Karran Faucets Review & Rating Updated: March 1, 2024
No Karran faucet has been fully certified to the three required North American standards.[3]
Only fully certified faucets are legal to install in a drinking water system in the U.S. or Canada.
Law Requirements
Warranty Footnotes:
1. Sprayer head, sprayer hoses, braided supply line hoses: 1 year.Download/Read/Print the Karran faucet warranty.Learn more about faucet warranties.
Karran In Brief
Kitchen and bathroom faucets are imported and distributed by Karran USA, which sells them through local showrooms and contractors, and online through several websites.
At least three reputable Chinese manufacturers produce the faucets.
The faucets are supported by a capable customer service, but an almost non-existent warranty.
Most Karran faucets have been tested by an independent laboratory and found to comply with some of the reliability and safety standards governing the sale and installation of drinking water faucets in North America.
But no faucet has been fully certified.[3]
Only fully certified faucets comply with North American laws and regulations and may be legally used in a drinking water system in the U.S. or any Canada.
In addition, the registration requirements of the U.S. Energy Policy & Conservation Act (EPCA) have not been met.
The EPCA prohibits the distribution of a faucet in commerce in the U.S. unless the faucet has been registered with the Department of Energy certifying that it meets federal water conservation standards.
Karran faucets not in the register may not be lawfully "imported, advertised, offered for sale, sold, or delivered" in the U.S. Violation risks very substantial financial penalties.
(Canadian sales are not affected by EPCA rules. But, similar laws have been enacted by most Provinces. (See more information below.)
Contraband Faucets: None of these faucets are legal for sale in the U.S. or legal to install in a drinking water system in the U.S. or Canada. For more information on contraband faucets and how to avoid these potentially dangerous products, please visit Illegal and Black Market Faucets in North America.
Karran USA is famous in the kitchen remodeling industry as the originator of the integrated sink that can be under-mounted seamlessly in high-density laminate (i.e., Formica®) countertops.
Before Karran, the only sinks that worked well with laminated countertops were drop-in sinks. Undermount sinks that allow the homeowner to sweep debris from the countertop without encountering a sink edge could be installed in only the more costly stone and composite countertops.
The Karran integrated sink, invented by Chad Michael Lusimano and patented in the U.S. and worldwide, changed all that in the first years of the 21st century.
It can be seamlessly and permanently integrated with laminate countertops using a patented installation process and an acrylic adhesive called methyl methacrylate injected between the sink and the countertop.
The process forms a virtually unbreakable bond that holds the sink in place and makes it impossible for water to seep under the laminate.
The company has expanded the types of sinks that can be installed in laminated countertops from its original acrylic sinks to stainless steel and stone-look composite sinks.
To say that Karran's invention was a revolution in kitchen design may be an overstatement, but if so, it's not much of an overstatement.
It opened up an entirely new world of design possibilities using relatively inexpensive laminated countertops.
The Company
Karran started business in the "late 1990s" to import Plexicor fiberglass-backed acrylic sinks from South Africa. The sinks were promoted internationally for their "exceptional resistance" to staining.
Karran, then at 1422 E. Elkhorn Road in Vincennes, was identified as Plexicor's distribution center. Plexcor's head office in Maryland was managed by Mark Webster, a South African native. He is now a Karran executive.
By 2007 Karran had introduced its acrylic seamless sinks in white or bisque, and created its website to market the products, and by 2010 had added stainless steel and quartz sinks to its seamless lineup.
The company was incorporated in Indiana as Karran USA, Inc. in 2014.
Faucets were not added to its products until 2020. At first, it sold only kitchen faucets, adding lavatory faucets a year later.
The company is headed by Eric Niehaus, its CEO.
The Niehaus family has been involved in the retail building products in the Vincennes area for decades, owning the Center Hardware and Home Center, and the Niehaus Lumber Company since at least 1933.
Karran USA is also largely a family affair with several Niehaus kin in various management positions.
Karran sells other types of sinks; top-mount, undermount, and workstations; all of good quality.
But, its flagship product is still its integrated seamless sinks, the products that made the company's reputation. It sells these in large numbers and will likely continue to do so until at least 2031 when its patent expires.
Where to Buy
Karran products are not sold on the Karran website. The company is a distributor, not a retailer.
Its products are available locally from plumbing and kitchen showrooms, interior decorators, remodeling contractors, and plumbers. The Karran website has a showroom guide for finding retail sources near you.
Karran faucets are also available at online sellers, including:
The Manufacturers
Karran does not manufacture its faucets. These are produced in China.
We have identified three of its manufacturers and believe we have idenified them all, but there may be others. The three we have found are all manufacturers and include:
- Founded in 1989, CAE (also trading as Xi'an Sanitary Fittings Industry Co. Ltd.) is certified compliant with ISO-9001 and has a solid international reputation for making good-quality faucets.
- In addition to manufacturing for Karran, the company also makes faucets Sold by Amazon
- Some of CAE's contemporary faucets are designed in Italy by Itamar Harari of Slide Design, a noted Italian design firm. CAE is known for casting its faucets from DZR brass, an alloy that resists a chemical degradation process called dezincification.
