I was looking to replace an aging, wearing-out bathroom sink faucet with something with a tap that sits higher and reaches further out than the old faucet's tap, which would work better with my faucet-mounted BRITA water filter. The Peerless Tunbridge faucet caught my eye because it appeared to have those features, and its style is attractive and looks modern, but not so contemporary that it would be out of character with my 35-year-old bathroom. FIRST IMPRESSIONS The faucet itself has a high-quality feel to it (photo 1). It's appropriately heavy, and the handle operates very smoothly. The pop drain assembly, not so much (photo 2); it's mostly plastic, with chromed steel for the stopper pull and lever assembly. One noteworthy detail: the part of the pop drain ball rod that goes inside the drain pipe is fully encased in plastic (photo 3), so it should not corrode away, like some replacement pop drain assemblies I've seen. INSTALLATION Installation of the faucet itself is quite simple. Parts are provided for both single-hole and three-hole sinks, although the escutcheon plate that is provided is barely large enough to cover all the holes (photo 4). The faucet itself only uses a single hole, typically, the center one in a three-hole sink (photo 5). If the holes on three-hole bathroom sinks weren't so close together, one might consider simply using the other two holes for other fixtures, such as an under-sink filter and hand soap dispenser. The faucet attachment is accomplished via a long threaded stem that extends down from the filter body, a crescent-shaped metal plate and a long nut (photo 6). You thread the hoses and stem down through your sink's center hole. You then get down under the sink, slide the crescent-shaped plate up the stem (photo 7), and tighten it in place with the long nut (photo 8). There is nothing keeping the faucet in place on the sink while you do this, so it's good to have a helper. If you don't have a helper, you'll want to hand-tighten the nut, check the position of the faucet and then finish tightening it. A long, plastic tube, shaped like a hexagonal wrench on one end and with a 3/8" square hole for a socket driver, facings for a crescent wrench and holes for a screwdriver on the other, is provided as a disposable basin wrench for tightening that nut (photos 9 and 10). I am not enamored of this method of attaching faucets to sinks, for reasons I will elaborate on later. I found the pop drain assembly much more challenging to install, but that was largely due to the poor condition of my P trap. Installing the pop drain assembly requires disassembly of your existing P trap and removal of your old pop drain assembly (unless, of course, you're installing a whole new sink), a process that isn't documented in the instructions. In my case, doing this dislodged some sediment in the trap that was preventing water from leaking out through a pinhole that had formed due to corrosion in the bottom of the P trap. I discovered the pinhole when I put the pipes back together, which led me to have to reconstruct my P trap using parts I had on hand (since I didn't want to run out to the home center). Hopefully, you will not face this problem, and it would not be fair to grade the faucet on this issue, but it does serve to remind readers that issues like this often complicate what should be very simple plumbing jobs. The diagrams provided in the installation instructions are a bit unclear, so, hopefully, photos 11 through 16 will help you weekend plumbers (like me!) get the job done right. Photo 17 shows how I held the drain pipe in place while tightening the basin gasket, retainer nut and tailpiece beneath the sink. If you don't do something like this, the drain pipe will want to turn as you install those parts, which will break the seal you make with your bead of silicone or plumber's putty under the drain pipe flange, and will also prevent you from tightening those other parts sufficiently. (This problem is not unique to this kit. In fact, I've had to do this with all bathroom sink drain pipes I've installed.) The kit allows you to install the pop drain with the stopper either fixed, i.e., with the stopper attached to the ball rod, or loose, so you can pull the stopper out for cleaning. In practice, I found it quite impossible to install the stopper fixed; no matter how I tried, I could not find a way to hold the stopper so that the plastic end of the lever would thread through the square at the bottom of the stopper. I finally gave up and installed the stopper loose. It works fine that way, although it might seal a bit better if it were fixed. Note that lift rod attaches to the tailpiece using a bolt that requires a screwdriver or wrench to tighten (photo 18); it would be much easier to attach those parts if they were held in place by a hand-tightened bolt. When you're done, your under-sink will look something like photo 19, and your sink console will look something like photo 20. USING THE FAUCET This is pretty much a no-brainer. Lifting the handle turns the water on and increases the flow; pushing it down decreases the flow and turns the water off. Assuming you connected your hoses properly, turning the handle towards the left gives you a hotter water mix; turning towards the right gives you a colder water mix. There is a handy hot/cold indicator dot under the handle - red (hot) on the left, blue (cold) on the right. When installed properly, the pop drain moves smoothly and easily, and seals well when in the down position. As I mentioned earlier, I don't care for the single threaded stem/plate/nut system of attaching faucets to sinks. This is because it's difficult to get them tight enough to prevent the faucet from