Peerless Faucets Review & Rating Updated: 01/19/23

Imported

China

Taiwan

Thailand

Delta Faucet Company
a division of
Masco Corporation
55 E. 111th Street
P.O. Box 40980
Indianapolis, IN 46280
(800) 345-DELTA (3358)

Rating

Business Type

Product Range

Kitchen, Bath, Prep and Bar Faucets

Certifications

Brands
Peerless

Street Price

$25 - $250

Warranty Score

Cartridge

lifetime¹

Finishes

Lifetime

Mechanical Parts

Lifetime

Proof of Purchase

Required

Transferable

No

Meets U.S. Warranty
Law Requirements

Yes

Warranty Footnotes

1. "All parts and finishes of this Peerless faucet are warranted to the original consumer purchaser to be free from defects in material and workmanship for as long as the original consumer purchaser owns the home in which the faucet was first installed."

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Read the Peerless faucet warranty.

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Learn more about faucet warranties.

This Company In Brief

Peerless is Delta Faucet's line of "value-priced" faucets.

It is the shallow end of a deep pool of good quality faucets that includes

Despite its lowly status, however, Peerless faucets are well-made and still carry the same lifetime warranty as high-end Brizo and mid-range Delta faucets.

We believe that for the price, the faucets are an excellent value. What you don't get is high-stye or a wide range of finishes – although the six standard finishes are enough for most folks.

We would have no hesitation installing a Peerless faucet in a heavily trafficked bathroom or busy kitchen. The quality is the equal of faucets costing two and even three times the price of a typical Peerless faucet.

Delta Faucet is owned by the giant Masco Corporation — one of the world's largest faucet manufacturers, owner of the Bristan Group, Ltd. in the U.k.

Delta faucet is one two fau­cet companies that own nearly 60% of the residential fau­cet market in the U.S. and Can­ada (the other is ), but fau­cets are just a small part of Mas­co's overall business.

The company is also a major presence in cabinet manufacturing, paints and coatings, bathtubs and showers, plumbing fittings, replacement windows, lighting, and staplers.

The Company

Peerless was originally its own fau­cet company, manufacturing good quality faucets in the U.S. as Peerless In­dust­ries, Inc.

It was acquired by Masco in 1961 and positioned as Del­ta's line of val­ue-priced fau­cets.

The brand is focused primarily on two buyer populations: the do-it-yourselfer and the multi-unit housing market.

Peerless faucets are designed to be easy to install, featuring detailed step-by-step illustrated instructions.

The company website is filled with tips for the handy homeowner, offering a "live chat" fau­cet coach to help with selection, installation, and repair issues.

(But, the Peer­less warranty page, oddly enough, recommends "using a professional plumber for all installation and repair.")

For the owners, managers, and custodians of multi-unit housing, the line offers a low initial cost, exceptional quality for the price, a strong warranty against mechanical and finish defects, and some of the most responsive post-sale support in the industry.

Peerless Construction & Materials

Brass is the traditional material for fau­cets but it has one serious drawback. Ordinary brass contains lead. Small amounts (1.5-3.5%) of lead are added to its alloy to make it more malleable, less brittle, and easier to forge and machine.

Brass containing lead, however, is a problem in drinking water fau­cets. Water passing through brass channels can pick up small amounts of lead and lead, even in small amounts, is a known health hazard, especially to children.

According to the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), lead causes brain damage, slowed development, and speech and hearing problems.

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

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

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

Its use in no-lead brass has been a major contributor to the dramatic rise in the price of sink fau­cets over the past 20 years.

Zinc

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

The typical solution is to use some other metal in place of brass. The most commonly used metal is an alloy of zinc called .

ZAMAK is an alloy of zinc and aluminum. It is not as strong as brass and does not resist water pressure as well as brass. So most companies limit its use to the parts of a fau­cet not under water pressure such as handles, base and wall plates, and , while lead-free brass is used in for bodies and spouts – the parts that need to handle water pressure.

Peerless goes a step beyond most faucet companies in using no brass at all. Its faucets are all ZAMAK. It no longer sells any faucet made from brass, and hasn't for many years.

Ordinarily, the use of ZAMAK in parts under water pressure would be problematic. But, Delta Faucet has a long history of successfully using ZAMAK as a primary faucet material.

This history along with the company's lifetime warranty against manufacturing defects suggests that Peerless has mastered ZAMAK in faucets.

Plastic

Peerless formerly sold some faucets that were all plastic.

Plastic did not work out as well for the company which has now discontinued its plastic faucets. Some remain in retailer inventories, however. Look for a description of the fau­cets as "non-metallic."