- Huayi Plumbing Fittings Co. is a division of the giant Huayi International Industrial Group Co., Ltd., an manufacturer.
- The Huayi Group is a collection of companies involved in some manner in metal fabrication. These include Kaiping Freendo Sanitary Ware Co., Ltd., Kaiping Euopea Plumbing Apparatus Co., and Giada Star Sanitary Ware Co., all of which also manufacture plumbing products.
- Huayi manufactures faucets for a veritable who's who of North American faucet companies. Some of these are
- Aidier is a relative newcomer to the North American faucet market. It manufactures high-quality faucets. As Kaipiang Aida Sanitary Ware, it sells plumbing fittings under the registered Aidea® and Aida® brands.
- It also manufactures some of the economy and mid-priced faucets distributed by to retailers like the True Value hardware buying cooperative and
Construction & Materials
Karran faucets are made using conventional construction in which the body and spout channel water as well as give the faucet its appearance. None of its manufacturers use the newer core and shell construction. [1]
The primary materials used are brass and stainless steel. Secondary materials are zinc alloys and plastic.
Dezincification
Of Karran's suppliers, CAE is the only company known to use a patented alloy of lead-free brass that resists dezincification.
Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc.
Dezincification is a chemical process that occurs when brass is in near-constant contact with water. The water slowly dissolves the zinc over time. The result is a brass that is porous and brittle with very little strength.
Tin is added to the brass alloy used in some Cae faucets to protect the zinc and retard the dezincafication of its brass.
Stainless Steel
Karran's stainless steel faucets are made from 304 stainless, an alloy that includes chromium and nickel. The nickel gives the steel a crystalline structure, which increases its strength. The chromium helps the steel resist rusting.
Why Stainless Steel Does Not Rust: Properly alloyed stainless steel contains at least 10% chromium (which gives stainless its slight yellowish tinge) 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, preventing rust from forming. 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.
Stainless 304, also known as "food-grade" stainless, is by far the most common alloy used to make kitchen utensils, silverware, cookware, sinks and faucets.
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
Brass is the traditional primary faucet material for two reasons:
- Brass is strong but easy to work with. It casts, forges, and machines with relative ease.
- Brass is naturally anti-microbial. The copper in brass kills bacteria, retarding the build-up of potentially hazardous microbes inside a faucet.
Brass has one serious drawback, however. Traditional brass contains metallic lead.
Ordinary (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.
Lead, however, 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 sold in the U.S. or Canada 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 faucet that has been certified lead-free.
Karran claims that its brass faucets are made from lead-free brass. However, most of its brass faucets have not been certified lead-free, so this claim has not been independently confirmed except for the few faucets that have been certified.
Chinese faucet manufacturers tend to use much less expensive leaded brass in faucets made for their home market and are not above exporting leaded brass faucets to North America. Hundreds of these potentially dangerous contraband faucets can be found on Amazon alone.
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 why bismuth-brass alloys are considerably more expensive than leaded brass.
This increased cost has encouraged many faucet manufacturers to use substitute materials where possible.
Zinc & Zinc/Aluminum Alloys
The most common substitute metal 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. However, 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.
Plastics
Plastic is the other commonly used substitute material. It may be safely used in incidental 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 water pressure.
Among those suspect uses is 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
Karran kitchen faucet sprays are also plastic.
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, plastic wands also fail much more often than metal wands. And although engineers have made significant improvements to their reliability over the past decade, the problem has not been entirely solved.
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 water.
Better wands are made of metal, insulated against excessive heat transmission. (See, e.g. faucets for more information.)
The Faucet Cartridge
Its cartridge is the heart of a modern faucet and should be your very first consideration when making a buying decision.
It is the component that controls water flow and temperature.
Its finish may fail and the faucet will still work. It may be discolored, corroded, and ugly but water still flows. If the cartridge fails, however, the faucet is no longer a faucet. It is out of business until the cartridge is replaced.
It's important, therefore, that the cartridge is robust, durable, and lasts for many years.
Components
The critical components used in Karran faucets are ceramic valve cartridges and aerators.
Valve Cartridges
The valve cartridges used in Karran faucets are made by Sedal S.L.U. The company is organized as a Spanish corporation with its headquarters in Barcelona. All of its manufactuing, however, is in China where it owns three factories.
Sedal cartridges are commonly used in Chinese-manufactured faucets destined for North America or the European Union.
While not considered as technically advanced as some of the better European cartridges like those made by Kerox, Kft or Ceramtec, they are fully certified to North American standards, the toughest in the world, and should provide many years of trouble-free service.
The standard North American cartridge life-cycle stress test requires operating the cartridges through 500,000 cycles under 60 pounds per square inch (psi) of water pressure[2] without a single failure. That's not a typo, a full half-million cycles are required.
At one cycle per second, the test takes six days to complete.
A second stress test, informally known as the "burst test," subjects the cartridges to a water pressure surge of 500 psi – 10 times typical household water pressure for one minute. If the cartridge leaks or deforms under this pressure, it fails.
Life-Cycle Stress Testing: For a video showing the operation of the type of machine that puts faucets through life-cycle testing, go here. Warning: it's very noisy.
