Design House Ashland Bar Faucet Nickel
Design House Faucets Review & Rating Updated: 02/12/21
Summary
Imported
China
DHI Corp.
5205 West Donges Bay Rd.
Mequon, WI 53092
800-558-8700
262-242-5205
cs@todaysdesignhouse.com
Rating
Business Type
Product Range
Kitchen, Bath, Prep, Bar and Laundry
Certifications
Warranty Score
Proof of Purchase
Required
Meets U.S. Warranty
Law Requirements
No
Footnotes:1. "The owner of the product claiming under this warranty must be the original owner of the product and must occupy the residential premises upon which the product was originally installed.... [The]customer shall be responsible for all costs incurred in the removal, reinstallation, and shipment of the product for repair."
Download the Design House faucet warranty.
This Company In Brief
DHI Corporation is a Wisconsin company that imports Chinese-made products that are branded and sold under the Design House name.
It sells through a dealer network and a variety of internet retailers including Wayfair, Amazon, and Walmart.
Its specialty is coordinated products in suites to builders and decorators that include faucets, showers, lighting, ceiling fans, doorknobs, cabinet hardware, and bath accessories such as towel bars and toilet paper holders, all in what the company guarantees will be the same finish.
Its sink faucets are just a minor part of its home décor business. The faucets are average to slightly above average in quality supported by a 5-year warranty that is very substandard compared to the "lifetime warranty" standard for North American faucet warranties. Customer support is very good. Replacement parts may be a problem, however, especially for discontinued faucets.
Founded in 1872 as the Butter Company to sell building materials, the company was owned by four generations of the Butter family until it was sold in 2000. The new owners changed the name and the focus of the company from selling building materials to home décor products imported from China.
DHI is not a faucet company. Faucets are only a tiny part of its overall business. It is more accurately a home décor company that sells lighting, furniture and accessories, cabinet and door hardware, and outdoor furniture as well as showers and faucets.
Its specialty is selling coordinated products in suites to builders and decorators. The advantage to its customers is the time and effort saved by not having to coordinate a room piece b piece. The company's in-house designers coordinate "finish and style across all major product categories, removing the mystery from product selection." But, for those who like to select their products, The website provides a "Build Your Own" feature that allows customers quickly to select coordinating products to be included in a custom package. For those in a hurry, the company maintains a limited number of "project packs", assembled and ready to ship on short notice.
Its competitors include Northern Central Distributing, Inc., trading as all of which sell substantially the same array of imported products in approximately the same price range.
Collections range from traditional to very contemporary. There is almost certainly at least one faucet in the Design House lineup to suit every décor preference.
Most but not all faucets include a generic Chinese ceramic cartridge. The ceramic cartridges in the Design House faucets are not marked with a manufacturer's stamp. China has some excellent ceramic cartridge manufacturers that have gained an international reputation for quality products. Most of these proudly place a maker's mark on their cartridges. The fact that these cartridges have no mark suggests that they are not from one of these better-quality manufacturers.
Some faucets, particularly those at the lower end of the product's price range, including the Ashland, Millbridge and Saratoga collections, use non-ceramic "washerless" cartridges rather than the more modern and more robust ceramic cartridge.
A "washerless" cartridge does not control water flow with almost indestructible ceramic discs. It is an older technology pioneered by
Faucet Cartridges: Its cartridge is the heart of a modern faucet and should be your very first consideration when making a buying decision. It is the component that controls water flow and temperature. Its finish may fail, and the faucet will still work. It may be discolored, corroded, and ugly, but water still flows. If the cartridge fails, however, the faucet is no longer a faucet. It is out of business until the cartridge is replaced. It's important, therefore, that the cartridge is robust, durable, and lasts for many years.
For more information on faucet vales and cartridges, the differences among them and the history behind each technology, see Faucet Basics, Part 2: Faucet Valves & Cartridges.
Information about the company's faucets on the site is fairly complete. Each faucet entry includes a downloadable specification sheet. The specification sheet is very complete. It includes a dimensioned drawing of the faucet, a list of standards to which the faucet has been certified, whether the faucet is ADA compliant, the finishes in which it is available, and whether the finish is a (PVD) finish.
For a few faucets, a downloadable installation instruction is available. It is well illustrated, very easy to follow, and contains an exploded drawing showing all of the parts of the faucet and a spare parts list.
We would like to see more information about a faucet's cartridge including its manufacturer and the type of finish identified (not just PVD or Non-PVD, but see our Design House Faucet Finish Chart) but, otherwise, we think the information available on the spec sheets supports a reasonably informed buying decision.
The company is refreshingly candid about the material used in its faucets. It identifies faucets that are brass hybrids – made of brass and some other metal (usually zinc or a zinc/aluminum alloy). For example, most Design House metal faucet handles are a zinc/aluminum alloy rather than brass.
Hybrid faucets are becoming increasingly common. Lead-free brass is expensive. Zinc and zinc alloys are not. The strength of brass is necessary to withstand typical household water pressure year after year. But for parts that are not under pressure such as base plates and handles, zinc is good enough and saves a few dollars in manufacturing costs.
Known manufacturers of Design House faucets over the past five years include:
- Delmei Sanitary Ware Co., Ltd., a manufacturer in China. Delmei was at one time a manufacturer of some of the brand faucets for RONA in Canada but that relationship appears to have ended.
