This month we quietly passed our third birthday. 
There have been a lot of changes. In the beginning the blog was written by a professional Social Media company. That lasted less than six months and since it has been written primarily by Tom Robinson of ANO, Inc. The topics have been limited for the most part to those directly related to sinks and faucets.
The blog now receives hundreds of hits a day. Thank you to all of you for paying attention.
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How to buy a lead free faucets:
Look for the designation NSF/ANSI 64 on the package. This does not mean 100% lead free just low enough lead level to comply with the law.
Look at the faucet. If the copper water lines appear to be longer than is necessary to reach from the faucet to the wall the faucet may have added the copper to increase the weight and length of the water channel so the brass portion of the water channel is a smaller percentage of the total so they can meet the standards. A faucet like this will not reduce the amount of brass in faucet as a whole. Faucets with excessive copper water supply lines likely meet the letter but not the spirit of the law. It also mean the manufacturer has cut a corner to meet the standards which may mean they cut other corners in production.
Look for a faucet with a water channel that is not brass. Brass is the base structure of most faucets and the source of lead in faucets. To be lead free the water channel needs to be made of materials other than brass because at this writing no faucet company that I can find can produce brass without lead added in the manufacturing process.
Non-brass water channels can be plastic, stainless steel or copper. There may be other materials of which I am not aware.
ANO represents two faucet companies that offer lead free kitchen faucets.
Eclipse Stainless faucets are solid stainless steel with no brass in the water channel. The picture below is a picture of Eclipse faucet parts cut in half. The second picture is of brass faucets cut in half. You will note in addition to having up to 8% brass the brass faucets have a rough water channel that can build up impurities in the water.
Freendo Kitchen kitchen faucets offered by ANO have a copper water channel. Copper does not contain lead.
For more information you can visit the ANO website www.anosales.com.
Eclipse Stainless faucet cut in half
Traditional Brass faucet cut in half
Tom Robinson
ANO, Inc.
On the surface the question ‘What is a Lead Free Faucet” should self explanatory. It should be a faucet with no lead but that is not the case.
Traditional Brass Faucet
Traditionally nearly all faucets were made from Brass. Brass could contain up to 8% lead. In 2006 California passed a law allowing no more than .25% in the water channel of a faucet to be considered “lead free.” On January 4, 2014 the Federal Government followed suit so your “lead free faucet’ may have up to .25% lead in the water channel which means even faucets sold as “Lead Free Faucet” may have up to .25% lead in water channel.
To circumvent the standard further some manufacturers have increase the length of the supply line to the faucet which are copper – copper does not contain lead – increasing the weight of the water channel without bringing the lead in the faucet to actual compliance with the intent to the law. the increased water supply line adds no value to the faucet except to make it technically compliant with the .25% standard.
Chan notes that the typical household faucet weighs about six and a half pounds. That means a typical household faucet can contain up to a quarter pound of lead and still be labeled “lead free” under the federal safe drinking water law. – Ecopolitology website
The Federal Standard is NSF/ANSI 61.
Frequently asked questions from USEPA can be found here. Sorry it is written in governmenteze.
In future articles we will discuss how to find faucets that are truly lead free and how the manufactures represented by ANO have met and exceeded the laws.
Tom Robinson
ANO, Inc.
My mother often told me, “Toot your own horn lest it not be tooted.”
We recent received this kind email from one of our customers:
Man you guys have great customer service. Between the Flooring, Furniture, Granite, & Windows divisions of the company we have a few hundred vendors we do business with and you guys are by far the best company to work with. If you ever have a person thinking about carrying your lines and they want to talk to one of your existing customers, feel free to give my name out any time you want.
Thanks again
Andrew Noel
Operations Manager
FloorShow Companies
Dubuque, IA
Thank you Andrew!!!
Note, if you have a polished finished sink (sometimes called a mirror finish) it will be very difficult to repair. If you have what is marketed as a matte or satin finish it means there is no finish at all. The sink is stamped and send it to market. Scratches will be impossible to repair.
There were no posts to the blog over the last two weeks as we spent the last two weeks doing the Surfaces/StoneExpo and International Builders Show/Kitchen and Bath Industry Shows on Las Vegas. We returned with new product and new ides for our customers.
Here is a picture of the Eclipse booth at the StoneExpo show.
This week we had a customer who called about the loss of pressure on the cold water side 
of the faucet. Jim Olson from ANO worked with the customer to solve the issue although it was not the fault of the faucet. Kelley was kind enough to give us permission to use the unsolicited email she sent us Thank you Kelley. Helping is our job.
Hi Jim,
Just wanted to say thank you for all of your help! I am sorry I did not get an email out to you for the parts I needed, but you know how they say bad things happen in threes. Lets just say, I should be covered for the year 2014!
I did have full pressure in the cold line coming into the faucet, but must have loosened whatever was plugged beyond that when unhooking, rehooking & turning the shut-off back on. A lot of junk did come out after a couple of tries. I have replaced the cartridge, head & aerator. I now have running hot & cold water @ full pressure in the kitchen sink again 🙂 I do not have the spring installed yet, but will soon.
I was extremely happy with your help with this, I have never experienced this level of customer service for any product. I was very surprised to see the Fed Ex truck pull in just a couple of days later with all the replacement parts we talked about, even though I did not get the email out to you! It was very appreciated!!!
I have been very happy with both my sink & faucet, but now I am extremley happy with my purchase. I have nothing but great things to say about your products & especially your service!
Sincerely,
Kelley Fobes
Below in the flyer for the NEW KPS3035 Appleton (Sacramento in some markets) form Eclipse.
We have published a number of articles on how to replace cartridges on Eclipse faucets. Here is the instructions direct from the factory on the KPS3029 Shasta faucet.
Adding to our collection of articles on how to change cartridges on the Eclipse faucets here are the instruction for the KPS3030 and KPS3030M faucets.
