The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: BlueMR2 on September 09, 2016, 06:44:24 PM
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I'd always thought of them as being a good solid product for a reasonable price. I'm starting to have my doubts though.
When I bought my house, it had all cheapie faucets throughout. When I got married and my wife moved in, she had to have a sprayer in the kitchen, so had the whole faucet assembly replaced (by a professional plumber, was a surprise when I got home and found a new faucet). She selected a Delta, thinking it'd be a good value and give us good solid service. I don't think it even made it a year before it was leaking. After probably a year or so of leaking I had enough and dug out the paperwork and contacted them. They warranteed me the replacement parts, which I swapped in. Of note they had obviously been redesigned, so I thought hey, problem solved. This time it probably went about 2 years before leaking. Once again, a year after leaking started it's bad enough I can't take it anymore... Just e-mailed them again to see if they'll warranty those parts again. IIRC, my local general store has those parts to for just a few dollars if not.
Is this normal to be replacing parts like this? There's just 2 of us, this faucet *is* the most used in the house, but it's not used THAT much and the second most used was old when I moved in, is cheap, and has yet to leak a single drop... Did I just get one that's defective?
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I can't say I know Delta other than I have seen the brand. But for comparison: We built our house in 2011. Our builder discouraged us from picking out Home Depot/Lowes plumbing. He had a local plumbing store and said he/they would guarantee it for 5 years. We haven't used the guarantee for any plumbing parts yet. (I wish I could say the same for electrical appliances.)
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Well, just a quick update. If nothing else, Delta's customer support is good. Just got an e-mail and warranty parts are on the way again already.
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I don't know if this was just because of his personal experience, but when we had a small kitchen remodel done a few years ago, our contractor told us if we chose a Delta faucet, he would not warrant it. He said they did nothing but leak, and he got tired of being called back to fix them all the time.
We went with Moen, which is also not the company it used to be. Still good customer support, but a lot more plastic/cheap parts that fail more quickly now.
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Name brands at Home Depot or lowes are made with inferior parts. I stick with Kohler and buy off plumbingdepot.com. Typically can be had for only slightly more than name brands at the big box stores. If you go to HD/Lowes may as well just get the store brands
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I went with Delta faucets when doing our basement bathroom and (later on) upstairs bathroom renovations. With the basement reno, we purchased Delta fixtures from a plumbers supply store. I found it to be of really good quality, everything fit together nicely, and no problems yet. With our upstairs reno a few years later, we purchased Delta fixtures from Home Depot. The quality was definitely lower grade with more plastic parts and it felt less sturdy.
Talking with a local plumber, Delta basically makes two levels of fixtures - a lower cost lineup for big box stores and a high quality lineup for plumbers.
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I'd always thought of them as being a good solid product for a reasonable price. I'm starting to have my doubts though.
When I bought my house, it had all cheapie faucets throughout. When I got married and my wife moved in, she had to have a sprayer in the kitchen, so had the whole faucet assembly replaced (by a professional plumber, was a surprise when I got home and found a new faucet). She selected a Delta, thinking it'd be a good value and give us good solid service. I don't think it even made it a year before it was leaking. After probably a year or so of leaking I had enough and dug out the paperwork and contacted them. They warranteed me the replacement parts, which I swapped in. Of note they had obviously been redesigned, so I thought hey, problem solved. This time it probably went about 2 years before leaking. Once again, a year after leaking started it's bad enough I can't take it anymore... Just e-mailed them again to see if they'll warranty those parts again. IIRC, my local general store has those parts to for just a few dollars if not.
Is this normal to be replacing parts like this? There's just 2 of us, this faucet *is* the most used in the house, but it's not used THAT much and the second most used was old when I moved in, is cheap, and has yet to leak a single drop... Did I just get one that's defective?
I have no Delta faucets, but your experience seems to be too common these days. I have a low end Peerless faucet in my kitchen. It needs new washers every 12 to 18 months. Peerless has been great about mailing new washers for free, but the last couple of times I didn't bother and paid a couple of bucks at Home Depot for the washers.
Speaking of Home Depot, I put a low end Glacier Bay (Home Depot's house brand) faucet in my bathroom (this is a one bath home, so it gets used a lot). I only bought Glacier Bay because I didn't like the price / appearance combination of anything else they had in the store. The cheap Glacier Bay faucet has worked flawlessly for seven years now.