Delta fau­cets: Best In-Depth Independent Review (2024)

Summary

This Company In Brief

If there is a better faucet made for the price anywhere in the world, we have yet to find it.

It is hard to go wrong buying a Del­ta faucet. The finish, cartridge, and water channel technology used in most Del­ta faucets are unmatched by other faucets sold in the same price range.

Ceramic cartridges equal to Del­ta's super cartridge with Diamond Seal Tech­nol­ogy^® are not available from other companies at any price.

Del­ta is one of the best-selling faucets in North Amer­ica and one of the faucets most preferred by plumbers.

However, Del­ta is no longer an Amer­i­can faucet .

Contract manufacturers, most of which are in China, make the majority of Del­ta fa­ucets.

Delta itself produces fewer than half of the Delta fau­cets sold in North Am­er­i­ca and assembles these from parts and components manufactured mostly in Asia.

If there is an 800-lb. gorilla in North Amer­ica's world of kitchens and baths, it is Masco Corporation – one of the world's largest faucet companies.^[1]

In addition to Del­ta, it owns in Ger­many, and Bris­tan Group, Ltd. in the U.K.

Although one of three major players in the North Amer­ican fau­cet market – are the others – Del­ta Fau­cets is just a minor part of Mas­co's overall business.

Masco is also a major presence in

• Cabinets (Kraft­maid, Mer­il­lat, Mills Pride, Qual­ity Cab­i­nets, Moores Furn­i­ture (UK));

• Paints and coatings (Behr, Kilz, Ham­mer­ite);

• Bathtubs and showers (Aqua Glass, Hüppe, Miro­lin, Wat­kins Spas);

• Water, gas, and steam fittings (Brass­tech, Brass­Craft, Mas­ter Plumb­er, and Plumb­shop);

• Replacement windows (Mil­gard, Mas­co Win­dow (UK));

• Decora­tive hardware (Frank­lin Brass, Lib­er­ty Hard­ware)

• Lighting (Kichler)

• PVD coating technologies (Va­por Tech); and

• Stap­lers (Ar­row).

Al­ex Man­oo­gi­an, an Arm­en­i­an who fled Tur­key at age 19 to escape the Ar­men­i­an Gen­o­cide, established the company as Mas­co^[2] Screw Prod­ucts in 1929 with two partners: Har­ry Ad­jem­ian and Charles Saun­ders to manufacture automotive parts.

It was renamed Mas­co Corp­or­a­tion in 1961 to reflect its growing diversification as a holding company. By 1975 it was one of Amer­i­ca's largest companies and on the Fort­une 500 list.

Delta, established in 1954 as a separate enterprise to manufacture faucets, was not added to the company until 1958.

Delta made its name in the post-WWII housing boom of the 1950s and '60s with single-handle faucets featuring its signature "washerless" ball-style mixing valve.

Delta's Ball Valve

Some histories of the company credit Alex Man­oog­ian with inventing the ball valve. He didn't, but he was smart enough to recognize its value.

The ball valve was the brainchild of Landis Harlan Perry (1911-1985).

Dur­ing his wartime service with the U.S. military, Perry started tinkering with a design for a better "fluid valve" that combined the control of water flow and blending of water temperature in one simple device.

After his discharge in 1945, he applied for a patent on his "mixing valve." It was awarded in 1952 (U. S. patent 2592062).^[3]

Plumbing & Mechanical Engineer has identified the Perry valve as one of the "greatest plumbing … inventions" of the 20th century.

Manoogian, looking for a faucet valve to challenge the enormously popular washerless cartridge introduced in 1947, immediately realized the ball valve's potential.

After refining the design to make it more easily manufactured, he licensed the valve from Landis and founded Del­ta Fau­cet to make single-handle faucets using the new valve. At first, the company made only kitchen faucets. It added bath fau­cets in 1960.

By 1958, just four years after the new valve was launched, Del­ta's sales topped $1 million (CAD $1.38 million). Del­ta is still one of the best-selling fau­cets^[4] in North Amer­ica.

Today the washerless valve has been been largely retired after a run that lasted most of half a century.

Both Mo­en and Del­ta have replaced their washerless valves with ceramic disc cartridge valves, the newer water control technology invented by in the early 1970s.

Ceramic valves use nearly indestructible ceramic discs rather than vulnerable rubber seals to control water flow and temperature.

However, the Del­ta ball has not disappeared entirely. In fact, since the expiration of Delta's patent, it has been very widely copied.

It is still used in many less expensive single-handle economy fau­cets, sold by a number of fau­cet companies in North Amer­i­ca, including:

To view a list of cartridges used in Delta faucets, download the Delta Cartridge List.

Delta also continues to use a version of the washerless valve for some faucets in its Classics and Foundations collections. These are easy to identify. Any cartridge that rests on a rubber seal and spring such as the RP25513 or RP1740 is a washerless valve.

The Mo­en washerless valve, on the other hand, is completely gone.

We know of no faucet company that still uses the valve, including which has replaced its washerless valve with its patented Duralast^® ceramic cartridge.

The thousands of Mo­en washerless valve faucets still in use throughout North Am­er­ica have not been forsaken, however. Replacement valves are widely available, as are repair kits to replace worn seals and o-rings.