We generally advise that our clients stay away from plastic faucets. They are suitable for specialized uses such as in laboratories where metal faucets might be adversely affected by strong chemicals and in recreational vehicles where use is occasional and water pressure low, but for ordinary residential use, they are not a good choice.

Plastic in kitchen Peerless faucet spray heads, however, will be unavoidable. All pullout, pulldown, and side sprays sold by Peer­less are plastic.

Plastic spray heads (called "wands" in the fau­cet industry) are not limited to economy faucets.

They have become the standard for many manufacturers, including some that sell upscale fau­cets such as Mas­co's Bri­zo line of premium fau­cets, to name just three of many.

Manufacturers give two 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

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 problems with the material have not been entirely resolved.

Peerless Valves and Cartridges

Most Peerless faucets include ceramic cartridges, but those at the low end of the pricelist may be equipped with washerless valves.

For two-handle fau­cets these valves are called stems or stem valves. For single-handle faucets, the valve is a mixer or mixing valve.

The Delta Ball Washerless Valve

The mixing valve in single-handle Peerless faucets is the venerable Delta ball valve.

The ball valve was one of the revolutionary faucet valves of the 1950s that made single-handle faucets possible. The other was the cylinder cartridge.^[1]

It was the brainchild of Landis Harlan Perry, a self-described professional inventor who received a patent on the invention in 1952 before licensing the product to Masco.

The Delta ball valve was one of the most successful valves in all of faucet history, controlling the flow of water in Del­ta and Peer­less fau­cets for most of 50 years.

The valve is still widely used "value-priced" faucets from Del­ and Peer­less as well as in many faucets sold in North Amer­i­ca by other companies such as

The valve was directly responsible for the very existence of the Delta Faucet Company which was founded in 1954 for the sole purpose of manufacturing faucets designed around the revolutionary Landis valve.

Four years later its annnual sales of the faucets had already passed the $1 million mark.

Washerless valves are reliable but depend on rubber rings and seals to control water. Rubber, even the modern nitrile and silicone used in today's faucets, wears out over time and needs to be replaced.

The seals routinely last 3-7 years before minor maintenance is required, then they last another 3-7 years. The speed with which they wear out is determined primarily by frequency of use and water hardness. Hard water containing lots of dissolved minerals erodes rubber seals faster than soft water.

Replacing a washerless cartridge is an easy DIY project, well within the abilities of a homeowner with even modest skills and a box of basic tools.

Seal replacement kits are available from Peerless and at most hardware stores. There are many helpful how-to videos on youTube.com detailing the repair and replacement of valves and cartridges. (See e.g. Valve Repair.) Rarely do we replace an entire washerless valve, just the springs and rubber seals.

Ceramic Valves

The ceramic cartridge is the more modern valve invented by in the 1970s. Instead of rubber, the valve uses nearly indestructible ceramic discs to control water.

The ceramic cartridges in Peer­less faucets are not Mas­co's Dia­mond Seal Tech­nol­ogy® (DST) cartridges – the super ceramic cartridges invented by Del­ta that include diamond dust embedded in one disc to constantly grid away any accumulated minerals and keep the two discs absolutely smooth.

These innovative cartridges are reserved for the company's more upscale Del­ta and Bri­zo faucets. But, the non-DST cartridges used in Peer­less fau­cets are nonetheless reliable.

Valve Repair Tricks

Clean out the valve seat with a wire pipe brush (available at most hardware stores) to remove lime scale build-up.

If the valve itself is enrused with lime scale, soak it for at least an hour in household vinegar, then brush off the deposits. You may have to do this more than once.

Coat the new seals and the valve with plumb­er's grease (also available at most hardware stores).

These simple steps can add years to the lifee of the valve.

Valves that have been installed for many years may be gummed up with lime scale and hard to remove without a special tool from Peerless for just that purpose. Otherwise, a pair of needle-nose pliers usually does the trick.

Theoretically, the cartridges should never wear out, but they do. How quickly again depends on frequency of use and the mineral content of the water passing through them.^[2]

A typical lifespan is 10 to 15 years. Once they fail, they usually cannot be repaired but must be replaced. Replacements are widely available and easy to install by anyone who can handle basic tools without doing bodily harm.

Delta does not disclose the manufacturer of these cartridges, but we believe one of its suppliers is Kuching International Ltd., a ceramics manufacturer in Taiwan since 1988 that makes the widely used KCG cartridge.

Peerless Faucet Design

Company literature describes Peerless faucet designs as "tested".