In other countries, the standards are much less rigorous. The European (EN 817) life-cycle test is just 70,000 cycles and the Chinese requirement (GB18145) is a mere 30,000 cycles.
Sedal cartridges are sold by any number of sellers of after-market cartridges, so a replacement from a company that sells in North America should not be hard to find should the cartridge ever fail.
Aerators
There are dozens of companies in China that manufacture aerators and spray-head assemblies. Most are at least adequate.
Faucet used to be simple devices, generally several layers of aluminum or copper mesh, that merely added a little air to soften the water stream so it would not splash out of the sink.
Today, however, better aerators are precision devices engineered by companies like the Swiss-based Neoperl or Amfag S.r.l., a company manufacturing in Italy, that are also used to limit water volume to the lower flows required by federal and state water conservation laws and to prevent backflow that can result in the contamination of household drinking water.
It is important, therefore, that this little device, often smaller than a dime, be the best available.
Unfortunately, Karran does not identify the source of the aerators used in its faucets. We took several apart to see if the devices had any manufacturer identification, but they did not.
We have asked the company to identify the manufacturer(s) of its aerators.
Design and Styling
Karran maintains that it designs its faucets. However, neither the faucets nor the company displays the earmarks of a true designer faucet company.
Karran owns no design patents, has not entered any faucets in international design competitions, and, as far as we can tell, has no trained designers on staff. Nor does it charge the prices that true designer faucets command.
What it does is more accurately called customization.
Almost any manufacturer offers customization options, and that includes the three manufacturers from which Karran obtains its faucets. Some manufacturers, like , even offer customization to its retail customers.
Faucet components such as spouts and handles are often interchangeable on a basic faucet, so a great many different configurations can be created without altering the mechanics of the faucet.
It is simply a matter of swapping components, sort of like ordering in a Chinese restaurant: take one spout from column A, a handle from column B, then select a spray head from column C, to create a distinctive faucet from a basic design.
Customization allows manufacturers to offer distributors their basic faucets in many different guises so they don't end up competing to sell the exact same faucet.
Customization is cheap. Original design is costly,
The creativity of top product designers is expensive. Designers charge up to $400 an hour for their services and $100,000 for a design is not that unusual.
A new design must also be prototyped and tested to see if it works and will pass testing for certification. Prototyping has gotten a lot faster and much less expensive with the advent of 3D printers, but it is still not cheap.
Manufacturing the faucet requires molds, and mold-making is an exacting process requiring highly skilled machinists. They typically cost between $4,000 and $8,000 for each part cast, and a faucet has an average of seven cast parts.
The cost of customization is, by comparison, very small. Customized faucets are already known to work. They have been prototyped and most have already passed at least one round of testing and certification. Molds for the various components already exist in the nanufacturer's inventory.
Manufacturers may charge a small premium over the price of the basic faucet but that's about the only additional cost to buyers like Karran.
Even with customization, however, Karran's faucets do not depart very far from the mainstream of faucet designs. They are attractive enough but include no styling adventures.
It's not that Chinese manufacturers cannot produce original designs. A few, like CAE (for its Edolo faucet designed by Yoan Huang) have won prestigious design awards in highly competitive international design competitions. But original Chinese designs are still fairly rare.
The goal of Chinese faucet manufacturers is to sell as many faucets as possible, which means keeping their styles well within prevailing designs to appeal to as many potential buyers as possible.
Most Asian designs are copies pf styles originating in Europe or North America.
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.
Karran faucet designs fit this pattern. They are pleasant and often smartly styled, but many of the basic designs are over a decade old and some are well past voting age.
The Finishes
Karran offers eight finishes on its faucets: Chrome, Stainless Steel, Gunmetal Grey, Matte Black, Oil-Rubbed Bronze, Brushed Copper, Brushed Gold and (Polished) Gold.
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 scratch-resistant than electroplated chrome.
-
, electroplating is a process of coating one metal with another using elecrical 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 is 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 essentially a paint 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.
No Karran faucet is available in all eight finishes. Most offer two or three finish choices. Six is the largest number of finishes that we found for a single model.
Stainless steel is not an applied finish. It is the material from which the faucet is made, buffed, polished, and brushed to produce an attractive finish.
Some of Karran's Oil-Rubbed Bronze includes copper highlights. In the not-so-distant past, would have been called vintage bronze
or antique bronze.
Whether ORB includes copper hightlights depends on the manufacturer. Some do and some don't.
Where the website identifies the process used to create its finishes, it uniformly identifies the process as "Duarble PVD." Our inspection and non-destructive testing, however, suggests that Karran's finshing processes vary.
Chrome is likely an electroplate. Matte Black, Gunmetal Grey, and Oil-Rubbed Bronze finishes are probably powder coats. Copper and Gold finishes are likely applied using physical vapor deposition (PVD).
We have asked Karran to double-check our findings.
Electroplating
involves immersing faucet components 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 components.
Usually, multiple coats are applied, one or more undercoats, and then two or more coats of the finish metal.
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 (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, the technology is everywhere, and the machinery required is getting smaller, faster, and cheaper all the time.
To create a PVD coating, a sealed chamber is loaded with unfinished faucet components. All the air is removed and replaced by a carefully calculated mix of nitrogen or argon and reactive gases.
