Kitchen faucet advice please!

It's easy to buy a braided hose and replace the plastic one at time of installation. You can scratch that off your list of worries. I advise the pull-out types instead of the pull-down type, and definitely instead of the side sprayer. The pull-out gives you the full force of flow wherever you use it. Remember: Tall pots do not have to fit under the faucet if you have a pull-out

I'd prefer not to have to switch the hose at time of installation. If I don't want to spend the extra $$ on a different hose, how worried should I be about it being a good hose(the one it comes with).
Tall pots have to fit under if I'm washing them. I don't want to bump the faucet while washing/rinsing tall pot or cookie sheet. My old faucet was about 6 1/2" from spout to deck. Kept hitting the faucet when washing something big.

I cooked corn on the cob last night dozen ears of great big PA sweet corn grown locally. It’s the best time of the year here the county fair starts tomorrow and everything is home grown. Well anyway after cleaning all that corn I got out the biggest pot and loaded it up. There was some stuff thawing in the left sink and some stuff waiting to be rinsed off for the dish washer in the right hand sink. So I tossed that pot up on the counter next to the sink and pulled out the end of water thing and pulled it over to the pot and turned on the cold water and filled it right up in about 30 to 60 seconds. I didn’t have to reach down in the sink and break my back I just slid it off the counter and over to the stove. After dinner I put the leftovers away and because the pot is too big for the dishwasher I set it in the right sink put a little soap in it and that is a pump thing built on the left hand side very handy I might add. Scrubbed the pot a little and dumped it out. then I took the water spout and pushed it to the left sink and pulled out the sprayer out of it and flipped that big pot every way it could go and sprayed it clean of soap. Then set the pot to the side to dry and used the wand to rinse the sink clean. Worked real good and I never bumped the pot once with the spray thing. Mine has a weight under the sink that helps the hose go back in. if I shove something tall under that spot the weight gets stuck on it and then the hose is a PITA to get back in. now that I got all the junk out from under the sink we don’t use that thing works slick. Until this thread I didn’t know the height of the end nor did I care. Now I still don’t know the height nor do I care. But I do look at it and wonder how high it is.

Bud, fashion a peice of plywood so many inces from the back of the cupboard so that the hose has it's own space to run in.

Kathy, I really do believe you are pulling our collective chain. Modern faucets don't chip, the hoses very rarely break and you have the option of replacing them easily anyway. You're willing to pay $400 for a faucet but won't spend another $10 for the hose that will give you confidence. We've all had plastic hoses on on our sprayers for the last 30 years, and yet i can't find one thread on this forum about a broken sprayer hose. You want a tall faucet but it can't splash. Did I miss anything? No wait!.... don't answer that.

Actually, I don't want a tall faucet. Just one that has close to an 8" spout height(spout/aerator to deck), longer reach towards front of sink, good water/flow and strong spray and comes in dark bronze . Also, I'd like to hear from others that actually have a faucet they like that is like or similar to what I'm looking for.

Yes, I know, the Kohler forte is great. It actually has the dimensions I want, since it's shorter with over 10" reach and over 8" spout height(spout to counter). it's actually perfect, except for the fact that it doesn't come in the dark bronze color we really want. I'm actually quite disappointed about that, because if it came in the darker bronze, I'd have my faucet picked.

If I do change the hose, should I get the braided stainless or braided nylon? Some say stainless is best, but some say the braided nylon is better.

nealtw said:

Bud, fashion a peice of plywood so many inces from the back of the cupboard so that the hose has it's own space to run in.

Click to expand...

Great idea Neal I will do that. Good winter project.

I select products daily as part of my job and many times I have in my head an ideal product that would suit an intended application perfectly. With the internet the selection process is much simpler than the days when I had to talk to a dozen suppliers if I exhausted my own files and reached out to coworkers in vain. Sometimes the suppliers would then go back and look more and contact additional sources and in the end there were and still are times I would draw a blank and no product was out there that fit my needs. I was then left with altering a commercial product or designing my own product or figuring a way around by making compromises.

That’s where I feel you are with this at this point. You may look long enough and find something made in some remote corner of the world by some company you never heard of that fits the bill. You may find a custom builder of such and item that would cast and make you what you want. You could buy the one you found that was all but the right finish and take it apart and have the finish redone in a plating shop. Or you could pick the closest fit and sacrifice function or looks. The majority of men like function and price as their driving force and many could care less about the color or texture of the products they use as long as they do the job. A lot of women not all like the look of the finished result and will sacrifice a lot of function for looks in that case.

If there isn’t a product out there that matches it all there just isn’t one out there. The way it normally works for me is when I give up and make my selection and put it into place the next week a new product comes on the market that is exactly what I’m looking for.

Now I’m going back to looking for that new car I want. I want it to look like a corvette only 4WD and can go off road and pull a large loaded trailer get 40MPG hold 6 adults and cost under 12 grand. I know there is one out there.

Kathy, with a pull-out faucet you won't have to worry about the reach so much because you will be able to pull the hose out to reach. If you are worried about things hitting the faucet because it is too short, look for a faucet that has a swivel spout so you can push it out of the way.

You can ask questions about poducts on amazon, HomeDepot, and Lowes and sometimes the manufacturers will answer. HomeDepot and Lowes seemed more likely to get mfr responses on their websites-- that is if they are carrying the products.

I've heard that the stainless steel braided hoses are good. The hose in my faucet is plastic and it hasn't leaked or had problems in the 10+ years that I've been very rough on the faucet.

The people who complained about the 1.5gpm being low pressure were probably previously using older unthrottled faucets that were made prior to the eco-friendly rules were put in place to try to control water usage. Also, some people might just have bad water pressure to begin with and it might not have anything to do with the faucet.

There are also tricks with improving the force of a spray-- such as using your thumb to make the opening smaller so the water comes out in a more concentrated area. You can also probably remove flow restriction devices.

I know how you feel about not being able to find something that fits all of your parameters. I'm very picky about things, but I agree with bud, that sometimes it is best to just go with what has the best function. If you find something later on that seems perfect, you can try to sell the used faucet on craigslist or ebay or something. I know that's not what you really want, but its something to keep in mind.

if the plastic spray hose is bugging you get a different hose

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