Fantastic, understated design with good reach...
I picked this faucet for installation into our late 1980's vintage main bathroom, severely in need of a makeover, but for now just a room I need to keep patched together and functional. The aesthetics of this faucet are obvious -- it's a very simple, clean, and minimal design that looks right at home in the rag-tag setting it's in now, but will gracefully make the transition to either our master bath, or the kids' bathroom, once that project hits its stride. The polished chrome finish is so far very durable with no signs of wear or corrosion, and extremely easy to keep clean. (I compare this to an oil-rubbed Kohler faucet i installed in our half-bath, which shows a slight amount of wear at the handles.) Beyond good looks, I'm especially appreciative of Kohler's all brass construction. Especially after tearing out the old faucet, which was rusted, rotted, corroded, and tarnished in ways I never thought possible -- made all the worse by 40 years of service attached to an old Kohler iron sink (which pulled through four decades of use quite nicely,well enough to continue serving us for now). The Purist brass ought to be a superior performer. The high reaching spigot gives generous clearance for hand washing, bottle filling, rinsing out rags and swim trunks, or ducking my head under the water stream for rinsing an annoying speck of sawdust out of my eye. But it's a little bit "in your face" for face washing -- nothing I didn't get used to, and my wife doesn't complain. The spigot reach, at 5.5 inches, is in the high-middle range of what's commonly available. It seems the sweet spot is in the 4.5 to 5-inch range, based on what's available. And Kohler has spoiled me with their no-fuss quarter-turn ceramic valves. (So much so, I recently returned a Kohler utility sink faucet for my garage that *didn't* have ceramic valves for another brand that did!) Not only are they incredibly smooth and drip free, but they're easy to replace, both in time and money (less than 15 bucks apiece, and no more than 15 minutes to swap the pair). Faucet installation is equally easy. The most challenging aspect of installation is tightening the nut under the spigot, only because it's in cramped quarters behind the sink bowl (a deep 11/16" socket was my friend). For the levers, they've devised a very simple screw-tensioned bracket system that avoids wrenches, and prevents the levers from turning away from their proper alignment. Despite the height of the spout, the aerated flow is extremely gentle, and doesn't result in splashing. I was really pleased to see that this model came with a matching tailpiece (with overflow provisions -- you'll need to order a different tailpiece if your sink doesn't have an overflow), and a pop-up drain. The tailpiece is a short 4", but LASCO's 03-3119 17 gauge tailpiece has matching threads, and is of comparable look and quality to Kohler. The only parts needed for completion are a p-trap or bottle trap to complete the drain connection to the wall, and supply lines to connect to the shut-off valves at the wall. Read more



















