Waterworks Faucets Review & Rating Updated: May 1, 2026

Imported

France

England

China

Waterworks Operating Co., LLC
60 Backus Avenue
Danbury, CT 06810
(800) 927-2120
(203) 546-6000

Rating

Business Type

Product Range

Kitchen, Bath, Prep and Bar Faucets

Certifications

Brands

Waterworks

Street Price

$850.000 - $10,815.00

Warranty Score

Cartridge

3 years¹

Finishes

2 - 4 years²

Non-Moving Parts

Lifetime³

Proof of Purchase

Required

Transferable

No

Meets U.S. Warranty
Law Requirements

No

Warranty Footnotes

1. "Wearable parts" such as cartridges, hoses, and spray mechanisms, are guaranteed for just three years.

2. Two finishes: gold and matte gold, are limited to a two-year warranty, the rest for 3 years.

3. "[A]s long as the original purchaser... continues to own and maintain the residence where the products are initially installed."

Download/Read/Print the the Wa­ter­works warranty.

☆ Learn more about faucet warranties.

☆ See how we determine warranty scores.

☆ Understanding the federal Magnuson Moss Warranty Act.

☆ Find out how to enforce your product warranty at The Warranty Game: Enforcing Your Product Warranty..

Download/Read/Print the Model Limited Lifetime Warranty.

This Company In Brief

Waterworks sells upscale faucets as part of extensive collections of sanitary fixtures, accessories, and furnishings through authorized showrooms including Res­to­ra­tion Hard­ware Gal­leries.

Most faucets are designed by Waterworks and manufactured by in its plant in Picardy, France.

Waterworks markets designer collections that include faucets and any other fixture or accessory you can think of, right down to ceramic tile, towels, floor mats, and even lotions and bathrobes.

The Waterworks warranty is very sub-par for the North American market, does not fully comply with federal warranty law, and contains several objectionable provisions.

Customer support is barely adequate, not because agents are not eager to help but because the support infrastructure, like a stock of replacement parts, does not exist in many instances.

Waterworks faucets are fully certified to North American standards of durability, reliability, and freedom from toxic substances.

Waterworks is a distrubitor of organized collections of sophisticated decorative plumbing products, hardware, lighting, and furniture for the home. Its wares include some truly beautiful faucets complemented by matching showers and accessories sold primarily through showrooms.

Its collections also encompass just about any other fixture or accessory you can think of for the modern bathroom, right down to ceramic tile, towels, floor mats, and even lotions and bathrobes.

None of its inventory, however, is domestically produced.

The Company

Organized in 1976 by Ro­bert and Bar­bara Sal­lick, the company is now composed of a collection of several legal entities.

The most important are:

• Wat­er­works IP Co., LLC, the company, organized in Delaware, that owns all of the trademarks and patent rights, including the Wat­er­works and Wat­er­works Studio brands, and

• Wat­er­works Operating Company, LLC which conducts the business of designing and selling bath, kitchen, and bar collections.

Reorganization

Wat­er­works ran into considerable financial trouble during the Great Re­ces­sion of 2007-2010 and filed for voluntary Chap­ter 11 reorganization in bankruptcy.

It was purchased out of bankruptcy in 2009 by De­sign In­ves­tors LLC, an investment group organized by Pe­ter Sal­lick, son of the founders, specifically to purchase Wat­er­works.

The new owners guided the company out of the recession and back to profitability. It was then acquired by RH, Inc. in 2016 in a deal estimated by some to be worth $117 million USD ($150 million CAD).

RH, Inc. is a holding company that owns 48 subsidiaries worldwide, including Restoration Hardware, Inc. and Waterworks.

Mr. Sel­lick is the current CEO at Wa­ter­works.

Restoration Hardware

Restoration Hardware, Inc. was founded by Stephen Gorden in 1970 as a source of hard-to-find vintage decorative hardware. The Eureka, California business reportedly was prompted by his inability to find authentic, high-quality hardware for a Victorian home he was restoring.

It has now morphed into an upscale home decor retailer that sells its own line of luxury faucets made by BrassTech, Inc. (a Masco company).