Where are Delta Faucets Made?

Delta enjoys a very good reputation among consumers and plumbing professionals alike.

Among plumbers, the Del­ta line of faucets is a perennial favorite. In every plumber poll we have ever read, Del­ta is always the first or second choice as the plumbers' go-to faucet.

Plumbers like faucets that don't cause trouble – which describes Del­ta fau­cets to a tee. And, if it does break, Del­ta gets the plumbers' vote as the easiest faucet to fix, even easier than Mo­en.

Homebuilders also like the faucets. According to Statista, Del­ta faucets constituted nearly one-third of the faucets installed in new homes in the U.S. in 2018. (Comparable statistics are not available for Canada.)

Among homeowners, Del­ta ranks high in our "top of mind" survey. Con­sis­tent­ly between 25-28% of the homeowners taking the survey, identify Del­ta as the first brand that comes to mind when they think "faucet".

A lot of Delta's reputation, however, rests on the nearly universal belief that Delta is one of very few Amer­i­can faucet companies that still manufactures its faucets in Am­er­ica.

In past years, that belief was true. It no longer is.

These days, Del­ta has become somewhat reticent about disclosing where its faucets are made.

An inquiry to customer service about the origin of a particular faucet will usually result in some version of this more or less standard non-answer answer:

"As a global manufacturer, we source and assemble a number of parts around the world. The location information on the back of the box will tell you where your specific faucet model was made."

We know from experience that when a company suddenly becomes reluctant to discuss where its faucets are manufactured, it usually means that they are made "Not-In-USA."

We saw the same song-and-dance at Amer­i­can Standard when it shifted virtually all of its faucet manufacturing to China and Mexico over a decade ago.

So, we put our researchers to work searching out exactly where Del­ta faucets are produced. (See the Country of Origin table elsewhere on this page.)

We excluded Del­ta's commercial line of faucets,^[5] and faucets that have been discontinued and can no longer be found in retail inventories. This left 250 basic faucet models.^[6] Of these, 139 were made in China or Vietnam and 106, or 42%, were assembled in the U.S.

The survey confirmed two trends at Delta that we have been observing for several years:

• An increasing number of Delta faucets are being manufactured by outside companies, and

• An increasing number of Delta faucets are being manufactured in Asia, mostly in China but also in Vietnam.

Fewer than half of the Del­ta-branded non-commercial sink faucets still in distribution in North Am­er­ica originate in North Am­er­ica.

Del­­ta still employs over 1,600 Amer­icans in the U.S.at its headquarters in California and its U.S. production facilities in Greens­burg, Indiana, Jack­son, Ten­nes­see, and Mor­gan­town, Ken­tucky, and about half that number of Can­a­di­ans in two On­tar­io facilities: one in Lon­don and another in Cam­bridge.

Delta Stryke base model with variations.

Delta, however, is no longer the Amer­i­can that it was throughout most of the 20th century.

It is now primarily a . It designs its faucets but then has them manufactured by other companies.

The faucets it still produces in the U.S. are assembled in the company's facility in Jack­son. However, most of the components used are imported.

Delta contracts virtually all of the casting, forging, and machining required to produce faucet components to third parties, primarily in China, but also in Mexico, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Delta Faucet Country of Origin By Collection
Collection	Origin	Collection	Origin
100 / 300 / 400		Abbott ①
Addison ②		Allentown ⑦
Allora		Alpen ①
Alux ①		Anderson
Antoni		Ara
Arabella ①		Arc ②
Archdale		Arvo
Ashlyn		Ashton
Aubrey ③		Auburn ④
Becker ①		Bellini ①
Berkley ⑤		Bowery ⑥
Broadmoor ⑦		Broderick ⑧
Broderick Pro
Caffery ③		Capertee
Carlisle ③		Casara ③
Cason		Cassidy
Celice		Chamberlain ⑦
Charmaine		Cicero
Classic		Collins
Compel		Coranto ⑧
Corin		Corwin
Dawson ③		Debonair
Deluca		Dolman
Dorval ⑧		Dryden
Dunsley ①		Dyerton
Eldridge ⑦		Emery ⑦
Emmeline		Emmett ③
Esato ②		Esque
Essa		Everly ⑦
Flynn ①		Founda­tions ①
Foundry ②		Fuse
Galeon		Geist
Grail		Grant ⑦
Greydon ⑦		Griffen
Haywood		Hazelwood
Hyde ⑦		Izak ③
Jordan		Junction ②
Kami		Kate
Kayra ⑧		Keele
Kine		Knoxville ①
Lahara		Lakeview
Lakewood		Lampard ③
Larkin ①		Leland
Lenta		Lewiston
Linden		Loraine ⑦
Mandara		Mandolin ⑦
Marca ⑦		Mateo
Merge		Modern
Monrovia		Mylan ②
Nicoli		Nyla ①③⑦
Ophela ②		Osmond ①
Owendale ⑦
Palo		Pierce ⑦
Pilar		Pivotal
Porter ③⑦		Portwood ⑦
Sandover ①		Saville
Sawyer ①		Saylor
Shiloh ⑦		Signature
Silverton		Spargo
Struct		Stryke
Talbott		Tesla
Tetra		Theodora
Tilden ①		Tolva
Tommy		Trask ①
Trillian		Trinsic
Trinsic Pro
Valdosta ① ③		Valo
Vann		Vero
Vesna ②		Victorian
Westville		Winde­mere ①
Woodhurst		Wynn
Zalia ①		Zura
Exclusive to: ①Lowes ②Online sales ③Menards ④Costco ⑤Sam's Club ⑥Ferguson ⑦Home Depot ⑧Trades Canada Legend:  U.S.A.   China  Vietnam

In its last known "Buy Amer­i­can Act" catalog in 2011, Delta claimed to manufacture 100% of its faucets equipped with Dia­mond Seal Tech­nol­ogy valves in the U.S. That statement is no longer true.

