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At the risk of having a contract taken out on my life by the home centers, I’m going to give you a few tips on buying new plumbing fixtures when you’re doing your bathroom over or replacing a faucet or replacing a shower valve.
A lot of people have a terrible mindset of to buy the 100 dollar valve. Please don’t do this.
You get really … you truly get what you pay for when you buy a piece of junk valve or faucet or something like that.
You know, you can take one faucet for 40 dollars from Home Depot versus one from the Plumbing Supply and you can feel the weight of them, okay?
Buy them directly from a faucet retailer, buy them online, do your research, stay with the big names: Kohler, Moen, American Standard.
Try to stay away from the Home Center, Big Box store, stuff like Price Fister and the cheaper faucets like that.
Spend more than you’d expect to on faucets, fixtures, and things especially when it’s going inside a wall.
The saddest part is when you get a factory defect shower valve.
You’ve got the tile down and you’ve got your tile man doing an expensive tile job.
You have the walls open, your plumber installs the brass valve body and the water’s off until the tile gets put up, okay?
When the tile gets put up you turn the water on, you find out that the factory shipped valve has been cracked in half or compromised or whatever.
Sure, Home Depot and Lowe’s will give you a new valve but they’re not going to give you a new tile job, Okay?
When a plumber, generally speaking, comes and does a job for you all the materials he supplies they’re going going to be high quality, one, and two they’re going to be warrantied by him, okay?
So don’t go cheap on stuff like that, stay with the good stuff.
Conversely, when you’re going high, end a lot of people like to get the 1500 – 2000 dollar valves, which is fine, they … generally speaking you can spend some really good money on really good equipment for your bathroom and you’re going to love it.
However, if they manufacturer is located in Tuscany and you need parts for it, or they ship the wrong parts, or whatever, do your due diligence, make sure you have access to the components of these valves.
Make sure you have access to a sales rep in case you have a problem because nobody wants to have a bathroom on the verge of being finished that’s being held up by a silly little nut or a washer or a missing handle or something like that.
Okay so spend money on your plumbing fixtures, don’t go the cheap option.
Cheap might work elsewhere in the world but it does not work with plumbing fixtures.