It rebranded to simply "RH" in 2017 "to better "reflect its expansion beyond mere vintage hardware products." And, in fact, there is absolutely no vestiage of the original vintage hardware retailer remaining in the new luxury lifetyle brand.

Waterwork's merger with RH vastly expands Wat­er­works' retail presence nd will almost certainly benefit the brand.

RH owns 103 showroom stores (which it calls "Design Galleries") in 30 states and 3 provinces as well as six internet sites and several outlet stores at which "excess inventory" is sold at a discount.

Where to Buy

The company has numerous outlets outside of the RH umbrfella.

It sells through authorized showrooms in the U.S. and U.K. where trained designers can help buyers create a coordinated Wat­er­works suite for a bathroom, kitchen, or bar.

The company's Retail Directory lists it retail loations across the U.S., Canda, and in Europe.

If a buyer lives in a part of the world that does not have a showroom, the company will sell directly but prefers to work with a studio.

Minimum Advertised Pricing

No matter where you buy a Wat­er­works fau­cet, however, do not expect deep discounts.

Wat­er­works enforces a minimum advertised pricing (MAP) policy to discourage discount retailing, especially over the internet.

Not being a Water­works dealer, we are not privy to the actual MAP agreement but calculate that the maximum discount from Water­works' suggested retail price that may be advertised is 30%.

The Manufacturers

Waterworks is a design and marketing company, not a manufacturer. It does not make its own faucets.

According to the company, they are "made in France without compromise." Our research shows, however, that while many Water­works faucets are indeed made in France, some have been and still are manufactured elsewhere.

The French Faucet Manufacturers

• (formerly Tet­ard, Haud­iquez, & Gris­oni, (now THG-Paris) manufactures most Wat­er­works' faucets in its plant in Pic­ardy.

• THG is famous for its own diverse collections of very up-scale faucets, fixtures, and accessories that it sells worldwide, including in the U.S. and Canada.

• Vole­vatch S.A., a manufacturer of luxury faucets founded by Russian emigré, Serge Volevatch in France.

• Horus S.A., a French manufacturer of high-end sanitary ware on Rue d'Alsace in Paris, and

• Atel­ier Tradi­tion­nel du Vi­meu (ATV), a boutique manufacturer that describes itself as a "workshop," located in Friville-Escarbotin, a seaside resort community on the English Channel in northern France.

Other Faucet Manufacturers

• (England) sells its own collections of high-quality luxury faucets in North America.

• (Xiamen) Sinotap Technology Co. Ltd. (China) also manufactures faucets and fau­cet components for

Suppliers of Other Things

For its accessories, furnishings, plumbing fittings, and fixtures, the company sources far and wide. We found over fifty suppliers from at least twelve different countries during our two-year look-back period.

Most of the suppliers are from Italy and the rest of Europe. A few are now from China and Taiwan. A sampling of the company's suppliers include:

• American Standard Brands (China) for two models of bathtub.

• Diffusion Ceramique of (France) and Milstone Marble Works Ltd. (China) for ceramic tile.

• Ekom Eczacibasi Dis Ticaret (Turkey) for porcelain sanitary ware (toilets, sinks, and enamel tubs). Eczacibasi also manufactures for Kohler's upscale designer company, Kallista.

• Eke Tekstil Konfeksiyon Turizm Sanayi Ve Ticaret A S (Turkey) for towels and bathrobes.

• Drummonds, Ltd., (Poland) for bathtubs.

• Rak Ceramics (United Arab Emirates) for sanitary ware.

• Wetter Ltd. and Furniture Resources Co., Ltd. (Vietnam) for lacquer ware, furniture, and décor items.

• A & J Gummers (England) for shower valves.

The Designers

Bar­bara Sal­lick provided the original design vision for the company, and was inducted into the New England Design Hall of Fame in 2024 for "a legacy of design excellence."

With her retirement, the baton was passed to Dav­id Schaef­er, Water­works' creative director until his passing in 2025. Zach Jenkins, a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and co-founder of TÊte Studio, currently holds the position.