Very few, if any, current Delta fau­cets produced in North Am­er­ica can now qualify as "Made in USA." To claim that designation, most of the parts and components going into a Del­ta fau­cet would have to also be made in the U.S.^[7]

They aren't.

Delta has not expanded production in North Am­er­ica since 2013 when it enlarged its Greens­burg plating and finishing plant – not to make more faucets but to manufacture acrylic tubs and shower enclosures.

Delta closed its factory in Chick­a­sha, Ok­la­ho­ma, laying off 600 Amer­ican workers, soon after its new plant in Panyu, China became operational.

The China plant, owned by Del­ta's Chin­ese subsidiary, Del­ta Fau­cet (China) Co. Ltd., was intended to manufacture faucets, Del­ta's line of economy fau­cets and to produce faucets for the Chinese market.

True to the company's original intention, much of the factory's Peerless production is exported to the U.S. and Canada.

But, it also makes some of the components used to assemble Del­ta fau­cets in North Amer­i­ca, and very possibly some fully assembled Del­ta faucets (although we have not been able to confirm that fact from import records).

Delta also owns a Mex­ican

Delta makes a few faucet parts and components in Mexico, but we have found no evidence that any of Del­ta's finished faucets are imported from south of the border.^[8]

Delta has chosen to extend its production not by investing in plant expansion but by outsourcing its manufacturing to other companies.

Most Del­ta faucets are now made by contract manufacturers overseas.

Delta's principal suppliers of finished Delta and faucets are the following, all of which are companies.

• 
  Lota is an manufacturer of fau­cets, showers, plumbing fittings, and bathroom accessories founded in 1990. Its primary business is the design and manufacture of bath and kitchen plumbing products for other companies.

• Lota appears to be Delta's principal faucet manufacturer. We tracked a number of shipments from Lota to Delta since 2018 containing over 10,000 faucets each. Even by Delta standards, that's a lot of faucets.

• In addition to manufacturing for Delta, Lota makes faucets for

• PPI (Xiamen) Industry Co., Ltd.
  PPI is a Chinese manufacturer of faucets and showers. It manufactures its own PPI line of faucets sold in Asia and the Mid-East.

• In addition to the faucets it manufactures for Delta, PPI makes most of the faucets sold by Spectrum Brands and some of the faucets sold in Canada by

• Runner Group
  Founded in Tai­wan in 1976 as Runner Technology Co., the company relocated to mainland China in 1989 once the Communist Party began allowing foreign investment.

• The Group owns ten subsidiaries in Asia that manufacture kitchen and bathroom fixtures, fittings, water, and air purification devices, and health care equipment. Delta imports faucets and faucet components from three of those subsidiaries: (Xiamen) Easo Co., Ltd. located in Fujian,(Xi­a­men) Run­ner In­dust­rial Corp., Ltd., and Run­ner In­dus­try (Thai­land) Co., Ltd. located in Rayong.

• Runner manufactures fau­cets or fau­cet components for several other fau­cet companies that sell in North Amer­i­ca , including

• Sea­gull Kit­chen and Bath Pro­ducts Co., Ltd.
  Founded in 1958, Seagull has eleven factories in China and two more in Vietnam. It manufactures kitchen and bath faucets and shower systems that it sells under its own brand in Asia.

• It also makes faucets and faucet components for other companies as an manufacturer. These include

These are not Del­ta's only outside faucet suppliers. A large number of manufacturers from China, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Vietnam make the various parts and components used in Delta faucets, but not fully finished faucets. These are much too numerous to list.

The Diamond Seal Technology^® (DST) Valve

Delta's pioneering washerless cartridge is well on its way to a richly-earned retirement after a nearly 50-year career.

Its replacement in an inceasing number of Del­ta fau­cets is a proprietary ceramic disk super cartridge invented by Del­ta: the Dia­mond Seal Tech­nol­ogy (DST) cartridge.

The company claims that this cartridge is a quantum leap in cartridge design.

We think it a major improvement in cartridge technology – "quantum leap", however, remains to be seen. Check back in 50 years or so.

Diamond dust is embedded in one disk of the two-disk set. The diamond dust takes the place of the water-resistant lubricant normally used in ceramic disk cartridges.

According to Del­ta, the diamond coating helps keep the disks absolutely smooth since the coated disk continuously scrubs and polishes the other disk so they always mesh perfectly. It also continuously grinds away any mineral deposits that may insinuate themselves between the disks.