We tend to think of them as just old. Some of the styles have been around almost long enough to draw Social Security and would be right at home in a 1980s kitchen.

Peerless styling is getting better, however.

As Delta Faucet improves the overall design of its faucet lines, modern designs are beginning to trickle down. Peerless faucets introduced in the past decade are much more style-conscious than their predecessors. They are not going to win any design awards, but they are attractive enough for even the fussiest of the design cognescenti.

Even old-style Peerless faucets have a place, however. Where style does not matter but cost and reliability do, the fau­cets are often an excellent choice. A reliable Peerless faucet can be found for less than $40.00 USD ($50.00 CAD).

And, if you are renovating a mid-century modern or post-war retro kitchen or bath, one of the Peerless basic faucets may be a perfect choice to fit the style of that era.

Where are Peerless Faucets Made?

Peerless faucets are manufactured in Delta's overseas factory in Panyu, China owned by Del­ta's Chin­ese subsidiary, Del­ta Fau­cet (China) Co. Ltd.

The factory was built expressly to manufacture Peer­less faucets, but production has outgrown the facility. Many Peer­less faucets are also made by other Asian manufacturers under contract with Delta

Known outside suppliers over the past 60 months include:

• Its reputation for manufacturing quality faucets is unsurpassed.

• Peer­less faucets for Mas­co.

• NCIP, Inc is a Taiwanese company manufacturing in China. In addition to Peerless, it also makes faucets for

• Sheng Tai Brassware Co., Ltd. Sheng Tai is one of the oldest Taiwanese faucet companies, founded in 1976. It manufactures in Taiwan and Thailand and sells throughout the world under its trade name Justime. It also manufactures high-end faucets for

• Sheng Tai has won a number of international design awards since 2010 including the Red Dot prize, the German iF award, and the Good Design prize awarded by the Chicago Athenaeum, the oldest and most prestigious of the juried design awards.

• PPI Industry Co., Ltd. also trading as Xiamen Zhongyu Hardware Industry Co., Ltd., is a Chinese manufacturer that sells under its own PPI^® brand in Asia. It also manufactures some of the faucets sold by Tubular Industries of Canada, Ltd. in the U.S. and Canada, most of the faucets sold by Spectrum Brands, and some of the faucets sold in Canada by

Peerless Faucet Finishes

Peerless faucets were at one time available only in polished chrome.

The finish palette has been greatly expanded. It now includes stainless steel, brushed nickel, matte black, oil-rubbed bronze, and polished brass as well as chrome.

Stainless steel is available only on kitchen faucets and brushed nickel and polished brass on bathroom faucets.

Chrome is an finish. Most of the other finishes are Delta's Brilliance® (PVD) finishes.

PVD finishes are estimated to be 10-20% harder and more scratch-resistant than plated chrome. In our experience, they are nearly indestructible.

Oil-rubbed bronze is a , essentially a powdered paint that is baked in an oven to melt and set the powder.

Powder coatings are considered only "semi-durable" – a little more durable than the finish on your car – and require more care than either electroplated or PVD finish to maintain their appearance over time.

The Peerless Website

the Peerless website is well-designed and its menu-based navigation is intuitive.

East fau­cet listing shows several images of the faucet including photos of the installed faucet, making it easier to visualize the faucet in place. Selecting a finish shows the faucet in the chosen finish in a new set of images.

However, while information about Peerless faucets is extensive, it is not sufficient for an informed buying decision.

Basic specifications and features are detailed on the listing page and additional information including specifications, installation instructions, and a parts diagram are available as .pdf downloads. ADA-qualified (ACA in Canada) and Watersense® listed faucets are clearly identified.

Specifications do not include much more information about the faucet than that provided on the listing page but do show a dimension drawing that is needed to determine whether the faucet will fit your sink.

The parts diagram identified the valve or cartridge used in the faucet. Nice to know if a cartridge ever needs replacing.

Certain critical information is missing from the website, however.

• Materials Neither the primary nor secondary materials from which the faucet is made are identified.

• Aerator manufacturers are not identified.

• Fau­cet aerators were once just simple devices, often no more that a few layers of window screen, that merely infused 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 limit water volume to the lower flows required by federal and state water conservation laws, and in fau­cets with pull-out sprays, to prevent back-flow that could contaminate household drinking water.

• It is important that these little devices, about the size of a U.S. or Canadian penny, be the best available.

• We suspect that Peer­less uses good quality aerators, but without knowing who makes them, it is impossible to be certain.

• Valves and Cartridges. valves used in Peer­less faucets are identified only as "ceramic cartridge" or "washerless" with no clue to the manufacturer and no explanation of the difference between the two types of valves.