A rod of the metal to be used for the coating 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.
Different finish colors and effects are created by varying the mix of reactive gases in the chamber.
Raw tiitanium in its natural state is a dull silver color. But when combined with nitrogen gas in a PVD chamber, the metal emerges with a convincing gold or brass finish. Adding a little methane to the mix reddens the color, resulting in rose gold. A touch of acetylene darkens the finish to a bronze with an antique effect.
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.
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.
Powder Coating
is usually described as semi-durable
, not as robust as electroplated or PVD finishes, somewhat more durable as the finish on your car, and requiring more care to maintain a like-new appearance.
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 are what give the coating its durability, reducing the risk of scratches, chipping, abrasions, corrosion, fading, and other wear issues.
The Warranty
The first thing we noticed about the Karran warranty is that it applies only to those faucets "manufactured and sold by Karran USA." As Karran does not manufacture its faucets, we wonder if any products exist to which the warranty actually applies.
This is just one of the drafting anomalies in the document, there are many more, and many compliance issues.
The warranty does not conform to the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (15 U.S.C. §2308), the federal law that dictates the minimum content of and sets the rules for consumer product warranties in the United States.
Compliance with Warranty Law
The Karran faucet warranty is a truly excellent example of why consumer product warranties should not only be written by a lawyer but by a lawyer with a very good understanding of the Magnuson-Moss War&sy;ranty Act.
The Karran warranty has multiple compliance issues.
State-Law Implied Warranties
One example is its attempt to deny the buyer the protection of state-law statutory warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose using the following language, (in all caps so it cannot be overlooked):
"THIS LIMITED WARRANTY IS IN LIEU OF ALL OTHER WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND MERCHANTABILITY."
It is not legal under Magnuson-Moss for a company offering a written warranty to exclude coverage by state law warranties., A company's written warranty is intended to supplement state law warranties, not replace them. Any attempt to deny state-law warranty coverage is simply ignored.(15 U.S.C. §2308(a))
But, the second problem with the attempted exclusion can be more serious. The language could be considered deceptive and one of the three cardinal rules of Magnuson-Moss is that it nust not be deceptive. This provision would almost certainly lead a reasonable person to believe that a defective faucet would be excluded from state-law warranty coverage — and that is deception under the law.
All states and provinces in North America have laws requiring that consumer products be fit for their ordinary purposes and conform to an ordinary buyer's expectations.
This is the implied warranty of merchantability. It derives from English Common Law and is the law in both Canada and the U.S. It automatically attaches to every sale of a consumer product by a merchant.
A product is merchantable if it serves its ordinary purpose. A faucet, for example, is merchantable if it may be legally installed in a drinking water system and dispenses controlled amounts of water.
A merchantable product must remain merchantable for a reasonable amount of time. How much time varies with the product. A faucet that leaks after one or two years is probably not merchantable. One that doesn't leak until its 20th anniversary probably is – a faucet is not expected to be leak-free forever.
Magnuson-Moss refines state warranties of merchantability by providing uniform national standards for form and content, but it does not supersede them and does not allow a merchant to waive them.
We don't think for a minute that Karran is being deliberately deceptive. No doubt whoever wrote the warranty saw the langauage in some other warranty and copied it, unaware that it is not allowed. (Many faucet warranties include similar language. We are not sure where it first appeared, but it has been widely copied.)
But, under Magnuson-Moss, deliberate deception is not required to incur liability. It is sufficient that the company has not taken reasonable care "to make the warranty not misleading." (15 U.S. Code § 2310(c)(2)) The very presence of the provision in the Karran warranty, however, evidences lack of reasonable care.
In any lawsuit, Karran's liability could well include punitive or exemplary damages that would far exceed any actual damages.
Sole and Absolute Discretion
Another legal misstep occurs in this language:
"The Company shall elect the remedy in its sole and absolute discretion."
Under Magnuson-Moss, a company never has "sole and absolute discretion."
The Act provides in very clear language that a company that offers a warranty (the "warrantor")
"…shall not indicate in any written warranty … either directly or indirectly that the decision of the warrantor is final or binding in any dispute concerning the warranty … Nor shall a warrantor state that it alone shall determine what is a defect under the agreement." (16 CFR § 700.8)
Such statements are also considered deceptive &hellip
"… since section 110(d) of the Act, 15 U.S.C. 2310(d), gives state and federal courts jurisdiction over suits for breach of warranty and service contract." (16 CFR § 700.8)
Improper Captioning
By far, however, the overarching legal mistake in the drafting of the warranty is its defective designation of the document's caption.
To be a limited warranty, the document must be clearly designated
a limited warranty with the magic word "limited" in its "caption, or prominent title.:
The caption language can take on many acceptable forms: "Limited War&sy;ranty,", "Limited Lifetime War&sy;ranty," "Karran Limited War&sy;ranty," and so on. (16 CFR § 7000.6(a))
So long as the word "limited" is included, the caption gives "fair warning" to a potential buyer, right at the very top of the document, that coverage provided by the warranty is less than full coverage.
Unfortunately, the Karran warranty is captioned just
Warranty
Kitchen & Bathroom Faucets.
The magic word "limited" is nowhere to be found.