Also according to the company, the more you use it, the smoother it gets – very much the opposite of ordinary ceramic cartridges that get stiffer with time and use as the lubricant between the disks wears away.

Delta manufactures DST cartridges in the U.S. at its plastics plant in Mor­gan­town, Ken­tucky using imported ceramic discs.

Its disc suppliers appear to be:

• Maruwa Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of a Jap­a­nese company, manufactures in Ma­lays­ia. It also manufactures ceramic discs for Moen's new Duralast ceramic cartridges.

• Kerox Kft, a Hun­gar­i­an manufacturer of top-quality ceramic cartridges used by dozens of European and Asian fau­cet manufacturers, including

Both companies have solid reputations for good to excellent

Each uses the same basic material but technical ceramics emphasizes robustness and durability while decorative ceramics are made to be pretty.

Delta has had this cartridge independently tested through 5 million cycles – 10 times the lifespan of a typical ceramic cartridge – equivalent to approximately 700 years of daily use in your kitchen or bath.^[9]

But, if it does leak and you need to replace the cartridge, it's very easy to do, and the new cartridge is usually free to the original owner of the faucet under Del­ta's lifetime warranty.

DST cartridges are already available in most Del­ta single-handle faucets, and will eventually be the only type of cartridges used.

Other Delta Valves

The cartridges used in Delta's two-handle faucets are a medley of different cartridges and different manufacturers. Some of the latest models use Dia­mond Seal Tech­nol­ogy cartridges. These can be identified by the "DST" in their model numbers.

Older faucet collections are stuck with ceramic discs that do not have the diamond dust coating. A few, primarily in the Classic and Foundations collections are still equipped with washerless cartridges.

Most of Del­ta's non-DST cartridges are proprietary, patented products manufactured by Delta in Mor­gan­town, Ken­tucky, but it also buys ceramic cartridges from other companies, including:

• Flühs Drehtechnik in Germany (often spelled Fluehs for English speakers), a manufacturer of some of the world's best ceramic cartridges. These are used in a few wall-mounted faucets, notably those in the Addison collection.

• Kuch­ing In­ter­na­tion­al, Ltd., a Taiwan-based manufacturer that sells KCG-branded cartridges internationally,

• Sedal S.L.U, a manufacturer chartered in Spain but manufacturing in China in two facilities: Sedal Technical Ceramics in Jiangmen and Sedal Kaiping.

Delta's Exclusive Faucets

Delta makes some faucets available only to certain retailers.

Some Delta faucets are earmarked for online sellers only and are not available to brick-and-mortar retailers. Some are exclusive to the building trades.

Others are supplied only to big box lumber stores: Home Depot, Lowes, and Menards. The warehouse retailers, Costco and Sam's Club, also have their own Delta faucets, as does the plumbing supply distributor, Ferguson Enterprises (Wolesey in Canada).

Exclusive faucets are a boon to discount retailers that can always claim to have the lowest prices on an exclusive model. They know is not sold by any other retailer.

The exclusivity is not ironclad, however.

A collection may contain one or more faucets exclusive to certain sellers This does not necessarily mean that every faucet in the collection is earmarked for those sellers. Some collections contain non-exclusive as well as exclusive faucets.

Some faucets such as those in the Porter and Valdosta collections are split among multiple sellers, and some exclusive faucets are just Delta's regular models renumbered. The B2511LF from the Foundations collection, for example, is the B2514LF-PPU-ECO in Menards and the B2511LF-PPU-12 at the Home Depot. It's exactly the same faucet, just renumbered.

Construction & Materials

Brass containing lead is no longer allowed in the parts of a fau­cet that touch water.

Lead, even in small amounts, is a known health hazard, especially to children. Accoding to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), lead causes brain damage, slowed development, and speech and hearing problems.

Water passing through brass channels can pick up small amounts of lead from leaded brass.

The current North Amer­i­can lead-free faucet standards are the strictest in the world – so strict that lead in faucet brass has effectively been banned and is 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.

The cost of lead-free brass has forced faucet companies to search for ways to minimize its use while still producing robust, lifetime faucets.

Core and Shell Construction

One of the most effective is core and shell construction.

In a conventional faucet, the body and spout do double duty. Tney give the faucet is appearance and style. But, they are also the components through which water moves in the faucet.

In core and shell constructon, the two functions are separate. Water is channled through tubes inside the faucet. It never touches the outside shell of the faucet.

Delta has adopted core and shell technology for its new faucets.

The core is composed cross-linked polyethylene (PEX)^[10] tubes that are threaded through the faucets body and spout. Typically the tubes extend all the way from the shutoff valve under the sink to the tip of the spout as one continuous, unbroken channel.

PEX is a very strong but chemically inert plastic. It contains no metal. The water cannot possibly pick up any lead from the tubes.

Delta calls this core its Innoflex^™ waterway. In addition to eliminating the need for lead-free brass, the technology alse offers several other advantages over traditional faucet construction.

• It reduces the number of connections needed in the water channel, decreasing the risk of leaks.

• It eliminates the shell as a structural component. It is no longer under pressure. Water is entirely contained within the PEX tubing. Not being under water pressure, the outer structure of the faucet can be a thin-walled skin.

