So my wife and I just bought a house in the end of September. As is expected, we're fixing up all the problems it has (and the problems we've caused - I won't go into that).

There's a minor issue, though, that's frustrating me. We have a powder room with a faucet that blasts water. Clearly, the previous owner didn't like the aerator at the end of the faucet and removed it. While I can understand that thinking if the aerator is really restrictive, it's far better than what we have now, which is a faucet that sprays water like crazy. You can easily see where water has stained the paint on the walls on either side of the pedestal sink.

The problem I'm running into when trying to find a replacement aerator (I think that's what the part is called...maybe a restrictor?) is that I have no idea what brand the faucet is. There isn't a single logo or marking of any kind on any part of the faucet. I've looked at online faucet distributers, Home Depot, Lowes, Amazon, etc, and cannot find anything remotely similar. I've even contacted a couple online faucet sellers and they haven't been able to identify it.

So what do I do? Any thoughts on a better strategy for finding the manufacturer? How standard do you think these aerator parts are?

I've attached a photo of the faucet in question.

I've found that aerators tend to come in a standard and slightly smaller size. A quick measurement should tell you which. At less than $5, you can get one of each.

-jk

Some aerators come in the smaller size with an adapter for the larger.

Or, just turn the valve under the sink down.

I'm assuming that you've removed the tap and looked on the underside? I can understand why the manufacturer might not put markings where you can usually see them, but...

I think you should go into the problems you've caused

Heh, well, not entirely caused by us. Apparently the last guy considered himself very handy, but still neglected fixing obvious things. When our inspector came through, for example, with zero effort he just pulled the spout off the tub deck in the master bath.

Well, the worst of it was that a toilet in the master bath apparently was running. The toilet got clogged, kept running, and overflowed all night. The water got everywhere, including one of the rooms in which we'd just installed (I'm talking three days earlier) brand new wood floors! Ugh. So one room and most of our master bath had to be removed. This has led to us gutting our master bath to completely redo it because the tub was cracked already.

Anyway, yeah, there are far larger problems in the house than an aerator, but it's still annoying


You're talking about that main part in the middle? The spout? I don't know my faucet terminology I haven't tried removing it, and I'm not sure how I would if I wanted to...


Yeah, that's what I might end up doing... The other problem with getting standard off the shelf parts is that most of them are chrome, so they'd stick out a good deal visually.

A red cuffing pad or sand paper would cut down on the shine and give it the look of your brushed nickel???

That was a sly dig at the US. "Tap" = "Faucet". I mean -- if you undo whatever's fixing it to the tub, you might be able to look at the bottom of it -- where the water pipe fixings are, there might be a manufacturer's mark.

Buy whatever you might need from Lowes or HD and just return the left-overs that you end up not using. I'm sure you'll get the aerator done the first time around.

That faucet can really be made by anyone since there are many knock-offs of brand-name designs. But it won't matter for the aerator.



You can be guaranteed (with 100% certainty) that you'll only find chrome samples in-store at Home Depot in the plumbing parts aisle. They'll be able to special order nickel and stainless, otherwise you'll have to go to a specialty shop or buy online.

Is there any part of the original aerator left in that faucet? In other words, is the outside threaded part still there and maybe the previous homeowner simply removed the screen? If so you can do some part swapping. That faucet looks like it should have a hidden aerator anyway, not one protruding from the end.

We still get water from the tap here, but then call it a faucet. Kinda weird.

It looks like all the aerators at Home Depot are - at smallest - 15/16" in diameter. My faucet apparently requires one a good deal smaller than that. I haven't measured, though. I'll have to do that.

I also haven't gotten around to taking the thing off. I'll have to wait until I can get in there around the disassembled toilet. Turns out that one was running too, needed a new overflow pipe, and wasn't a good toilet anyway. We're just going to replace it.

I highly recommend one of these....

http://www.americanstandard-us.com/bathroom-products/champion-4-toilet/

... we got one recently and I'm now in love with my toilet. But about anything was better than what we had

Uhhh... that's a little bit scary. And I'm pretty sure it's against the law in Massachusetts.

tanstaafl.

Yea I guess we’ll just continue to live in an unmatrimonial relationship, oh, what could be.

My prior toilet companion would not cooperate with me. When we had a BIG job to do it would often refuse to do its part and left me no choice but to become physical. It was a big mess. My new toilet pretty much always does its job with no argument and does not have a big drinking problem. Life is good.

Flushes a bucket of golf balls eh? But can it flush a bucket of ping pong balls... I have three American Standard jobbers in my place right now and the ones upstairs are terrible. The one on the main floor is aided in a big way by the fact that it's right next to its vertical stack in the basement. The one in my ensuite has a horizontal pipe run that helps to give the toilet problems flushing a single square of toilet paper with nothing else in the bowl.

I've been meaning to look into a new toilet for at least the ensuite but have just been busy with so many other reno projects. Right now I'm putting down bamboo flooring in the second room in the past week. I finished my new office yesterday and the room for this week is the new nursery - new baby coming around first week of December.

On Monday night we went to the hardware store and picked out a couple Kohlers. They look pretty good. They also have these claims of "won't leak!" due to some new system they're using.

What I did think was humorous were the names of these things. The particular models they had in the store sounded like we were car shopping: the Cimmaron, the Highline Classic. My favorite name was different, though. I liked the "Memoirs" toilet, because it implied that that was where you would write them

And lastly, I got a kick out of one of the claims on the boxes these toilets come in. "Flushes 4 times more than the average adult needs." How do they calculate this*? And are they using American adults?



*wait...I don't want to know. rhetorical. VERY rhetorical.

Right. I think there's a very fine line between advertising the features of a loo, and alarming people. That "Champion 4", for instance: "industry's widest 2-3/8in trapway". What are you meant to think in response to that? "Heck yes, sometimes after a night on the Guinness that extra 3/8 inch would make all the difference"?

Peter

This is supposed to be a good thing?!