Although it is clear from the text of the warranty that Karran intends to offer a limited warranty, the missing "limited" in its caption automatically converts the warranty to a Full War&sy;ranty, disregarding Karran's intentions. (15 U.S.C. §2303(a), 16 CFR §700.6(a))
This one simple drafting omission changes the entire nature of the Karran warranty.
A full warranty gives a buyer many more rights, voiding almost all of the restrictions and limitations written into the Karran warranty.
Here are a few examples:
- Notification of a Defect: A full warranty "may not impose on consumers any duty other than notification of a defect as a condition of securing remedy of the defect or malfunction" (16 CFR §700.6. Consequently, Karran's requirement that the notification of a faucet defect be made by the buyer "in writing" is not an enforceable provision.
- A customer is free to notify Karran of a defect in any reasonable manner, including by telephone. After receiving notification, Karran is required to accept and act on the notification. (15 U.S.C. §2304(b)(1))
- Nor may the warranty require the purchaser to
-
"… submit … proof of purchase and proof of the date of purchase of the product claimed to be defective. … The burden is on the warrantor to prove that a particular claimant … is not the original purchaser or owner of the product." (16 CFR 700.6(b))"
- The Karran warranty's requiement that a warranty claimant produce a bill of sale, thereform, is void and of no consequence.
- Limitation of Remedies Under the War&sy;ranty: The sole remedy for a defective faucet in the Karran warranty is one we have never before seen. Karran will not provide needed repair parts for free. It will allow the customer to buy replacement parts from Karran "at its cost" Not exactly a generous remedy. In fact, in the nearly twenty years we have been reviewing faucet companies, we have never encountered a more penny-pinching remedy provision.
- A full warranty, however, does not allow the company to limit what it will do to fix a defective faucet. It deems the manufacturer to have committed to doing whatever it takes, and fix it for free. This requirement includes any necessary and reasonable labor charges.
- A faucet is in the class of products that "has utility only when installed," meaning that the company is responsible for the labor costs associated with uninstalling and reinstalling the faucet as well as the cost of its repair. (16 CFR § 700.9)
- If Karran cannot repair the faucet after several attempts within a reasonable timeframe, the customer has the choice of receiving a complete refund or a replacement faucet. (15 U.S.C. §2304(a)(4))
- The company must also pay all the costs of proving a warranty claim. If that faucet has to be returned to Karran for inspection, any packaging or shipping charges are Karran's responsibility. Likewise, any costs of investigating or assessing the defect are charged to Karran. (15 U.S.C. §2304(a)(1))
- Exclusion of Subsequent Owners from War&sy;ranty Coverage: The Karran warranty tries to limit warranty coverage to the original buyer and prevent the transfer of the warranty to any subsequent owner of the faucet with this provision:
- "No person or entity, other than the Original Purchaser, shall have any right to assert any claim under this Limited War&sy;ranty, or otherwise, in connection with the Products. This Limited War&sy;ranty is personal to the Original Purchaser and may not be transferred by the Original Purchaser to any other person or entity, by contract, operation of law, transfer of the property into which the Products are installed, or otherwise."
- In a full warranty, however, a subsequent owner is given all of the protections of the warranty during the term of the warranty. The company cannot legally prevent the transfer of the warranty to subsequent owners. (15 U.S.C. §2304(b)(4))
The company can avoid many of these requirements by merely captioning its warranty correctly.
How to Interpret a Faucet Warranty
Generally, the length of a faucet company's warranty is a very good indicator of how long a company's management thinks its products will last without breaking.
A company's marketing materials may gush about its use of "the highest quality, long-lasting components" and claim that its faucets "will provide years of trouble-free use," but its real opinion about the quality of its faucets is usually contained in its warranty and is usually much less optimistic.
Karran is no exception. Its faucet warranty suggests that the company does not actually believe that its faucets "will provide years of trouble-free use." It believes that the components of its faucets most likely to cause problems will last as little as one year.
"The mechanical components such as but not limited to sprayer head assembly (includes engine, aerators, structure, restrictors, back flow preventers, sprayer hoses, braided supply line hoses which encompasses nylon, silicone and stainless steel, etc.) of the product are warranted to be free from defects in material and workmanship under normal usage for a period of one (1) year. The mechanical component (cartridge) of the product is warranted to be free from defects in material and workmanship under normal usage for a period of five (5) years."
Why that should be is not at all clear. Our examination of the faucets and their components found that the manufacturing was very good. Critical components like the cartridges are of good quality, and hoses and aerators at least adequate.
The standard North American faucet warranty pioneered by nearly 60 years ago is for the lifetime of the buyer in which the company agrees to replace defective parts without charge to the customer.
A one-year warranty is just a half-step up from having no warranty at all, a five-year warranty is not much better, and an offer to fix the defect by selling replacement parts at cost is parsimony taken to an extreme.
As a potential buyer, you should be aware of the implications of the very short-term Karran warranty on the critical parts of its faucets.
We would like to think that the Karran's tepid warranty is prompted by an overabundance of caution due to management's relative inexperience with a new and unfamiliar product.