• It creates an air gap between the the In­no­flex tubing and the outer shell of the fau­cet, virtually eliminating heat transfer to the shell so it does not get uncomfortably hot in use.

• It reduces many of the constraints on faucet design.

• In traditional faucet construction, the design of the faucet can affect how the faucet works. Designers have to be constantly aware of the interplay between their design and the operation of the faucet.

• With core and shell, the function of the faucet is almost entirely contained within the core. The outside shell has nothing to do with the operation of the fau­cet. Designers are free to concentrate on how the shell looks rather than how it works, giving them more design flexibility.

InnoFlex construction is used in most new Delta faucet collections. Older collections are not being converted to the new technology, however. As older models are retired, traditional faucet construction will largely retire with them, and eventually, most if not all Delta and Brizo faucets will be constructed using core and shell technology.

Materials

One of the failings of Delta's website is that it does not usually identify the primary and secondary materials from which faucets are made.

While most of Delta's older faucets are still made out of brass usng conventinal construction, the decorative shell of many, if not most, of Delta's new faucets is made of a zinc alloy call ^[11]

Zinc is not as strong as brass and not a suitable as brass for parts of a faucet under water pressure. But, for non-pressurized parts, zinc is adequate. It its easier to cast, machines well, takes finishes readily.

Plastic is another matter.

Plastic has become almost universal in and housings for some cartridge valves. In these applications, they have worked very well, which is a little surprising. One of the tests that cartridges must survive in order to be certified is a surge test in which the plastic cartridge must survive a pressure surge of a whopping 500 psi for one minute without deforming.

Unfortunately, however, plastics have also become common in the spray heads ("wands" in the fau­cet-speak) of kitchen fau­cets

Manufacturers such as Delta began switching from metal to plastic wands a few years ago for three reasons:

• Plastic does not get uncomfortably hot in use like metal wands;

• Plastic is not as heavy and is more comfortable to hold for a long period of time; and

• Plastic is much, much cheaper than stainless or brass.

It is also true, however, that plastic fails more often than metal wands. But, it has now become almost unavoidable.

Touch₂O^® and VoiceIQ^™ Automatic Faucets

Other Del­ta innovations include its electronic hands-free faucets. Touch₂O^® technology allows a faucet to be turned on and off just by touching the faucet. VoiceIQ^™ uses voice commands to do the same thing, and to set water temperature and specify the amount of water your want the faucet to dispense – any volume from a teaspoon to a gallon.

The Delta Pivotal pulldown kitchen faucet with Touch₂o hands-free technology in Black Stainless.

Touch₂O

Touch on/off technology has been around for decades, used originally to operate lamps. It makes use of the capacitance of the faucet – its ability to hold a certain number of electrons. Touching the faucet imports additional electrons from your body – not many, but a detectable number. The faucet reacts to this change in capacitance by activating a solenoid to turn the water on or off.

Touch technology differs from the touchless systems used by other companies that require some sort of sensor, usually an electric eye. Passing a hand in front of the sensor turns the faucet on or off.

Touch₂O works well. The only problem we found was that it's fairly easy to accidentally activate the faucet in the ordinary course of washing up, and some events other than touching will sometimes activate the faucet. Touch₂O combats this rare problem by automatically turning the water off if it does not detect activity for four minutes in kitchen faucets or one minute in bathroom faucets.

VoiceIQ

VoiceIQ is a much more complex technology. It requires either Google Assistant or Amazon's Alexa installed in the home, so most buyers will have some degree of ditital literacy.

Still, only one of our testers was able to install the system on the first try. The process is complicated and requires switching back and forth between the Delta installation app and your home system.

The best results flow from watching one of the several installation videos on YouTube before attempting the installation.

The array of measurement units VoiceIQ understands is impressive: fluid ounces, cups, pints, quarts, gallons, liters, and milliliters. It also comprehends fractions, but only in the format "one quarter" or "one half". "One quarter cup" will work but "a quarter cup" will not.

The downsides are several.

• It works only with Touch₂O-enabled faucets that are also VoiceIQ capable which eliminates all of Delta's two handle faucets and any Touch₂O faucet manufactured before January 1, 2018.

• The faucet handle must be left in the on position at all times – to us this is a splendid example of an accident waiting to happen.

• Voice commands must be fairly precise, otherwise the device does not know what to do. "Turn on," not "turn faucet on." To get a measured amount of water, the command must begin with the word dispense as in "Dispense one cup." For a custom container such as a baby bottle, the command is "Fill."

• And, of course, you must first wake up Google Assistant or Alexa with "Hey Google" or "Alexa."

• With Alexa, there is no means of locking out specific users. A child can have an amazing good time putting the system through its paces. Google's Android operating system has a function called Voice Match that helps to prevent unauthorized use, but it is a chalenge to set up and is anything but infallable. If you catch a cold, you could find yourself locked out.

A Solution in Search of a Problem?

We are somewhat skeptical of electronic technology of all kinds in a residential sink faucet.

It seems to us to be rather gimmicky – a solution in search of a problem. Yes, it's rad, cool, awesome, and all the other usual adolescent hyperboles, and at a little more than $160.00 ($200.00 CAD) on top of the cost of a Touch₂O faucet, even VoiceIQ is affordable. But is it needed?