Without question, many of the company's fau­cet designs are striking, many with a distinctively French flair. However, a few are surprisingly pedestrian, not unlike the styles found in almost any mid-priced fau­cet line, but only a few and far fewer than in past years.

The collections are getting more interesting and more creative year by year.

Outside Designers

The company uses outside design talent, but not heavily.

Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch, founders of the design firm of Roman and Williams, for example, created the R. W. Atlas collection based on late 19th-century fin-de-siècle industrial motifs.

Outside Designs

In addition to its own designs, Wat­er­works expands its offerings by buying fau­cet lines designed by other companies.

The Etoile collection, for example, is the creation of Volevatch S.A., the French manufacturer. Volevatch designed and manufactures the faucets and owns the designs.

The striking Easton kitchen fau­cet collection appears to be a slight variation of a design.

Custom Designs

If the company's existing collections are not exclusive enough for your mega-mansion, five-star hotel, or Vegas casino, the Waterworks Studio will design a one-of-a-kind fau­cet just for you.

Of course, you may have to buy a minimum of several hundred facets to recoup the sizeable cost.

Waterworks Finishes

Waterworks faucets are available in twelve standard finishes. The company does not offer non-metallic finishes.

All finishes are except brass. Brass is simply the actual material of the fau­cet buffed and polished, brushed, or burnished to create a finish.

Waterworks characterizes its finishes as , meaning they

"will naturally age, patina, and take on their own individual appearances as they are exposed to time, climate, environment, and handling …"

Technically, it's true that all of these metals exhibit the basic characteristic of living finishes – they react with their environment and will tarnish over time. But their reactivity varies widely.

Some react so weakly that they are normally not considered by the fau­cet industry to be living finishes. Chrome, nickel, and gold are in this category.

Gold: Non-Reactive

Pure gold is entirely non-reactive. Gold is one of the "noble" ^[1] metals in chemistry. It does not react to the environment at all and does not tarnish. It is inert.

But the gold used in fau­cet finishes is usually not pure, 24-carat gold. It is an alloy that typically includes copper and (sometimes) silver. Pure gold is very soft and scratches easily. Copper and silver make it harder but also allow it to tarnish ever so slightly.

Chrome and Nickel: Weakly Reactive

Chrome and nickel are weakly reactive. They actually do tarnish, creating a thin protective coating over the surface of the fau­cet that is virtually invisible and never more than a minor nuisance.

It darkens the finish very slightly and dulls the metal's sparkle but a quick buff with a soft cloth wipes away the tarnish (and any water spots), restoring the fau­cet's gleam.

Brass and Copper: Very Reactive

Brass and copper are very reactive and will tarnish quickly and tarnish a lot. They are justifiably called "living finishes."

If exposed to environmental extremes or left to tarnish for a long time, copper will eventually turn green, a color known as verdigris. Brass will turn a warm brown.

Copper tarnishes fairly quickly, brass more slowly. Brass contains copper and it is the copper that tarnishes. But it also includes zinc and a soupçon of other metals. These slow the tarnishing processs.

Burnished and Matte Finishes

The basic metals may be treated at the factory to produce different finish effects.

Burnished and matte finishes are variations in sheen. Matte is a very flat finish with almost no shine. Burnished is a satin sheen somewhere between matte and polished.

Burnished and matte finishes are created by texturing the surface of the metal to reduce shine. A burnished or "satin" surface is textured a little to remove some shine. A matte surface is textured a lot to remove most of the shine.

Texturing may be done mechanically by a skilled workman using buffers and brushes or the metal may be dipped in a chemical bath that creates micro-pitting on the surface of the metal to produce the desired effect.

"Vintage" and "Dark" Finishes

"Vintage" or "dark" have been artificially aged at the factory using chemicals to induce rapid tarnishing. This process creates a patina that, according to the company, "normally takes months or years to achieve."

The chemically aged finishes in the Wat­er­works' palette are Dark Nickel, Vintage Brass, and Dark Brass.