On the other hand, however, Karran's management may know things about its faucets that we don't know and cannot find out short of destructive testing. So, management's opinion about the longevity of its faucets expressed through its faucet warranty may be something to pay attention to.
Warranty as Marketing Tool
Or, maybe Karran just needs to change its approach to its warranty.
There are two basic philosophies of warranties in the faucet business. The first tries to reduce the cost of warranty service to its irreducible minimum and insulate the company as much as possible from liability for a failed product.
This is the bean-counter approach, the tack favored by accountants and chief financial officers, and it unquestionably describes Karran's warranty.
The other, and better, approach is to use the power of a good warranty to drive sales – figuring (correctly) that any additional cost of providing a first-class warranty will be more than offset by the increased sales revenue that a first-class warranty generates.
This is the Moen marketing approach.
Moen, one of the first major faucet companies in the U.S. to offer a lifetime warranty on its products, figured out early that a good warranty and strong back-end support would substantially increase sales on the front end.
It worked.
Its warranty helped boost Moen from a little-known bit player in the 1950s to the second-largest faucet company in the U.S., behind Delta Faucets, by the 1970s. (The companies are now tied for the top slot, each having roughly an equal share of the U.S. faucet market. Which one is number one on any given day is a coin toss.)
The loyalty of Moen customers is legendary. It is nearly impossible to talk a Moen customer out of a Moen faucet, shower, or tub filler – not that we try.
The Moen approach has three components:
- Good quality products,
- Lifetime warranty on every part and component (except electronic parts, if any), and
- First-class warranty service.
Karran has all but a strong, lifetime warranty. It should fix that.
The company needs to take a leaf from Moen's playbook and start looking at its warranty as an opportunity to build sales and forge customer loyalty rather than strictly as a nuisance liability to be minimized as much as possible.
More on Faucet Warranties
Download, read, and print the Karran Faucet Warranty.
For more information on how to interpret faucet warranties, see Faucet Basics, Part 6: Faucet Warranties.
To learn how to enforce a product warranty, read The Warranty Game: Enforcing Your Product Warranty.
Read our Model Limited Lifetime Warranty
Customer Service
Karran's customer service is very good.
We did not use our usual battery of structured test questions to assess the service. With smaller companies like Karran, agents quickly realize they are being tested and change behavior. We did, however, contact customer service with a list of carefully chosen questions about Karran faucets over a 90-day period.
(Actually, one particularly sharp agent did catch on to us before the testing was fully completed. We were able to only finish part of our testing, but we got enough to be certain of our conclusions.)
The overall service response was helpful, courteous, and patient. Our volunteer testers are the masters of the truly stupid question, but nothing seems to ruffle Karran's agents, not even being calculatedly rude.
Product knowledge was good, but not excellent, and could use improvement.
We rate customer service "superior."
The Better Business Bureau agrees with our assessment. The company's BBB rating is A+ based on zero complaints to the Bureau over the past three years. Karran is a BBB-accredited business, meaning that it has pledged to follow the high ethical business standards required of all accredited businesses.
The Website
The Karran website is well-constructed with intuitive menu-based navigation. It is an adaptive site, meaning that it displays properly on all devices from a smartphone to a desktop monitor.
The site search feature is useful for finding faucets by model name or number, but otherwise, its results are hit-and-miss.
A search on "ADA" to find all faucets usable by persons with physical disabilities returned no results. The same is true of a search on "WaterSense." We know that some faucets are identified as ADA- and WaterSense-compliant, but none showed up in the searches.
We got a better result searching for faucet finishes. A search on "Gold" returned five pages of products with a gold finish – everything from sinks and faucets to lotion dispensers. We got the same results from a search on "Gunmetal."
A search by finish is very helpful when coordinating products for a bathroom or kitchen remodel.
| Specification, Property, or Document | Score | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| ADA Compliance (Yes/No) | 5 | |
| Aerator Manufacturer | 0 | |
| Certifications | 3 | Often misstated |
| Country of Origin | 0 | |
| Dimensions | 5 | |
| Dimensioned Drawing | 3 | For some faucets, not all. |
| Drain Included (Yes/No) | 5 | Lavatory Faucets Only. |
| Faucet Images: Multiple images, 360° rotating image, or video | 5 | |
| Flow Rate(s), Maximum | 0 | |
| Installation Instructions | 5 | |
| Material, Primary (Brass, Stainless, etc.) | 5 | |
| Materials, Secondary (Zinc, Plastic, etc.) | 0 | |
| Mounting Holes, Number of | 5 | |
| Parts Diagram | 0 | |
| Spray Head Material | 0 | Pulldown or pullout sprays only. |
| Spray Hose Manufacturer | 0 | |
| Spray Hose Type | 0 | |
| Supply Connection Size/Type | 0 | |
| Supply Hose Included (Yes/No) | 5 | |
| Supply Hose Manufacturer | 0 | |
| Supply Hose Type | 0 | |
| Valve/Cartridge Type | 5 | |
| Valve/Cartridge Manufacturer | 0 | |
| Finish(es) | 5 | |
| Finish Type | 5 | |
| Finish Images | 5 | |
| Warranty Online | 5 | |
| Warranty Link in Listings[1] | 0 | |
| WaterSense® Listed (Yes/No) | 5 | Lavatory Faucets only. |
|
90+ A Excellent, 80+ B Good, 70+ C Average, 60+ D Poor, 59- F Fail
| ||
|
[1] A link from a faucet listing to the full text of the applicable warranty is required by pre-sale availability of the Magnuson-Moss War&sy;ranty Act.
| ||
| Download/Read/Print the minimum content required in an online faucet listing to permit an informed buying decision. | ||
Faucets are easy to find. Click on Kitchen or Bathroom at the main menu, then on the link to faucets in the drop-down menu.
