Couldn't fix the faucet, so I replaced it.

[DerbyDad03]

There's no real point to this post, unless folks want to discuss what the problem might have been...

Up until last night, I had this faucet in my kitchen:

A few months ago we noticed that there was substantially less pressure on the hot side than on the cold. I timed it and found that for a given container, the cold filled it in 7.5 seconds, but the hot took over 10 seconds.

Getting warm water was a pain, because you had to go almost all the way to hot and then you started losing pressure.

I called Kohler and they sent me new cartridge. It didn't help, so I tried a few things. I swapped the hot and cold inlet tubes and the problem moved to the cold side - in fact it was even worse. That told me that the problem was in the faucet, not my plumbing.

I pulled the cartridge and, leaving the inlet tubes hanging over a pot, I poured water down into the body hoping to flush something out of the tubes. I saw a little debris in the pot and hoped I'd cleared it.

No such luck. The problem was still there when I put it back together.

I replaced the faucet with a similar model from Delta (with a lifetime guarantee) and now get 7.5 second fill times from both hot and cold, and warm water when I center the handle.

I can only assume that there is something blocking the fill tube that didn't get flushed out. I may take it apart just to see.

[JIMMIE]

Clogging on the hot side is pretty much normal for mineral deposit build up. Like you my father in law had a similar problem with all the faucets in his home, kitchen and 3.5 bathes worth of faucwts and toilets, showers have not been a problem for some reason. Solution was also changing out all the effected fixtures. He was a er....thrifty person so he decided to go ahead and see if he couldnt repair the old ffixtures in case he ever had problems with the new ones.so he flushed them with diluted muratic acid which took out all the calcium deposits..polished them up replaced the cartridges. and stored them away. Well the house belongs to my wife now and unless they come out with some super wiz bang faucets I really like those old one will probably go back in one day.

Jimmie

[Steve B]

We bit the bullet, and went Moen on the two bathrooms and kitchen remodel. So far, so good. I built a house in 1984 using only Moen. Sold it in 1994. Never touched anything.

Went round and round with Delta, Price Pfister, et al. Yes, they will send you replacement plastic cartridges that only MAY be better than the part replaced. Sometimes problem solved, sometimes problem solved for a short time, sometimes problem worse.

Ya pays ya money and ya takes ya chances.

Steve

[DerbyDad03]

If it wasn't for the fact that this is the only faucet with a problem, I'd agree fully. As it stands, I'll accept that as a possibly cause, but I certainly haven't seen the same issue with any other faucets, both older and newer.

Granted, this is the only Kohler, so maybe their more susceptible.

[Nate Nagel]

Hmm... I've had a spate of failing Moens lately mostly having to do with the sprayer nozzle and/or diverter valve. Two of 'em failed, one is a replacement for one of the failed ones, I took the sprayer apart on that one and put it on the other bad one, but it still has a bad diverter. (both diverter and sprayer failed on that one. Diverter only failed on the other.) Both in houses w/ city water, not unusually hard or mineral-laden.

nate

[Steve B]

It's a puzzlement, nate. I never had a problem, and you did. You clearly must have been doing something wrong.

Don't you love it when people in hr tell you that? I guess I just got lucky with my Moen products. I like the look of the new ones we got. We got the high end stuff, and it's nice. Hope we don't have any trouble with it, but who knows...........

Steve