These are true living finishes that will continue to tarnish and change appearance over time.

Split Finishes and Wood Trim

Some faucets are available in , what the company calls "mixed finishes" in which a base finish is paired with a trim or accent finish. The available options are Brass/Dark Nickel, Matte Nickel/Brass, Nickel/Dark Nickel, and Brass/Copper.

A few faucets such as those in the Easton or Henry collections may include wood trim as an option.

Preventing Tarnish

The key to preventing tarnish in highly reactive metals like brass and copper is to overlay the metal with a coating that protects it from coming into contact with air, water, and other elements in the environment.

The most common coating is some form of synthetic clear coat applied at the factory. (The coating is similar to the clear coat protecting your car's finish. The most durable of these are almost indestructible. See e.g. Cerakote^® MC-160.)

Waterworks, however, does not clear-coat its finishes. Instead, it leaves overcoating to the buyer using a carnauba paste wax.

Unlike factory clear coats that are reasonably permanent, wax requires periodic renewal.

If the fau­cet is new from the factory, tarnishing can be reduced by cleaning the fau­cet (to remove the installer's fingerprints), and applying wax immediately after installation. If it is partly tarnished and has reached the desired patina, apply wax to retard further tarnishing.

Waxing is not 100% effective, however. It reduces but does not completely prevent tarnishing.

After the initial waxing, Wat­er­works recommends it be re-waxed "biannually" or every two years. We think it should be more often, about every six months.

Low-reactive metals like nickel, chrome, and gold do not require waxing to prevent tarnish, but a coat of wax is useful to reduce water spots and fingerprints, making daily finish care easier.

Advanced Finishing Processes

Waterworks does not use the latest processes such as (PVD) to produce its finishes.

PVD is the "armor plating" of fau­cet finishes, virtually indestructible, requiring only minimum care.

Highly reactive metals such as brass and copper are emulated using metals like zirconium and titanium that are non-reactive. The result is very convincing. PVD brass and copper look, just like natural brass and copper.

Other upscale fau­cet companies, including from American Faucets and Coatings, use the process exclusively.

Finish Availability

Very few faucets are available in all twelve standard finishes. The finishes common to most faucets are chrome, nickel, and brass. The Wat­er­works website identifies the finishes available for each fau­cet.

Ten of the twelve finishes are available for quick shipping in "as little as four weeks" but more often six weeks or longer. Gold and Matte Gold require a longer lead time. How much longer, Wat­er­works does not say.

Customer Support

Waterworks provides support for the faucets it sells, including parts replacement and warranty service. However, it does not always provide effective support.

The buyers we surveyed characterize customer service as friendly and courteous but not always able to help, not because agents do not want to help, but because, according to current and former agents, they do not have an adequate infrastructure to support them.

It is a systemic problem and one that Wat­er­works does not seem able to cure.

It is impossible, for example, to resolve a customer issue that requires a replacement part when the part is no longer in inventory.

Replacement Parts

The lack of replacement parts is a ongoing problem for Wat­er­works, especially parts for discontinued faucets. The inability to get replacement parts constitutes fully half of the customer complaints we receive about the company.

The problem seems to be one that the company is unable to solve.

Waterworks Warranty

The Waterworks fau­cet warranty has problems. It is not the worst warranty we have seen in the fau­cet industry, but it is not good.

It is what is know as a "Barnum Warranty" in honor of the famous showman, philanthropist, and carnival huckster, Phineas T. (P.T.) Barnum. It appears to promise a lot at the top of the warranty but then takes most of it away down the page.

The Barnum "Lifetime"

The warranty starts out with great promise: guaranteeing its faucets to be free of "mechanical defects" for a lifetime. Here is the exact languatge:

"Waterworks warrants to the original purchaser or initial homeowner that all Waterworks plumbing and accessory products installed in a residence and used solely for residential purposes will be free of mechanical defects for as long as the original purchaser or initial homeowner continues to own and maintain the residence where the products are initially installed.

The language has two major problems.