Faucet listing pages are colorful and graphic. They definitely command the viewer's attention. But they were evidently designed by someone with twenty-year-old eyes.
Most faucet buyers are in their 30s and 40s, and for 30-something eyes, the light gray text on a white background used in parts of the listing is hard to read.
A lot of the information provided is redundant.
For example, near the top of the listing, there is a brief table of specifications and features. A few page scrolls down, the same information is re-displayed in tabular form, and a few more page scrolls lead to yet a third repetition in white text on a black background – with a few more specifications added.
Why not just put everything in the first display and eliminate the redundancy?
Our experience over the years, along with our market research, has shown that the most effective listings consist of a single page that contains summaries of the features and specifications along with an image and links to more detailed information, eliminating the need for multiple page scrolls.
The listings include some features we like a lot. The best is the dynamic faucet image. When a user selects a finish from the finish table, the image morphs to show the faucet in the new finish – excellent for product visualization.
However, the actual hard information provided about a faucet is woefully incomplete.
We identify 30 or so faucet specifications that are important to a fully-informed buying decision. Everything from how the faucet is presented in images to the number of mounting holes needed. The number varies slightly from company to company and from faucet to faucet.
Not every faucet listing requires every specification. For example, WaterSense® listings apply only to lavatory faucets. So, a kitchen faucet listing does not need WaterSense® information. Similarly, the material used in a spray head and spray hose information generally applies only to pulldown or pullout sprays usually found only on kitchen faucets.
Some specifications, however, apply to all faucets. Secondary materials, country of origin, and finish type are examples.
Some information is required by law. A link to the full text of the warranty that applies to a faucet is required by the pre-sale availability rule of the Magnuson-Moss War&sy;ranty Act. (16 CFR &§; 702)
Karran's site provides some basic information, faucet dimensions, available finishes, primary material (brass or stainless), and certifications (slthough often mistated), for example, but a lot of basic specifications are missing.
"Solid brass" faucets are never solid brass. They also include zinc alloys and plastics, something that should be noted as secondary materials. Karran's faucet hoses are warranted for just one year, so we would dearly like to know what they are made of and who makes them.
Overall, the information provided is not sufficient for an informed buying decision. Almost half of the needed specifications are missing. The website scored 54 out of a possible 100 and was rated F (Fail) for the lack of basic specifications.
Karran already has all of the necessary information. It just needs to be willing to share.
Testing & Certifications
Two Karran faucets are not certified at all. We found no listings for the faucets showing compliance with any of the required North American faucet standards.
The rest are only partly certified.
Some have been certified to one of the standards, some to two, but none to all three. It takes all three to fully certify a faucet.[3]
A faucet that is not fully certified is not legal for installation in a drinking water system in the U.S. or Canada. Additionally, a faucet that is not certified lead-free may not be lawfully sold in the U.S.
Nor are Karran's faucets registered with the Department of Energy as required by the Energy Policy & Conservation Act and none have been approved by the California Energy Commission for sale in California.
The final result is that no Karran faucet is legal to sell in the U.S., and no Karran faucet may be legally installed in a drinking water system in either the U.S. or Canada.
Comparable Faucets
Faucets made in Asia comparable to Karran in quality with a better warranty, but not necessarily comparable for design or price, include
Conclusions
Karran has the potential to become a first-rate faucet seller.
Its dedication to the quality of its sinks has obviously spilled over to its selection of high-quality faucets. Exceptional customer service backs its products. But, management has been so narrowly focused on marketing that other, very important, aspects of faucet selling have been largely ignored.
The company needs to concentrate for the next little while on getting legal: ensuring that its faucets meet all the various codes, statutes, and regulations that govern the sale and installation of drinking water faucets in North America. It also needs a vastly improved warranty, this time written by someone who knows how to write a consumer product warranty.
The company is risking some very large penalties for failing to abide by laws and regulations.
The Department of Energy can fine the company $14,960 per day for failing to register its 34 basic faucets. The Department can look back over the years it has been illegally selling faucets to levy penalties in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Hefty DOE penalties have been a major part of putting some faucet companies out of business, including
We don't know how many faucets Karran is selling in California, but the fine is $2,500 per sale, and the California Energy Commission is very aggressive at tracking down and punishing violators. It's not at all bashful about assessing fines exceeding $100,000 or even more.
Its warranty is another potential money pit. Kaarran's narrow focus on minimizing its warranty liability has actually increased its risk.