moving, and even after you do so, the faucets tend to work loose with regular use. As of this writing, I've installed three faucets that use this attachment system, and two of them worked loose. (The third one, a Moen model, seems to be of overall higher quality than the other two.) This one worked loose after only a couple weeks of use. Although it's not suggested anywhere in the installation instructions, I think that using some threadlocker on the threaded stem or adding a locknut would be a good idea. As other reviewers have said, this faucet comes with a very low-flow, water-saving aerator. This may be a good thing or a bad thing for you, depending on your needs and desires. I find that it's fine for things like washing hands and faces. It's not great for cleaning rinse-to-clean shavers, and if you regularly need to fill your basin for things like hand-laundering delicate items, you may want to consider replacing the aerator with a higher-flow model or just removing it. WHAT I DON'T LIKE I really thought I would like the brushed nickel finish on this faucet, especially after installing my Moen bathroom faucet, which also has a brushed nickel finish. But the Moen faucet seems to have been coated with something similar to what's used on modern stainless steel appliances to help keep fingerprints from becoming noticeable, so it still looks brand new, even though I've had it for months. My Peerless Tunbridge faucet, under review here, does not. After just a couple of weeks, the faucet has taken on something of a patina. Cleaning it doesn't help much. Some might find this endearing, but I think it just looks dingy. POSSIBLE QUALITY CONTROL ISSUE When I tried to re-tighten my faucet after it worked loose, the faucet attachment stem sheared off while I was still just hand-tightening with the included basin wrench (i.e., turning the wrench with my hands, not applying a socket wrench to the tool yet). I called Peerless' support number, which is easy enough to find on their web site, and spent some time on the phone with a very nice, polite, helpful customer service agent. It seems that the only fix is a replacement faucet, which she ordered for me without hesitation. Unfortunately, Peerless (which turned out to be part of the Delta Faucet Company) doesn't seem to have any means for expediting a warranty replacement order, so I had to put up with a loose faucet until the replacement arrived. Thankfully, that only took a few days; less than the 4-8 business days the agent said it would take. The hoses have braided metal exteriors and are attached to the inside of the faucet body, so at least I didn't need to worry about the hoses breaking off and leaking while I waited. I was not asked to return the broken faucet, nor was I required to provide a credit card number to ensure the return of any parts. (Out of a sense of fairness, I identified myself to the customer service agent as a member of the peerlessoutlet.com Vine program, and stated up front that both the problem with the faucet and her response to it would be documented in this review. This did not seem to elicit any special treatment of my case, so I assume that the response I got is what any purchaser can expect.) It only took me about 20 minutes to remove the broken faucet and install the new one when it arrived. When I did, I applied some threadlocker, as I suggested earlier, to help ensure that the fastener nut stays put. However, the experience left me wondering: Did the first faucet work itself loose as I surmised, or did the stem start to break, due to overtightening, torsion, inadvertent bending against the faucet hole in the sink console (which would be practically impossible to see) or manufacturing defect? After all, the stem sheared off while I was hand-tightening, not while I was finishing it off with a tool. I didn't measure it, but I believe the stem that holds this faucet in place is the same width and thread as a #12 machine bolt. That strikes me as an awfully thin stem for holding a faucet firmly on a sink. I suppose time will tell. I'll update this review if the faucet works loose or breaks again. DID IT MEET MY INITIAL EXPECTATIONS? I mentioned my gripe about the quality of the finish earlier in the review. As you can see from the photo last photo, the faucet gives my sink console a nice, clean, updated look, just as I thought it would. Installing the water filter on it proved a bit more challenging. My BRITA tap-mount filter fits on standard (?) male 55/64 - 27 size aerator threads. This faucet has female M16.5 x 1, a.k.a., "Cache - Tom Thumb", recessed aerator threads. I haven't seen a tap yet that this filter can fit on without an adapter ring, but none of the adapter rings in my collection, or at my local hardware store, would fit this faucet. Turning back to peerlessoutlet.com, about half an hour of searching finally turned up the Neoperl 13 0410 5 Cache Adapter, which was exactly what I needed to mount the filter. My only complaint, which is a minor one, is that since the tap ends at a slight angle, my filter sits at that same slight angle instead of perfectly vertically. However, my research indicates that most modern bathroom sink faucets would have the same problem, at least to some extent. It doesn't affect the operation of the filter in any way. In fact, since the Peerless Tunbridge faucet's handle is well above and behind the filter, it works better with my filter than my old faucet did. So, at the end of it all, I have a nice, new, smoothly-operating faucet that is more convenient to use than the one it replaced and works nicely with my tap-mount filter. With a bit of luck, we'll find a cleaning product that fixes the problems with the finish.
