what fixture brands do you guys like?

[Royce Talbo]

I was watching this guy on youtube and he was talking about buying Moen for his rentals.  his point was that you are paying for the labor anyway, why not go with something good.  He also mentioned that Moen has lifetime warranty on parts, so when a tenant wears it out you can just get a replacement part and its free.  

I love Moen in my personal home, but dont think I would go with it in a rental because if something breaks I cant be waiting on a replacement part. I will just go down to the store and get a replacement myself.  Also the warranty doesnt cover misuse, incorrect install, etc.   In my rentals I usually put american standard, as I see it in lots of hotels and commercial places. I figured if its good enough for high traffic, its good enough for a rentals and I havent had a problem yet.  I tried Kohler before but doesnt seem to hold up as well.  

What are your guys thoughts and have you guys tried other cheaper brands that hold up?

[Matt DeBoth]

@Royce Talbo my plumbers install mine on all of my rentals. If a cartridge or something breaks they have the part on hand to replace it ASAP.

When I did things on my own I did the cheap stuff at Home Depot and it worked about half the time. Probably because I wasn’t a professional installer. My plumbers swear by Moen and out of a couple hundred fixtures in rentals I’ve only had 1 that was defective.

[Matt R.]

I had a plumber replace the shower valve in my residence a little over 10 years ago.  He asked me if I had a preference (cheap as possible, name brand).  I asked him which name brand he fixed the least of.  :)  He specifically mentioned Delta and Moen, but said that when a Delta breaks, you can usually get parts for it at the hardware store, but because of Moen's guarantee, not as many stores stocked Moen parts.  So I had him put in a Delta, and it's been fine since he installed it.

More recently, I went through this with my American Standard kitchen faucet at home.  The big nut under the handle that holds the cartridge in broke, and I couldn't readily find one locally.  (I also noticed that even the cartridges were a little bit hard to find.)  I went through American Standard's warranty for it, and it took about a week to get the part.  I bought a $10 plastic bathroom faucet, new, and installed it in the kitchen sink, just so I had a faucet, until I could fix and reinstall the real one.  (I wouldn't do that to a tenant, but in my house, I can be cheap.)

If you have a lot of properties, and similar fixtures in each one: if a kitchen or bathroom faucet breaks, you could buy another faucet today and install it, so the tenant is happy.  Then, pursue the warranty parts or replacement on the broken faucet on your own time - when the parts get there, install the parts, test the faucet at home, and then put it on the shelf as a spare.

Also, read the fine print on the warranty.  I think I've read one that had language about it only applying to the owner's residence, or limiting the terms of the warranty for "commercial" use, or similar.  I don't know if they consider rental properties "commercial" or not.  I kind of suspect that as long as you only ask for free parts every few years, they don't care, but if you're asking for parts every month, they decide it's commercial.

[Jim K.]

I happen to know a bit about this from my time as a professional reviewer. I've looked at and worked through the installation process of literally dozens of kitchen and bathroom faucets from a large number of manufacturers over the last few years.

Delta is owned by Masco, which includes a large number of other well-known plumbing fixture brands under its umbrella. Delta, Peerless, Brizo, Hansgrohe are all made by Masco. Moen is owned by Fortune Brands. Fortune plumbing fixtures includes luxury brands Riobel and British Perrin & Rowe, but no other mainline US fixtures. American Standard is owned by Lixil, which also owns Grohe.

IMHO, Masco has been putting its real money into Hansgrohe in recent years and Lixil has been doing the same for Grohe. Delta and American Standard both frequently suffer in engineering quality as a result. Moen has a significant edge on quality and design for ease of installation in North American households.

Delta is marketed more heavily than the others. Its standard shower rough-in, the MultiChoice, is easy to work with but has obvious engineering issues (the brass is far thinner than I feel comfortable with).

American Standard tends to go with ambitious ideas that look great but have weaknesses in engineering that you wouldn't normally find in Delta and practically never in Moen. A case in recent point is the touchless Beale kitchen faucet. The motorized valve just died on mine, three years in.

Moen just keeps on chugging on, because it's the backbone of Fortune Brands' developing portfolio. Plumbers like it for its forgiving installations. It rarely gets stylish and glitzy enough for trendy flips, though.

So for me, especially since I don't pay people to change out my faucets and do it myself, it's Moen all the way.

[Royce Talbo]

@Matt DeBoth lol maybe when i have enough properties to have my own plumber I might switch to Moen.  Right now I only have a few units and usually do all my own work. How does the warranty work if they already have part on hand?

@Matt R. Good idea on just keeping a spare for the next unit. I still dont have many units so I am still trying to find the best items to streamline.  as for the warranty on commercial i think its something like 5 years or 10 years. i know they have several different tiers.  Ill have to look into Delta, if they have a good warranty like Moen. since i do all my own work i can just pick up the spare part at HD or Lowes and start storing and streamlining Delta.

[Royce Talbo]

@Jim K. interesting, i thought peerless looks kinda like delta. After reading your comment ill look more into Moen.

[Mike McCarthy]

Easy. Moen or Delta.

