U.S. and the assembly is tranformative". An assembly is transformative if before assembly the product was not recognizably a fau­cet, but was identifiable as a fau­cet after assembly. The assembly "transformed" a collection of parts and components into a recognizable fau­cet. Merely attaching a handle or inserting a cartridge into an already recognizable fau­cet is not transformative and does not qualify as "Assembled in U.S.A.". The process is sometimes referred to in the industry as "screwdriver assembly." See Complying with the Made in U.S.A. Standard for more information.