In any lawsuit over the warranty, Karram will lose and end up paying not just a judgment that may well include punitive or exemplary damages,[4] but also all of the consumer's attorney fees — a little gift from Magnuson-Moss for companies that do not obey its rules. (15 USC §2310(d)(2))
We think a lot of these problems are due to its relative inexperience in the faucet-selling business and the inherent timidity of a company selling a new and untried product. But, whatever the reason, it needs to fix its violations, and very quickly. After three years in the faucet business, it has almost certainly gotten the notice of government regulators, and it's just a matter of time before they work through their current backlogs and begin looking at Karran.
Until all of these matters are taken care of, we cannot recommend the purchase of a Karran faucet, if only because there is not a single Karran faucet legal for installation as a faucet in North America.
We are continuing to research the company. If you have experience with Karran faucets, good, bad, or indifferent, we would like to hear about it, so please contact us or post a comment below.
-
The newer faucet construction method, and almost certainly the wave of the future, is called "core and shell". The water channel is provided by the core components, typically consisting of copper or composite tubes that are guaranteed to be lead-free. This core is then concealed inside the decorative outer shell that provides the faucet's shape and style. Because it never touches water, the shell can be made of leaded brass, and because it is not subject to water pressure, it does not need to be structural and can be made of much thinner material.
The technology is actually not all that new. Wall-mounted faucets have always been core and shell. The core (usually called the "valve") is mounted in the wall and the shell (called the "trim") conceals the core. What's new is that the technique is now being applied to faucets other than wall-mounts, and the core, rather than being brass is some other lead-free metal, usually copper or a zinc alloy, and some companies are experimenting with composite cores, eliminating metal entirely.
faucets are already all core and shell construction with a zinc alloy shell.
- Normal household water pressure in North America is between 40 and 60 psi, so this test is conducted on the high side of household pressure.
-
Karran Certification Table: Faucet certifications as of December 12, 2023.
Base Model
Model Name
Type
Certified by
ASME
A112
NSF
372
NSF
61
Notes
KBF410
Woodburn
Lav 1 hole
IAPMO/Aidier
X
KBF412
Woodburn
Vessel 1 hole
IAPMO/Aidier
X
KBF414
Woodburn
Widespread
IAPMO/Aidier
X
KBF416
Woodburn
Centerset
IAPMO/Aidier
X
KBF420
Kayes
Lav 1 hole
IAPMO/Aidier
X
KBF422
Kayes
Vessel 1 hole
IAPMO/Aidier
X
KBF430
Dartford
Lav 1 hole
IAPMO/Aidier
X
KBF432
Dartford
Vessel 1 hole
IAPMO/Aidier
X
KBF440
Kassel
Lav 1 hole
IAPMO/Aidier
X
KBF442
Kassel
Vessel 1 hole
IAPMO/Aidier
X
KBF450
Fulham
Widespread
IAPMO/Aidier
X
KBF460
Tryst
Lav 1 hole
IAPMO/Aidier
X
KBF462
Tryst
Vessel 1 hole
IAPMO/Aidier
X
KBF464
Tryst
Widespread
IAPMO/Aidier
X
KBF466
Tryst
Widespread
IAPMO/Aidier
X
KBF470
Vineyuard
Lav 1 hole
IAPMO/Aidier
X
KBF472
Vineyuard
Vessel 1 hole
Not Found
KBF474
Vineyuard
Widespread
Not Found
KBF510
Venda
Lav 1 hole
IAPMO/Huayi
X
X
KBF512
Venda
Vessel 1 hole
IAPMO/Huayi
x
X
KBF514
Venda
Widespread
IAPMO/Huayi
X
X
KBF516
Venda
Centerset
IAPMO/Huayi
X
X
KBF520
Randburg
Lav 1 hole
IAPMO/Huayi
x
X
KBF524
Randburg
Widespread
IAPMO/Huayi
X
X
KBF526
Randburg
Centerset
IAPMO/Huayi
x
X
KKF140
Standerton
Kitch. Pulldown
IAPMO/Huayi
X
KKF210
Scottsdale
Kitch. Spring
IAPMO/CAE
X
KKF220
Buffton
Kitch. Spring
IAPMO/CAE
X
KKF230
Tumba
Kitch. Spring
IAPMO/CAE
X
KKF240
Weybridge
Kitch. Pulldown
IAPMO/CAE
X
KKF250
Dockton
Kitch. Pulldown
IAPMO/CAE
X
KKF260
Hillwood
Kitch. Pulldown
IAPMO/CAE
X
KKF310
Auburn
Kitch. Pulldown
IAPMO/Huayi
X
X
KKF320
Kentland
Kitch. Pulldown
IAPMO/Huayi
x
X
KKF330
Elwood
Kitch. Pulldown
IAPMO/Huayi
X
X
KKF340
Kadoma
Kitch. Pulldown
IAPMO/Huayi
x
X
KKF350
Lagrange
Kitch. Pulldown
IAPMO/Huayi
X
X
- A consumer product warranty may not be deceptive. A deceptive warranty is not just one that is deliberatively deceptive, but one in which the company has not taken reasonable care to ensure that the warranty is not unintentionally deceptive. (15 U.S. Code § 2310(c)(2)) A deceptive warranty may expose the company to punitive or exemplary damages in jurisdictions in which such damages are allowed (all states and territories except Michigan, Nebraska, Washington, and Puerto Rico.)