The first is that the term mechanical defect is not defined.^[2]

The second is the duration of the lifetime warranty. It is obviously not for someone's or something's lifetime. It lasts only for as long as "the original homeowner continues to own and maintain the residence where the products are initially installed."

Mechanical Defects

Exactly what con­sti­tutes a mechanical defect, and how does it differ from a non-mechanical defect?

We don't know. Mechanical defect is not a and has no established meaning in the world of faucets.

But even if it did have meaning in the faucet industry, that meaning would not be known to an average faucet buyer, and federal warranty law requires a consumer warranty to be written in "simple and readily understood language" that can be grasped by a typical consumer, not just an industry professional.

But while we may not know what it is, we do know something about what it's not.

It does not mean defects to …

Finishes: Waterworks finishes are specifically excluded from the lifetime warranty. They have their own two- or five-year warranty, depending on the finish.

Wearable parts: These are parts of the fau­cet that move and make the fau­cet work, defined in the warranty as …

"flexible hoses, hand sprayers, seals and washers, diverter plungers, and cartridges."

These also have a separate warranty: three years. They are not part of the lifetime warranty on "mechanical defects."

So, what's left?

After removing finishes and "wearable parts" from the lifetime warranty, there is not much left that could suffer a defect, just fau­cet shells, handles, baseplates, , and any trim pieces.

And, that's the Barnum part of the warranty. The lifetime warranty protects only against defects that are almost never going to happen. The "mechanical parts" where defects are most likely to occur are expressly excluded from the lifteime warranty.

It's very reminiscent of P. T. Barnum's reputed sale of a train car full of white salmon by guaranteeing that it would not "turn pink in the can," something that white salmon cannot possibly do.

The warranty sounds like you are getting a lifetime warranty on something, but it turns out to be on much of nothing.

It's really a three-year guarantee disguised as a lifetime warranty.

The Duration of "Lifetime"

The warranty's definition of "lifetime" is flawed.

The only requirement for the lifetime warranty to remain in effect is that …

"…the original purchaser or initial homeowner continues to own and maintain the residence where the products are initially installed."

This definition creates at least two issues.

• First is the requirement that a fau­cet buyer maintain the residence.

• What does a homeowner need to do to maintain his or her residence, and how does the leaking roof or peeling paint of deteriorating deck affect the functioning of a Wat­er­works fau­cet?

• No explanation is provided in the warranty.

• The definition's second problem is that it excludes buyers who don't own their homes from warranty coverage.

• Homeownership is an explicit requirement for the warranty to remain in effect. If the buyer does not own a home, the warranty ends just as soon as it begins.

• Since renters and lessees do not own their homes, they get no warranty coverage.

• Granted, very few people are going to buy and install a luxury fau­cet that may cost several thousand dollars in a residence they rent, but it does happen, and when it happens, the buyer has no warranty.

• However, the provision also excludes many well-to-do homeowners who place their house in a trust to lessen taxes or facilitate inheritance. These are the company's target buyers, but they too are without a warranty. The trust owns their home.

• The most important defect, however, is a missing requirement. The buyer is not required to continue to own the fau­cet itself for the warranty to remain in force. This omission can cause some unexpected problems for Wat­er­works.

• Consider the following:

  Buyer installs a Wat­er­works fau­cet in his house. A year later he replaces the fau­cet with a newer fau­cet and gives the Wat­er­works fau­cet to daughter, Nell, who installs it in her house.

  At that point, the warranty on the Wat­er­works fau­cet is still in force because Buyer "continues to own" the residence where the fau­cet was initially installed.

  The warranty does not require that the fau­cet remain installed in the initial residence, and continuing to own the fau­cet is not a requirement for a continuing warranty on the fau­cet.

  Buyer cannot transfer the warranty itself to Nell because, under the terms of the warranty, only the original buyer has a warranty. The question is, if Nell's fau­cet starts to leak, can Buyer claim under the warranty for Nell's benefit?

  The answer is "yes." A warranty is a contract. As a general rule, a party to a contract can enforce the contract for the benefit of a person who is not a party to the contract.

Deception in Warranties

Is this warranty misleading? We think it is.