• The term "washerless" is an industry term not understood by most consumers. It is only fair to let a potential buyer know that buying a faucet with a washerless valve entails periodic valve maintenance.

• The identification of a valve as a "ceramic cartridges" is almost as badly lacking in hard information. There are good and not-so-good cartridges being made and the only way to tell one from the other is to know the name of the company that makes the cartridge.

• The Country of Origin is not identified. This information is important to consumers who prefer to buy Amer­ican.

• Warranty Links. According to the Federal Trade Commission rules, a product warranty must be available to a potential buyer at the time the product is sold.

• Its most recent rules allow the warranty to be on the seller's website. The seller may display either the entire warranty or a "conspicuous" link to the warranty at each fau­cet listing.

• Brizo displays a link on each listing page, but far, far down at the bottom of the page in the footer. We don't think its position is very "conspicuous" or meets the conspicuity requirement of the FTC rule.

We score the website an A- for presentation and navigation, but no better than a C for the basic information provided about Peerless fau­cets.

Download/Read/Print the minimum content required in an online faucet listing to permit an informed buying decision.

The Peerless Faucet Warranty

Read the Peerless faucet warranty.

Delta seems to be very certain of the quality of its Peerless faucets. Despite the economizing in their manufacture, Delta still guarantees Peerless faucets for life, including a lifetime guarantee on every Peerless cartridge.^[3]

The warranty provides that:

"All parts and finishes of this Peerless^® faucet are warranted to the original consumer purchaser to be free from defects in material and workmanship for as long as the original consumer purchaser owns the home in which the faucet was first installed."

There is a flaw in this definition that could result in consequences not anticipated by Peer­less.^[4]

Despite this minor flaw, our panel of lawyers judged it to be equivalent to the standard North American "lifetime" warranty on faucets.

The warranty generally complies with the Mag­nu­son-Moss War­ranty Act (15 U.S.C. §2308) (the U.S. federal law that dictates the minimum content of and sets the rules for consumer product warranties in the United States, but not in Canada) except in one particular.

The company claims (in bold print so you can't miss it) that its warranty is the "exclusive remedy" for faucet defects.

The Fed­er­al Trade Com­mis­si­on, the agency that oversees consumer warranties in the U.S., has repeatedly warned that claims that a written warranty is the sole or exclusive remedy for a defective consumer product are deceptive but has so far not taken any action against violators.

Peerless Customer Service

In spite of the large number of Peerless faucet manufacturers, getting replacement parts and warranty service is no issue. Delta keeps a supply on hand in a central location so they are readily available.

The brand is backed by one of the best customer service teams in the industry, second only (by only a whisker) to the phenomenal customer service organization.

Usually, just one short telephone call gets the parts required to fix any broken Peerless faucets, and they are free for the lifetime of the original owner.

We routinely test Delta's customer and warranty service in both the U.S. and Canada. In our most recent tests, the U.S. service scored 4.6 out of 5.0, and the Canadian service 4.8.

Any score over 4.0 is acceptable and over 4.5 is exceptional indicating a high degree of helpfulness, courtesy, problem resolution, and product knowledge.

Its only failing is the occasional long wait time to speak to an agent, as long as 20 minutes. However, over 90% of the time the wait is less than a minute, if any.

The Better Business Bureau shares our high opinion of Del­ta's post-sale problem resolution, consistently grading the company A+ on its scale of A+ to F for as long as we have been reviewing Del­ta, and probably for much longer.

The BBB does not publish historical ratings, so we have no way of finding out how long Delta has held an A+ rating, but it is at least for the 15 years over which we have been reviewing the company.

Testing & Certification

Comparable Faucets

Faucets made in Asia comparable to Peerless include

Conclusions

If you are in the market for an economy faucet, Peerless is a brand you should consider.

For its price, the quality of a Peerless faucet is hard to beat. Even for a busy bath or kitchen, we would have little hesitation installing a Peerless faucet with a ceramic cartridge in chrome or one of the PVD Brilliance^® finishes.

To avoid periodic valve maintenance, however, select a ceramic cartridge and, for minimal finish care, chrome or a PVD finish. Powder coats are beautiful but require more care both in use and in cleaning.

However, if you know your way around a screwdriver and are not intimidated by a crescent wrench, a washerless valve is an option. It requires periodic maintenance that takes all of 30 minutes (most of which is time spent removing all the junk from under the sink) and costs as little as $7.00 ($9.40 CAD)for the repair kit. Done regularly and properly, a washerless valve can easily last your lifetime.

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