At this point in its evolution, Touch₂O does nothing more than turn the water on and off. It does not regulate flow rate or water temperature. So it's not a true hands-free operation.

VoiceIQ is a little more capable. It can adjust water temperature, but only if the faucet handle is left on and in the full hot position which, again, looks to us like an even more serious accident waiting to happen, especially with young children in the household.

The ability to dispense measured amounts of water is novel and clever but of limited utility.

The process has a built-in lag time (or "latency," as the digital cognoscenti like to call it) between giving the command to Google or Alexa and getting the result over wi-fi.

It is usually not more than two or three seconds, but in that two or three seconds, you could already have gotten your half cup of water manually and be off to some other task.

Durability of Electronic Components

More importantly, the current digital electronic technology is not very robust.

In public restroom fau­cets where the technology was first tried and is at its most mature, the electronics is usually the first component of an automatic faucet to fail.

The technology needs to get a lot more reliable, almost to the

Neither does Del­ta.

While Del­ta provides a lifetime warranty on all of the other parts of its faucets, the warranty on the electronic components of the Touch₂O and VoiceIQ technology is just 5 years – longer than the 1-3 year warranty offered by many other faucet companies on their electronics, but still considerably shorter than a lifetime guarantee.

In our experience, once the novelty of hands-free operation has worn off, the feature is rarely used because it simply is not that much more convenient than manual operation, and when the technology fails, many of our customers don't bother to have it fixed.

Delta Faucet Finishes

Delta faucets are available in 22 standard finishes including 7 .

One finish, Bright Stainless Steel, is not an applied finish but the material from which the stainless steel faucet is made: buffed and polished to a high shine.

Four finishes – Chrome, Brushed Nickel, Artic Stainless, and Black Stainless – are .

Black, Oil-Rubbed Bronze, Peened Stain­less, Vene­tian Bronze, and White are .

The three remaining finishes – Stainless, Polished Brass, and Champagne Bronze – are the company's patented Bril­liance^® finishes developed by sister company, Va­por Tech­nol­ogies Inc., one of the early pioneers of PVD coatings.

Physical Vapor Deposition

The PVD finishing process is almost science fiction.

Load a chamber with unfinished fau­cet components. Remove all the air and add back a carefully calculated mix of nitrogen and reactive gases.

Add a chunk of the metal to be used for the coating, usually in the form of a rod then heat that rod to a temperature so high that the rod dissolves into individual atoms.

The atoms mix with the various reactive gases to get the color and finish effects you want and are then deposited in a very thin layer – 2 to 5 microns (.00008-.0002") – on the faucets.

PVD is commonly used to simulate metals that tarnish or corrode using metals that do not.

PVD brass can be created, for example, using a very hard and tarnish-resistant titanium alloy as the coating metal with nitrogen gas. Adding methane to the mix reddens the color, producing rose brass, and adding a dash of acetylene darkens the finish for an antique or vintage brass effect.

The very dense PVD coating is very thin but also very hard (Rockwell HRC-80+ and Vicker HV-2600+) and bonded to the fau­cet at a molecular level, essentially becoming an integral part of the fabric of the fau­cet, In abrasion tests, PVD finishes are regularly found to be 10 to 20 times more scratch-resistant than electroplated chrome.

In our tests, a Scotch Brite^® heavy-duty scouring pad was able to damage a Brilliance finish slightly, and it still took considerable effort. Brillo^® pads had no effect at all. (Nonetheless, keep all scouring pads far, far away from your faucet finish.)

Electroplating

is the time-proven standard, having served the industry well for over 100 years. It involves immersing the faucet 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 faucet. Chrome is the most commonly used plated metal, followed distantly by nickel.

In most instances, electroplating is a multi-coat process. Undercoats of copper and nickel usually precede the final decorative coating. The undercoats have two purposes:

• Some metals, chrome being one, do not adhere very well to naked brass. One or more nickel undercoats are used before the chrome is applied so the finish does not flake or peel. If finishing zinc, undercoats of copper then nickel are commonly used. The copper sticks well to zinc, nickle adheres tightly to copper, and chrome bonds securely to nickel.

• Undercoats help smooth out any imperfections in the faucet matrial. PVD, for example, has no gap-filling properties whatsoever, so it is not uncommon for faucets to be undercoated with electroplated nickel and/or chrome before a PVD coating is applied. The undercoats eliminate any potential flaws in the surface so they don't show up in the final finish.

Powder Coating

are much less robust, usually described as "semi-durable", requiring more care than electroplated or PVD finishes to maintain a like-new appearance.

The powder is applied using a special low-velocity spray gun that disperses the powder while giving it a positive electrical charge. The powder particles are drawn to the fau­cet which has been given a negative charge.

Once the powder is applied, the fau­cet is baked in an oven at about 400^°F (204^°C) 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.

Hydrophobic & Oleophobic Coatings

Some Delta faucet finishes are given a final coating to combat water spots and fingerprints. There are two types. Lumicoat^™ and Spotshield^®. Spotshield has the additional advantage of being anti-microbial, reducing bacteria and mold accumulation.

According to the company:

"The finish technology allows users to easily wipe the surface clean with only a soft cloth, eliminating the need for cleaners and chemicals."