We don't think that Wattworks is being deliverately deceptice. It iss probably just the result of very inept legal drafting.

Nonetheless, any deception, intended or not. is prohibited under federal law.

The specific law is the Mag­nu­son-Moss War­ranty Act (15 U.S.C. § 2308). is It dictates the minimum content of and sets the rules for consumer product warranties in the United States. One of its key objectives is to eliminate deception from consumer product warranties.

To this end, the Act requires …

"…words or phrases which would not mislead a reasonable, average consumer as to the nature or scope of the warranty." (15 U.S.C. § 2302 (a) (13))

Deception does not need to be intended to be illegal. It is sufficient that the company fails to exercise reasonable care …

"…to make the warranty not misleading." (15 U.S.C. § 2310(c)(2))

The Discontinued Faucet Trap

That is not the end of the problems with the Wat­er­works warranty, however. Consider this provision:

"For any discontinued product or part with a warranty period of longer than ten years, Wat­er­works' warranty obligation shall expire on the earlier of ten years after the date of purchase of such product or part, or such time as a replacement product or part is no longer reasonably available to Wat­er­works."

This mishmash of turgid legalese needs a slow and careful reading, but what it means in everyday English is that:

• If Wat­er­works discontinues selling your fau­cet model, the lifetime warranty on your fau­cet is immediately reduced to a ten-year warranty even if you bought it years before the model was discontinued, and

• If Wat­er­works cannot "reasonably" get the parts needed to fix your fau­cet or cannot get the fau­cet itself from its supplier, the warranty on your fau­cet ends immediately.

Waterworks is under no obligation to notify you that your faucet has been discontinued or that parts are no longer availabel. You find out when to try to make a warranty claim.

Most fau­cet companies handle the unavailability of replacement parts during the warranty period very differently. They will either replace the fau­cet with the same or a comparable fau­cet model or refund your purchase price.

what the Waterworks warranty is telling you is that the company is not confident that it can get the replacement parts ore replacement faucets needed to support even its meager lifetime warranty.

Its solution is to cancel the warranty entirely, dumping the problem in your lap.

Not at all what we would call "customer-friendly."

The Cleaning Products Cancellation

Another highly questionable provision is contained in this language:

"… the use of cleaners containing abrasive cleansers, ammonia, bleach, acids, waxes, alcohol, or solvents will void this warranty." (Emphasis supplied)

The first issue with this phrasing is the list of banned substances.

What cleaning product, including dish soap, does not contain one of more of thiese ingredients? Abrasive cleaners, ammonia, perhaps even alcahol probably should be prohibited, but solvents, how can that be done? Water itself is a highly effective polar solvent. so using plain tap water to clean a Waterworks faucet would void your warranty.

And that word "void" is second and more serious matter.

"Void" is a very dangerous word to use in a warranty and experienced warranty writers avoid it.

It means just what you thhink it means: the warranty is over, finished, ended, terminated, extinguished, and gone forever the very instant the prohibited product is used. The use does not need to cause any damage. Ust the use voids the warranty; the entire warranty, not just the part that applies to finishes.

If you clean your Wat­er­works fau­cet with water on Monday and it starts leaking on Tuesday, the leak is not under warranty. The warranty ended on Monday the instant you used the banned solvent, even if, as is likely, it caused no damage whatsoever.

Most probably that is not the result Wat­er­works intends, but that's exactly the result it ineptly wrote into its warranty. It would certainly be reasonable to provide that any damage caused by the use of of harsh cleaners is not covered by the warranty, but voiding the entire warranty, that's amateur hour.

The Care and Cleaning Catch

And, that's not even the end of the drafting oddifites.

According to the warranty, it does not apply to faucets…

"…which have been … maintained … other than in accordance with the care and cleaning guidelines … provided to the purchaser by Wat­er­works."

Excluding damage caused by failing to follow care and cleaning guidelines from warranty coverage is reasonable. But to cancel the the warranty on the whole faucet seems a little extreme.

