Forious Faucets Review & Rating Updated: September 7, 2024

Imported

China

Wenzhou Furuisi Building Materials Co.,Ltd.

trading as

Forious^®

No. 3-9

Donggong Haicheng St.

Economic & Technological Development Zone

Longwan District

Wenzhou City

Zhejiang Province

China 325055

888-206-2162

service@forious.com

Rating

Business Type

For more information on the five faucet company business types, see Faucet Companies

Product Range

Kitchen and Bath Faucets

Certifications

Brands

Forious, Furuisi

Street Price

$38 - $150

Warranty Score

Cartridge

Lifetime¹

Finishes

Lifetime

Mechanical Parts

Lifetime

Proof of Purchase

No

Transferable

Yes

Meets U.S. Warranty
Law Requirements

No²

Warranty Footnotes:

1. The entire For­i­ous warranty: "FORIOUS warrants this pluming product to be free of defects in material and workmanship during normal residential use for lifetime of the product."

2. The warranty does not comply with federal law and is not a legal warranty in the U.S. So our score of one star is a weak one star. Additionally, the company's customer service is very unsatisfactory, so making a claim on the warranty is a problem.

Learn more about faucet warranties.

This Company In Brief

Wen­zhou Fur­uisi Build­ing Mat­eri­als Co. is a Chin­ese manufacturer that sells fau­cets in the U.S. under the For­i­ous and Fur­ui­si brands.

It sells only through internet venues, mostly those that host third-party sellers such as Ama­zon, Walmart, and Way­fair and through big box lumber stores like Home De­pot and Lowes.

The faucets are good quality products that include good components. However, some of the faucets include proprietary valve cartridges that cannot be replaced. If the valve leaks, the entire faucet would have to be discarded.

Forious products are sold only on the internet, primarily through websites that host third-party sellers. The most prominent of these is Amazon. But, the company also sells through Walmart, Wayfair, and big box lumber stores that host independent sellers such as Lowes and the Home Depot.

Sales through Lowes and Home Depot are online only. Forious products are not sold by plumbing supply houses or in brick-and-mortar stores.

In addition to selling the faucets under the Forious banner, the company also sells the same faucets at Lowes and Wayfair under the Fur­uisi brand along with showers, vanities, fixtures such as toilets and bathtubs, vent fans, heaters, and accessories like towel racks and robe hooks.

Selling as Fur­uisi is a relatively new venture for the company in North America. Its three "Fur­uisi" trademark applications covering

are still pending at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as of the date of this report.

The Company

Wenzhou Fu­ru­i­si Build­ing Ma­ter­i­als Co. (also trading as Wen­zhou For­i­ous Build­ing Mat­er­i­als Co., Ltd., Wen­zhou Fu­ru­i­si Ji­an­cai Co., Ltd., and Wen­zhou Fu­ru­i­si Ji­an­cai You­xi­an Gong­si) was founded in 2004 to manufacture what the company calls "appliances" for the home including decorative plumbing products such as faucets and showers, and the accessories that often accompany faucets, including towel bars and rings, robe hooks, and toilet paper holders.

The company's North Amer­i­can sales venture has been remarkably successful.

On Amazon alone, it has sold over 10,000 products to date.

In part that success has been due to the good quality and exceptionally low prices of its products. The most expensive Forious kitchen faucet sells for under $150.00. But, it is also due to some rather high-powered endorsements.

Forbes magazine has named Forious faucets among the best kitchen faucets sold in America in 2022, as has Bob Villa on his home improvement website.

We are not quite as enthusiastic about the faucets as Mr. Villa or Forbes.

The products are of good, but not exceptional, quality, but the warranty does not comply with U.S. law, some cartridge valves cannot be removed and replaced, and customer service is largely unsatisfactory.

North American Facilities

The company has a very minimal presence in the North America although it goes to considerable lengths to give the impression that it has extensive facilities on this side of the Pacific.

It claims, for example, to own a U.S.-based subsidiary, Forious Inc. However, this corporation, organized in Washington state in 2019, is a shell company. It does not have any employees and does not actually conduct any business.

Furuisi also claims to have a U.S. warehouse, but our research has not found one. As far as we can discover, its warehousing is provided by Amazon, Wayfair, Walmart, and the rest of the outlets through which the company sells Forious products.

Forious, Inc. has several addrsses of record.

• Business Address: A business address is the location at which the company claims to conduct its usiness. It is listed on its website as 3690 Glendale Ave., Los Angeles, CA, 90017. However, the address does not exist in Los Angeles County real estate records and is listed as "unknown" by the U.S. Postal Service. Neither Google Maps nor Mapquest can locate the address.
• TWe have asked the company about this apparent discrepancy, but have not received an answer.

• Principal Office Address: A principal office address is the company's "legal" address as listed in its Washington State corporation filing. However, this address (10611 Harwin Dr., Suite 406, Houston, TX, 77036) is an occupied by Witmart Trademark Services. Witmart provides "international business services" including mail drops for foreign businesses at its two locations in the U.S. and Canada.