Toilets are always American Standard.

Worth spending a few extra dollars for something that will pretty much last forever.

[Jim S.]

As soon as I have a problem with a faucet I replace it with a Moen. The money you spend on a Moen you will more than save when you don't have to service it. I think you would have to take a hammer to a Moen to break it.

[Patrick Moore]

@Royce Talbo

Moen is the strongest and easiest to find parts.

The plumbing company I work for always suggests moen fixtures and American standard toilet.

[Barbara Harrison]

We use Moen in the bathrooms of our resales and rentals, never had a problem. My husband prefers Delta for the kitchen, he likes the trendier look and again no problems to date. He does all the installs himself. 

[Matt M.]

@Royce Talbo

Anything you buy from a big box store is junk. Not saying I don’t buy there, but the Moen and Delta products at a plumbing supply house are made better. Better cartridges, etc. as for toilets, American Standard is definitely tried and true, but I’ve had really good luck with the $98 water savers from Home Depot. Along with customers houses, rentals, etc, I have two in my own house and my wife likes them better than the expensive Kohler toilet she wanted for our master bath. One of my plumbers swears by Toto toilets, but the flappers aren’t always easy to find and they are $15 rather than $4 for the universal flappers in most toilets.

[Oscar Olivo]

Hi All, 

I have had bad luck with Moen.  For all of my renovations I have used Kohler and no failures thus far.  Got a good discount through the local plumbing supply with a contractor's account.  YMMV!

[Scott Mac]

Moen faucets.

[Vanessa Ganaden]

@Royce Talbo

By any chance, you were watching Meet Kevin on YouTube? Because if you were, I was watching the exact same video! Ha

@Jim K.

Thanks for these insights. I never knew that about Moen or any of these different brands. It's akin to Volkswagen owning different portfolio brands but some car brands will have better engineering than the rest of its portfolio brands. Interesting!

Looks like I'm going Moen from now on :)

[Tim Johnson]

I vote for Delta hands down on shower valves, you can always get parts and they are easy to change.  Sink facuets, I don't care about because they are easy to change, so I would normally just buy peerless or something else mid grade. Stuff buried in walls buy the best.

[Pat L.]

I've swapped out quite a few Moen diverters & faucet cartridges over the years & it's tough. Once they get corroded it's quite the battle. They will send you a new cartridge BUT I've had to asked several times & threaten to go with Kohler. 

Then the diverter retaining clip is a fall into the wall cavity nightmare. The other issue with a new Moen diverter install is that BOTH the hot & cold has to be pressurized to ensure the diverter works so you can check for leaks. With the HW tank gone we had to run cold to both inlets just to test it. NOWHERE does the installation manual reveal this idiosyncrasy & the 1-800 help-line had no clue. We did have a new Moen $180 bath faucet fail in under 6 months & they would only send a new one if we paid a $25 shipping fee. Now I have 2 Moen faucets as spares as she went with Kohler instead.

My preference is Kohler for every fixture BUT their toilets with that large cylindrical flush valve constantly fail, so we go with Am.Std. Also Kohler will ship any missing parts & life time warranty parts without question. I can often get Kohler shower doors, fixtures etc for 1/3 of the price because of missing or damaged parts & Kohler will send the replacements gratis. I did get called in on a friends Kohler install where the shower diverters were not working (they had a large 72inX48in shower base with two sets of shower fixtures). The plumber had bailed totally frustrated & the install paperwork he left was not Kohler. It was simply a 20 minute realignment of the diverter heads.

[BOB CRANEY]

@Royce Talbo

Look at the Kraus Brand available on Amazon. I like the commercial look and heavy duty build quality, with all brass construction and commercial grade internal parts meant to last thousands of cycles.

I have used a few different of the commercial type kitchen faucets and the faucets were all priced aggressively on Amazon, had a really heavy feel, simple install with great warranty.

As others have said, stay away from the faucets at the big box stores, as they have been value engineered to meet a price point. Out of the 12 apartments I have used them in, I have had to repair, replace several in less than 6-8 years. They are just junk with more plastic and cheap internal components than the options you can find at your local plumbing supply house or online.

I like looker toilets for strong, stable tank to bowl connection but the fill and flush valves internally are only lasting about 5 years before they need new parts or replacement. If you have a lot of units you want to have some spare faucets to swap in for your tenants, while you wait for your “lifetime” parts to come in 7-14 days from the manufacturer

[Royce Talbo]

It seems like the best way to go is american standard toilets, delta shower,  moen faucets.

@Matt M. I think Toto are great toilets, buy not for a rental.  Their draw is that they are a bidet toilet.  

@Vanessa Ganaden No it wasnt meet Kevin.  I watched several of his videos and he is a guru that gives some bad info.  I dont mind people making money off of information, but when he misleads people and make money off them, it just irritates me.  it seems like now days people think making money on social media and fake it till you make it is ok. selling people info as they learn along the way is a bad practice.  You should first become an expert on something then you can sell correct info.

@BOB CRANEY thanks I never heard of that brand.  ill look into them.  

[Matt M.]

@Royce Talbo Toto makes regular toilets