Finish Warranties

Waterworks' short five-year warranty on chrome and nickel finishes is particularly baffling.

We have never heard of a company other than Wat­er­works that characterizes chrome or nickel as a living finish.

Chrome has been the most common fau­cet finish since the 1920s, when chromium deposits developed in Russia made the metal cheap enough for use on faucets. Before chrome, nickel was the most common fau­cet finish, serving the industry well for nearly a century.

We doubt that any user anywhere has ever complained about tarnish on a chromed or nickel-plated fau­cet.

There is no reason we can fathom why chrome and nickel should not be viewed as lifetime finishes with an actual lifetime warranty.

Redundant Provisions

The warranty contains multiple redundancies. The most egregious example is the warranty's disclaimer of consequential and incidental damages.^[3]

These are excluded from coverage three times in three different places.

Once is legally sufficient, twice is more than enough, and three times is a waste of good English words.

Warranty Scoring

By no stretch of the imagination is this a "lifetime" warranty.

We cannot help but wonder if anyone at Wat­er­works has actually read its warranty.

It has all the earmarks of a cut-and-paste warranty cobbled together from bits and pieces of other warranties without regard to whether the various provisions actually fit together or if they are legal.

Most likely it was not written by a lawyer. If it was, however, he or she badly needs an immediate refresher on legal drafting and warranty law.

We suspect that Wat­er­works does not actually intend these inane results, and they are probably not enforced in actual practice. But they could be, and that's how we must gauge a warranty.

Because it excludes major components from lifetime coverage and considering the Barnum surprises buried here and there in the warranty language, we rate the Wat­er­works warranty as very sub-standard for the North American market.

The standard North Amer­ican lifetime fau­cet warranty guarantees all parts of a fau­cet (except electronics), including all finishes (except actual ) for at least as long as the original buyer owns the fau­cet and lives in the residence in which the fau­cet is initially installed.

The Waterworks warranty falls far, far short of this standard.

The Waterworks Website

The Waterworks website is colorful, well laid out, and even dramatic in places. It was having a problem with its vertical scroll in the Firefox browser when we tested it, but not with Chrome, Edge, or Safari. That p;roblem is now fixed.

Navigation is menu-driven and intuitive. It adapts well to various screen dimensions from desktop to smartphone. The search function is very robust so long as it is restricted to products and product features (configuration, finishes, etc.). With non-product terms like "warranty", it does not work.

The information provided about Wat­er­works faucets, however, falls short of the complete picture needed for a well-informed fau­cet-buying decision.

Each fau­cet is briefly described with the list price and available finishes. Selecting a finish re-displays the fau­cet in the chosen finish.

Visualization of the fau­cet is excellent. Faucets are pictured in a single 3/4 view, supplemented by either additional views, including views of the installed fau­cet or a 360^° feature. Clicking the 360^° icon displays the fau­cet in a view that can be rotated to almost any angle by your mouse. The view can be zoomed in to closely examine even the smallest detail of the fau­cet.

More detailed information is available in downloadable "technical documents" in .pdf format. These include a "specification document" that lists the details of the fau­cet. It may include a measured drawing, but not always. For some faucets, the drawing is in Installation Instructions. A measured drawing is useful in deciding whether a fau­cet will fit your sink.

Links are available to installation instructions and care & cleaning instructions. An exploded parts diagram (entitled "service parts diagram,") is available for most but not all faucets, as are 2D and 3D CAD drawings.

CAD models are not particularly useful to consumer buyers but are helpful to architects and designers specifying a Waterworks fau­cet.

What's missing are:

• Ceramic Cartridge Identification: Ceramic cartridges are only identified as "ceramic." That's not enough information. The guyer needs to know the source of the cartridge.

• Forty years ago, when ceramic cartridges were new with very few p;roviders, "ceramic" indicated the newest and best fau­cet valve technology available. These days, however, all but the least expensive economy faucets are built around a ceramic cartridge—some good, some not so good. The best will provide a lifetime of trouble-free service; the not-so-good maybe two to fice years.