These are what are known as . They are formulated at the molecular level to shed water. Because water does not stock, it does not dry on the faucet leaving what are called waterspots. Many are also . They repel oil such as the oil on your fingers which makes them fingerprint-resistant.

Typically these coatings are very thin, as thin as 2-4 , so thin that they do not obscure the finish under the coating or change its appearance.

Currently, there are two SpotShield finishes, Spotshield Brushed Nickel and Spotshield Stainless. Lumicoat is available on a much wider range of finishes. Faucets available in Lumicoat finishes are identified on Delta's website.

We have seen no data on the durability of Lumicoat or Spotshield. Delta undoubtedly has such data, but has not seen fit to make it public.

Whatever the finishing technology used, however, Del­ta guarantees all faucet finishes for a lifetime, indicating a very high level of confidence in the durability of its finishes.

Be aware, however, that scratches, chips, and other damage resulting from lack of care in cleaning or maintenance are not included in Delta's warranty (or any faucet warranty for that matter). Nor is ordinary wear and tear.

Improved Faucet Designs

Delta fau­cets have historically been long on solid engineering and precise manufacturing but more than a little short on style.

The times, they are a-changin', however.

Delta has borrowed a little design pizzaz from to lend a little oomph to its collections. We are starting to see Delta fau­cets that, while certainly not avant-garde, are a giant step up in the style department.

The collections are still skewed toward traditional and transitional faucets – Del­ta's meat and potatoes market. But, some designs featuring the angularity and industrial simplicity favored by European designers are starting to show up. By far, however, most Del­ta faucets still retain the sweeping, graceful curves that are characteristic of Amer­i­can/Can­a­dian faucet design.

For a true designer faucet from Masco, you might have to step up to its higher-end faucet line. Same first-class customer service, recise engineering, and quality manufacturing, just more style.

Unlike Delta faucets which win awards for advanced technology such as an Adex award for its Temp₂O faucets, Brizo wins awards for its designs.

Brizo faucets have won numerous awards in international design competitions. These include a prestigious Red Dot award for its Artesso^™ collection and the even more esteemed Good Design award for the Articulating^™ kitchen faucet and the Kintsu^™ bath collection.

Limitations on Discounts

No matter where you buy a Delta faucet, do not expect a substantial discount. The company maintains a

A dealer that violates the policy is at risk of losing its authorization to sell Del­ta products.

Counterfeit Delta Faucets

If you buy from a source that is not authorized, then most likely you are getting a counterfeit Delta faucet.

The counterfeiting of popular faucets seems to be a cottage industry in China, helped along by "entrepreneurs" in former Soviet Bloc countries, especially Russia. (See Delta Fau­cet Comp­any sues Rus­sian Coun­ter­feiters.)

Delta regularly sues unauthorized sellers, most notably storefront operators on e-commerce hosting sites like Amazon.com, for trademark infringement pursuant to 15 U.S.C. ^§§ 1116 and 1117(a) and unfair competition under the Lanham Act 15 U.S.C. ^§ 1125(a).

Bit, this is like playing whack-a-mole. The offenders simply go out of business and reappear under another name and storefront. Amazon and similar hosting websites do almost nothing to ensure hosted sellers are authorized to sell their products, and the products are safe and not fake.

The Chinese B2B website, Alibaba.com, offers numerous copycat Delta faucets some of which are fairly good imitations. But, they are not certified lead-free to North Amer­i­can standards and are not legal to install in a drinking-water system in North Am­er­ica.

It is not a simple matter to identify a counterfeit faucet. Delta suggests the following clues, but even these are not always sufficient:

"Most of the Delta faucets will have the name on the faucet, usually on the escutcheon plate or drain cap. However, it is not uncommon for someone to replace the lavatory faucet without replacing the drain assembly. Some of the older models may not say Delta, but may indicate MASCO on the aerator. If the internal parts have not been changed from the Genuine Delta parts, the seats will have Delta on them and two handle stems that are "D"-shaped."

Delta will not honor a warranty on non-genuine Delta faucets and no replacement parts are available. So, if you end up with a counterfeit Delta faucet, you are on your own. There is no help when it breaks, as it most assuredly will.

The Delta Website

The Del­ta website is well-designed, informative, and easy to navigate using a menu-driven paradigm. The site is multi-national. It allows instant switching to the sites for Canada (English and French), Brasil, India (English), and China (still under construction as of the date of this report).

Faucets can be displayed by room (kitchen or bath). Filters permit further discrimination by configuration (centerset, pulldown, vessel, hands-free, etc.), price range, flow rate, number of handles, and finish.

The filter options are not complete, however. In selecting kitchen faucets, for example, you can filter on "single-handle", but a filter for two-handle kitchen faucets is not available.

The site search function is fairly robust. It does well on product searches. A search for "Cassidy sink faucets" turned up all of the sink faucets in the Cassidy collection, but the term "sink' was crucial. Otherwise, everything in the Cassidy collection is displayed: faucets, showers and shower components, tub fillers, tub spouts, and bathroom accessories such as towel racks, robe hooks, and toilet paper holders – 257 products in all.

Once you arrive at a suitable faucet the information about the faucet is comprehensive but not sufficient for an informed buying decision. An informed decision requires that all of the specifications needed to determine the suitability and longevity of a faucet be provided by the seller.

