Zazbot Discount Shopping

For several years we have been thinking about changing our kitchen faucet.  It was getting old , a little bit of corrosion around the base had made it look a little unsightly and occasionally we saw a little leak around the base if it was turned in a specific direction. We knew we had to replace it, however every time we went to the store, we were faced with so many choices, we could not make up our minds. Well finally one day we discovered that water was now leaking below the sink and we had no choice but to have the kitchen faucet changed.

There are literally hundreds of designs and styles to chose from. We had a hard time but we were able to narrow down the choices by making a few choices about style , color and design.

Finishes

There are four basic finishes, so if you can narrow your selection down to one choice you have made a lot of progress. Chrome is the old standby. Stainless steel is the new emerging finish in just about everything. There is a blackened bronze style and finally nickel. We ended up choosing a brushed nickel finish which provides a very nice look to our kitchen. One comment that the store sales person mentioned to us is that we should avoid cleaning any of the faucets with any abrasive substance. These materials can scratch the surface of your new kitchen faucet. Selection of the finish is purely personal taste, however if you have chrome or shiny sink you may have to blend your faucet with the finish of the sink.

Features

Next choice will be the kind of features that you would like to have in your kitchen. Most kitchen faucets come with vegetable sprayers, some within the kitchen faucet itself while others will have a separate vegetable sprayer.

Do you want a kitchen faucet with two taps, one for hot and cold water or would you prefer a single swivel kitchen faucet that allows you to blend hot and cold water by adjusting the angle of the kitchen faucet? Both are excellent. It really comes down to the look and feel of the kitchen faucet that you prefer.

There are kitchen faucets that come with anti scald protection systems built into the faucet, there are filtration systems that are built in, there is a pause button control to allow you to temporarily pause the water flow from the pullout wand and there are pot filler kitchen faucets that mount on the wall near the stove to make it easier to fill pots with water.

We ended up choosing the swivel type with the integrated vegetable sprayer. We were not interested in some of the more sophisticated features. The price escalates and you have to ask yourself is this something that will save you time, enhance the kitchen or is it just a gimmick that you can do without.

For us the kitchen faucet  with the swivel single tap approach created the look and feel that we wanted in our kitchen.  We chose the integrated vegetable sprayer as well and we did not go for any of the other features that we felt for us did not add value. This was probably the most difficult part of the decision.  We were not interested in soap dispensers or choice filtration systems. Everyone has different priorities and obviously many people like these features, otherwise the manufacturers would not offer these products.

Selection of Manufacturer

Once we had made the decisions about finish and design, we had narrowed down the number of kitchen faucet significantly. It also eliminated several manufacturers as well. We discussed the merits of the remaining  manufacturers with the sales representative to get a feel for any maintenance issues etc.  Basically it came down to price and warranty at that point.

Installation Issues

We were not changing our kitchen sink, so there was some concern about whether our new faucet would fit the existing sink that we had and whether the new kitchen faucet would cover the existing holes. Turns out that there was no need to worry at least for us.

We were going with a standard kitchen faucet design. Most sinks come with the standard three holes already in place, one each for hot and cold water and one for the actual kitchen faucet dispenser. We would have had a problem if we had chosen a kitchen faucet with hot and cold taps plus a soap dispenser. We would have had to drill a new hole in the sink to accommodate the soap dispenser.

Removing the existing kitchen faucet was difficult. There was a lot of corrosion and the tap did not come out easily, however once we had the old tap out, we were able to install the new kitchen faucet within 30 minutes. This included having to expand the opening for the faucet to pass through the sink. The new kitchen faucet was just a little larger than the existing hole. You can hire a plumber to complete this work for you, however if you can do it yourself successfully, then you will  save a quite a bit.

This left us with two remaining holes which are covered up by the kitchen faucet plate that comes with the new kitchen faucet. Connecting the pipes below the sink was a snap.There were already two valves to shut the water off with a copper stub coming out of each. We used flex pipe with pressure fittings to connect the copper pipes to the stubs coming out of the new kitchen faucet. Just clean the stubs off so there are no rough edges and tighten the flex pipe on to the copper stubs and you are done. Of course you need to make sure that you connect the hot water pipe to the hot water stub on the kitchen faucet.

The beauty of this installation was that there are no soldering requirements. This is much safer since a torch to solder the joints is not needed in a really tight space under the sink.

Tags: faucet, kitchen faucet, scald protection, soap dispenser, vegetable sprayer

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.