• Knowing whether a fau­cet includes a good cartridge is critical to the buying decision, and the only way to tell the good from the mediocre is to know where it comes from.

• Sometimes a visual examination tells the story. Com­pa­nies making the best cartridges often mark them with either a name or code.

• Unfortunately, the Wa­ter­works faucets we examined contained cartridges devoid of markings, so we don't know where they are made and, consequently, whether they are first- or worst-class cartridges or somewhere in between.

• To solve that problem, Wat­er­works needs to identify the cartridge source on its website for each fau­cet.

• Be wary of cartridges that have a short warranty.

• The warranty duration is usually a good indication of how long the company expects its cartridges to last.

• The three-year Wat­er­works warranty suggests mediocre cartridges with a short lifespan.

• Secondary Material: Water­works is religious about identifying brass as the primary material in its faucets.

• It does not, however, disclose its secondary material(s). Very few brass faucets are all brass through and through. Most include less costly secondary materials: usually zinc or plastic, or both.

• Zinc and its alloys are not as robust as brass and will not stand up as well to water pressure. But they are fine for parts not under pressure: handles, baseplates, trim, , etc. Once the fau­cet has its finish, it is usually impossible to tell what parts are brass and what parts are not.

• Plastic, on the other hand, can be a problem, especially plastic spray heads (called "wands" in industry-speak).

• Many fau­cet companies, including upscale companies like have turned to making wands out of plastic because it is a lot cheaper and does not get hot in use like some metal wands. But plastic also has many more problems than metal in spray wands and fails much more often.

• Waterworks probably does not use plastic in its wands, but we don't know for sure because we did not examine every fau­cet with a wand, and the company does not identify its secondary materials.

• Warranty Link: Wat­er­works sells its faucets on its website. It is, consequently, required to have a conspicuous link to the fau­cet's warranty in or very near each fau­cet's listing by the pre-sale availability regulations promulgated by the Federal Trade Commission under the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act.

• It does not.

• The only warranty link is 'way at the bottom of the page. You have to page down all the way to the bottom of the page. Find "Cliet Service" and under that, find "Warranty." Click on Warranty to display the warranty document as in .pdf.

• Living Finishes: Wat­er­works does not explain anywhere on its website (except buried deep in downloadable .pdf Care and Cleaning instructions) that it considers all of its many finishes to be that may require a lot of care and attention for the lifetime of the fau­cet.

• It should let potential customers know, right up front, in fau­cet listings that any but chrome, nickel, and gold finishes will require more than average maintenance.

• The omission exposes customers who didn't happen to reach the Care and Cleaning Instructions before purchasing a fau­cet to the unpleasant surprise of seeing their very expensive Water­works fau­cet start to turn brown, gray, or green unexpectedly.

Testing and Certification

Comparable Faucets

French-made faucets loosely similar to Wat­er­works styling include Herbeau styling is more fin de siècle, paralleling the English late Victorian period, and very French, moreso that either Waterworks or THG.

American-made or -assembled faucets with approximately the same period look include

Some

For late 19th-century Amer­i­can and Brit­ish Vic­tor­i­an styles of good quality with impeccable finishes at less cost, try

The Bottom Line

Waterworks is not a fau­cet company for the budget-conscious. The company's prices are at or just shy of "if you need to ask, you can't afford it."

Faucets and handles are priced separately, and anything but a chrome or nickel finish can drive the price straight into low orbit.

The faucets are poorly supported by a grossly inadequate warranty. Apart from its many drafting errors, the warranty simply does not provide the kind of guarantee expected of a top-quality fau­cet.

There is also no reasonable assurance of parts availability. The possible lack of replacement parts and comprehensive warranty protection should give you, as a prospective buyer, pause, unless, of course, you are filthy rich and simply don't care about moeny.

We are continuing to research the company. If you have experience with Wat­er­works faucets, good, bad, or indifferent, we would like to hear about it, so please email us at starcraftreviews@yahoo.com or post a comment below.

Please note: we do not answer questions posted in the comments unless they are of general interest. If you have a question, email us at starcraftreviews@yahoo.com.

Footnotes