Faucets are briefly described and downloadable technical specification sheets with more detailed information are provided. These typically include a measured drawing that is very useful in determining whether a faucet will fit your sink.

Other downloads include installation instructions and an exploded parts diagram.

The installation instructions are detailed and complete with diagrams and illustrations that make the installation process very clear.

Certain essential information is missing from the website, however.

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

We assume most Del­ta faucets are made of brass, but we can't be sure because the company website does not identify any faucet's material.

We do know, however, that some Del­ta faucets including those in the Leland, Lenta, and Vesna collections, are made from a zinc alloy, which leads us to suspect that others may also be zinc.

Zinc and its alloys are suitable for those parts of a faucet not under water pressure.

In faucets that are made with Innoflex technology, the outer shell is not pressurized, so zinc is entirely adequate, generally less expensive, and does not detract from the quality of the faucet.

Delta explains its use of zinc in its faucet shells as follows:

"The thin zinc cover is much more uniform than brass; it provides near net shape die casting with tolerances of 0.005 in., requiring less polishing. … After machining, minor polishing, and buffing, the faucet shells are copper-nickel-chrome electroplated."

While this explanation is definitely in engineer-speak rather than regular English, what it means is that zinc can be die-cast more precisely than brass and takes finishes just as readily after being undercoated with copper (which adheres well to zinc), then nickel (which bonds well with copper), and, finally, with chrome (which attaches well to nickel).

Faucets with Di­a­mond Seal Tech­nol­ogy cartridges are identified by the letters "DST" that are part of the model number. But, of course, you have to know that DST means the faucet includes a Di­a­mond Seal Tech­nol­ogy cartridge.

Delta mentions the association at various places on its website, but not with each faucet listing, so, the association is easy to miss.

For faucets that do not include DST cartridges, the identity of the cartridge is not provided, and sometimes not even the type of cartridge. Some older Delta faucets, including those in the Classics and Foundations collections, are still fitted with Del­ta ball valves – a good valve for its time, but now severely dated.

These are usually identified only as "washerless" cartridges, but the faucet industry term, "washerless", is not one that is familiar to the general public and is never explained. Most readers would not understand that it refers to a non-ceramic cartridge or that the cartridge requires periodic maintenance.

Two-handle fau­cets are fitted with stem cartridges, but the type of stem cartridge, ceramic or washerless is not indicated.

From inspection, we believed most of these to be plastic body ceramic cartridges. Some collections include faucets with a washerless cartridge.

Most homeowners do not want the bother of replacing seals and springs periodically and should be allowed the opportunity to make an informed choice by being advised of the type of cartridge in a faucet and the periodic maintenance required, if any.

We give the website an A- for design and navigation, but only a C for the completeness of the faucet information provided.

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

Delta's Warranty

Delta faucet offers a residential lifetime warranty on the mechanics and finishes of its faucets to the original buyer of a faucet, and this includes its cartridges. Lifetime for warranty purposes is defined as

"… for as long as the original consumer purchaser owns the home in which the faucet was first installed …"

That definition is defective and may result in consequences not anticipated by Del­ta. Fortunately, the defect benefits Delta's customers more than it benefits Delta.^[12]

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

The warranty 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) 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 under Secton 5 of the FTC Act but has so far not taken any action against violators.

The law in most states and territories of the United States provides multiple remedies for consumer product failures, so a manufacturer's written warranty is never the exclusive remedy, and Del­ta's warranty is no exception.

Delta's Customer Service

Delta's warranty service more than makes up for most minor deficiencies in its warranty, however.

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 and Certification

Delta Faucet Company is recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency as a WaterSense^® Partner. EPA Watersense Partnership is limited to companies that manufacture, assemble, or import water-saving products that are certified to meet exacting WaterSense specifications.

Comparable Faucets

Faucets comparable to Del­ta in quality and warranty protection but not necessarily in price or design ininclude

Conclusions

Delta offers a good, solid, reliable, durable, dependable, and increasingly stylish lifetime faucet well supported by a strong warranty and a responsive and effective customer service organization.

Faucet Street Price Comparison

In U.S. Dollars

Most Delta faucets are no longer produced in the U.S. or Canada, but that transition does not seem to have affected the quality of the faucets. Those who insist on buying Amer­i­can may be put off, but it should not be for lack of quality.

Our rating of the company's products has improved over time with the widespread adoption of the Diamond Seal cartridge and InnoFlex waterways in its faucets. The new cartridge is proving to be something of a phenomenon, with very few reported problems since its introduction. The Innoflex waterway is equally impressive. It seems to be living up to its promise of lead-free water delivery using the fairly inexpensive but reliable PEX material.

If you are considering the purchase of a Del­ta faucet, choose a faucet that has a Diamond Seal Technology cartridge in preference to one that does not. DST is the 21st-century technology with the promise of an actual lifetime cartridge

Also, give preference to a rilliance^® PVD finish. PVD is the most worry-free of all finish technologies. The finishes will keep their like-new looks for a very long time with minimal care.

All members of our panel of reviewers indicated that they would have no hesitation buying a Delta bath or kitchen faucet for their own homes "without reservation."

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