Thinking about Faucets

Temperature Recall! Light touch for easy adjustment.

I've been thinking a lot recently about faucets. It's one of the most-used items in the kitchen. You might have a mediocre fridge, and it won't matter too much. We have an old, small, even rusty one, but it really doesn't create any problems except at Thanksgiving. I operate my faucet dozens of times a day, and if it's annoying or awkward, I'm annoyed dozens of times a day. Perhaps that's why I'm often so irritable.

When we started in this business, we didn't think much about this important topic, and had a good laugh when we heard that some people spent $500 on a faucet. Why would you do that?

Today, lots of our customers don't blanch at such a cost, even though the high-end models aren't necessarily better. It's partly a question of fashion, of what is in the magazines this year. So what makes a good faucet? It should look nice, for sure. But it also should be easy to control temperature and pressure.

Single Lever. We believe in the single lever faucet. If it's working right, it can be turned off (half of the uses) with a finger, a frying pan, or your fist if you are holding something. If it's working right, it can be turned on and set with one hand, hopefully very quickly, with a single motion. I can't think of any reason to use a two-handled faucet. Almost all of our projects use single lever faucets. But it has to be the right one.

It has to fit: There is often a bit of spatial congestion at the back of the sink, where the faucet usually goes. We often provide storage (photo) above the sink; a tall faucet can bang on the shelves. In the photo below, most of the nice, pullout-spray faucets banged on the drainer shelf. The Grohe shown had the pullout feature, but wasn't too tall.

A lot of faucets these days have the lever control on the side. This works OK in an island, but against a wall, the lever sometimes bangs on the backsplash. It can be quite discouraging to have purchased a nice expensive side handle faucet, and drilled a 1 3/8” hole in your new soapstone counters, only to find that the side lever hits the backsplash.

If you are considering a side-lever model, careful study is crucial. Sometimes we'll make a mockup of the faucet to make sure it will fit and operate.

I prefer the front lever anyway, because it's convenient for either hand, or from any position.

An ideal faucet: The ideal single lever faucet, in addition to every other virtue, would have this one: the motion that controls temperature (moving the lever left-right) would be clearly distinct from the motion that controls rate of flow (up-down). That way, you could be happily washing dishes, for example, push down to turn the water off, then lift up to resume, at the same temperature. As you lifted the lever, the pressure might increase, but the temp would hold about the same. The slow-flow would be the same as the full flow.

Years ago, I wrote an article for Fine Homebuilding, in the course of which I was complaining that the operation of single lever faucets was often vague. Every time you shut it off, you had to start over, searching, searching for the pressure and temperature you want; you might find yourself making many minute movements to get it set. Also, you might move the lever and not be sure what was going to happen.

Next month, there was a very stern letter from someone at Moen. This person explained that my complaint did not apply to their products. The Moen control separated pressure and temperature adjustment as described above. This function was called temperature recall. And in fact, this proved to be true, and since then, we have specified many Moen Faucets. Another interesting dimension of this, was that it was Al Moen who invented the single lever faucet.

In my experience, there are still many faucets out there, brand new ones from major brands, which are vague as I've described above. I find this very annoying, and wastes time to boot. But there are also several kinds that, like the Moen, give the user simple, intuitive control of flow and pressure. The Grohe in the photo above is one such. (Readers who know of other good ones, please let me know).

We've also noticed that lever shape can be an issue. A lot of front mounted faucets have a rather tall arching spout, which can require the lever to become almost vertical. The more vertical the lever, I find the operation more vague. Even the best faucets are a little harder to control with a highly angled lever. For that reason a lever closer to the horizontal has some advantages. Perhaps this is why many designs with the high arc spout have gone to the side lever. These have seemed to be easy to operate.

Deck Plates: The old two-handled double faucets were designed for two holes, 8” on center, which were bridged with something called a deck plate. When you replaced your double handle with a single, you only needed one hole in the center, but your old sink had those other holes. So many single levers come with a deck plate which serves no purpose but to cover those holes.

When building new, you can order a sink with a single hole. If you are undermounting the sink (we almost always do that) it's much tidier to get a faucet without deck plate. However, many faucets these days can be installed either way.

Make sure the handle doesn't interfere with shelving or backsplash. This a Moen Chateau. 

 It's one of Moen's less costly faucets but the mechanics inside are the same as in the expensive ones. 

This one has the deckplate because it replaces an older two-handled faucet.