- Guangdong Meijie Faucet Co., Ltd., also a Chinese manufacturer specializing in faucets destined for the North American market. It manufactures faucets for
- (Xiamen) Easo Co.,Ltd. is a Runner Group company located in Fujian,China that manufactures a broad assortment of sanitary fittings, including shower systems and faucets. The company also manufactures for
- Tarng Haur Faucet Enterprises Co., Ltd., which appears to manufacture the majority of Design House faucets. Tarng is a company chartered in Taiwan but manufacturing through a subsidiary in Shenzen, China. Tarng makes some private label It markets its own brand of faucets under the Theco Sanitary & Faucet brand, primarily in Asia.
- NCIP, Inc. is another company chartered in Taiwan but manufacturing in China. NCIP is a certified company. It also manufactures faucets for
- a Chinese company that manufactures components and finished faucets for the who's-who of faucet companies selling in North America including
The faucets are stock faucets straight out of each manufacturer's and are neither designed nor manufactured expressly for DHI. In fact, many of the faucets sold by DHI are also sold by other vendors in the U.S.
The faucet designs are stylish but conservative. Chinese faucet designs tend to be conservative, targeting mass-market customers. A faucet design that proves popular in the European or North American markets will ultimately be copied by Chinese factories. The lag time is normally three to five years behind the Western designs. Design House prices are somewhat lower than the average price charged by other importers of Chinese- and Taiwanese-made faucets (See the list below).
The company offers five finishes on its faucets, showers, tub fittings and bathroom accessories: Chrome, Satin Nickel, Oil-Rubbed Bronze, Brushed Bronze, and Matte Black. Two of the finishes, Chrome and Satin Nickel, are , the rest are .
Electroplating is the well-established, traditional finish for faucets that has been around nearly since faucets were invented. It is a process of coating one metal with another using an electrical current to transfer the metal ions through an acid bath. The resulting finish is durable and reliable.
Powder coatings, which are essentially a paint applied in powder form, are much less robust, usually described as "semi-durable", requiring more care 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 a durability that is somewhat more robust than the finish on your car, but not nearly as tough as an electroplated finish.
Faucet Finishes in Detail: For information on faucet finishes and the advantages and disadvantages of each type of finish, see Faucet Finishes.
DHI has at least two different faucet warranties. The written information packaged with some faucets contains a lifetime warranty. On the website, however, the warranty is for five years – a warranty that is very sub-standard for the North American faucet industry.
The federal Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (15 U.S.C. §2308) handles multiple warranties on the same product in a very simple way. It selects the terms most favorable to the consumer. So where a lifetime warranty accompanies a faucet, that is the warranty.
For rating purposes, however, we accept the published warranty (on the website) as the "official" warranty, and that warranty is not very strong. It provides a five-year warranty on faucets, except finishes which are covered for a "lifetime." Whose of what lifetime is not specified, but it applies only to the "original owner of the product" as long as the owner occupies "the residential premises upon which the product was originally installed."
The warranty generally complies with the minimum requirements of the federal Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act except for two objectionable provisions.
The first is this statement:
"The customer's legal rights are limited to those stated specifically in this warranty statement."
That restriction is directly contrary to the language required by Magnuson-Moss in every consumer warranty, which is the following:
"This warranty gives you specific legal rights, and you may also have other rights which vary from state to state." (Emphasis supplied)
The provision would never survive a court challenge. Not only is it at odds with Magnuson-Moss, but it intentionally misrepresents the rights of a faucet buyer under federal law, and is, therefore, deceptive. Deceptive language in a warranty is not only banned by Magnuson-Moss, but also by Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act which prohibits "a material representation, omission or practice that is likely to mislead a consumer acting reasonably in the circumstances."
The second objectionable provision is the following:
"This warranty is given in lieu of all other warranties expressed or implied, written or oral."
Magnuson-Moss does not allow a company offering a written warranty to avoid liability under statutory implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for purpose provided by state or territorial law in every U.S. state or territory. So this provision has no effect and is, again, a deceptive provision since it is could "mislead a consumer acting reasonably in the circumstances" into believing that statutory implied warranties did not apply to the faucet.
We also do not like the fact that the consumer is responsible for the cost not only of packaging and shipping a defective faucet (or faucet parts) back to DHI but also the cost of shipping the replacement faucet (or parts) back to the consumer. This is penny-pinchery at its most extreme.
DHI customer service is good, scoring a 4.0 out of a possible 5.0 points in our standard customer support tests. Any score of 4.0 or higher is satisfactory. Customer service agents failed knowledge of some technical aspects of faucets, but that was to be expected of a company that does not sell faucets as a major part of its business. The Better Business Bureau scores the company an A+ on a scale of A+ to F for its satisfactory handling of post-sale customer issues including warranty claims.
DHI is meticulous about complying with faucet regulations designed to ensure reliability, safety, and water conservation. All of its faucets have undergone the required testing and are certified safe, reliable, and lead-free.
Faucets manufactured in China or Taiwan that compare to Design House faucets in quality and strength of warranty include:
In summary, Design house sells average to slightly above average sink faucets as a minor part of its home décor business for a fair price supported by a 5-year warranty that is below the "lifetime warranty" standard for North American faucets. Customer support, however, is very good. Replacement parts may be a problem, especially for discontinued faucets.
We are continuing to research the company. If you have experience with Design House faucets, good, bad, or indifferent, we would like to hear about it, so please contact us or post a comment below.
Design House Ashland Bar Faucet Nickel
Source: http://www.starcraftcustombuilders.com/sources.faucets.Design.House.htm
0 Response to "Design House Ashland Bar Faucet Nickel"
Post a Comment