• Registered Address:The company's registered address is for legal matters such as service of legal papers. It is the address at which the corporation's is located. For Forious, Inc., the address is Northwest Registered Agent, LLC, 30 N. Gould St., Suite N, Sheridan, WY 82801-6317.

Management from Outside North America

It's not impossible to successfully manage U.S. sales from a foreign location without having a physical presence in the U.S.

Several faucet companies do so successfully, including two German luxury faucet companies,

Their approach takes advantage of the fact that with smartphones and the internet, physical proximity to a market is no longer necessary so long as adequate systems are put in place.

Customer support, for example, can be located anywhere. To a plumber or homeowner located in Miami, Memphis, or Montreal, technical or customer support provided from Germany is just as useful as help from California or Connecticut.

To be successful, however, the language and time difference between customer and company must be overcome. In2aqua and Jörger have done so by ensuring that there is very responsive technical and customer support available from English-speaking agents by telephone during North Amer­i­can business hours.

Fu­ru­i­si has not been nearly as successful.

Construction & Materials

Forious kitchen faucets sold in the U.S. are made from stainless steel. The lavatory faucets are constructed of brass that has been tested and independently confirmed to be lead-free to North American standards.

Stainless Steel

Forious kitchen faucets are SAE 304 stainless steel. This alloy, commonly called "food-grade" stainless, is by far the most common stainless used to make kitchen utensils, silverware, cookware, and fau­cets. It includes at least 18% chromium and between 8% and 10% nickel.

Why Stainless Steel Does Not Rust: Actually, it does rust but so slowly that it is usually not noticed. Properly alloyed stainless contains at least 10% chromium and a dollop of nickel. These form a coating of oxides and hydroxides on the outer surface of the steel that blocks oxygen and water from reaching the underlying metal, retarding rust. The coating is very thin, only a few atoms thick, so thin that it is invisible to the eye under ordinary light but thick enough to protect the fau­cet.

The nickel gives the steel a crystalline structure which increases its strength. The chromium helps the steel resist corrosion.

Steel is much harder than brass. It can be made in thinner profiles that use less material and still have more than adequate strength.

Brass

Forious lavatory fau­cets are made of brass. Brass is the preferred material for faucets for two reasons:

• Brass is strong but easy to work with. It casts, forges, and machines with relative ease.

• Brass is naturally anti-microbial. The copper in brass kills bacteria, retarding the build-up of potentially hazardous microbes inside a fau­cet.

But, brass has one serious drawback. Unlike stainless steel, it may contain lead.

Traditional (alpha) brass is a blend of copper and zinc with a small amount of lead (1.5% - 3.5%) added to make the material more malleable, less brittle, and easier to fabricate.

However, lead is now all but banned in North America in any drinking water component due to its toxicity to humans, particularly children.

According to the En­vir­on­ment­al Prot­ec­tion Agen­cy (EPA), lead, even in small amounts, causes slowed growth, learning disorders, hearing loss, anemia, hyperactivity, and behavior issues.

Before 2014, a fau­cet could contain as much as 8% lead and still call itself lead-free.

Now the maximum lead content of those parts of a fau­cet that touch water is 0.25% (1/4 of 1%), basically just a bare trace. In fact, there may be more lead in the air you breathe than there is in a modern fau­cet that has been certified lead-free.

To comply with the restrictions on lead, today's faucet brass replaces lead with other additives to reduce brittleness without adding toxicity. The most common is bismuth.

Bismuth is similar to lead – right next to lead on the periodic table of elements – but it is not harmful to humans.

It is, however, very expensive. It is 300 times rarer than lead, even rarer than silver, which is the reason that bismuth-brass alloys are considerably more expensive than leaded brass.

This increased cost has encouraged many fau­cet manufacturers to use substitute materials in their fau­cets where possible.

Zinc & Zinc/Aluminum Alloys

The more common substitute is zinc or a zinc-aluminum (ZA) alloy. One of the most common is called ZAMAK, a composition containing 4% aluminum.

Zinc is not as strong as brass and does not resist water pressure as well as brass. But, its use in non-pressurized parts of a brass fau­cet such as handles, base and wall plates, and is common even among manufacturers of luxury fau­cets.

It does no harm when used in these components, and may save consumers a few dollars.

Plastic

Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS), a low-cost, easily manufactured, non-toxic, impact-resistant plastic is also a commonly used substitute material for brass. It can be safely used in incidental fau­cet parts like base plates and has been largely trouble-free in aerators and as casings for ceramic cartridges, but otherwise, its use is suspect, especially if under constant water pressure.

Among those suspect uses is its use in the spray heads of kitchen fau­cets. Plastic spray heads (called "wands" in the fau­cet industry) have become the standard for many manufacturers, including some that sell upscale fau­cets such as

Forious kitchen fau­cet sprays are all Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) plastic.

Manufacturers give three reasons for their use of plastic:

• Plastic does not get uncomfortably hot in use like metal wands;

• Plastic is not as heavy and is more comfortable to hold for long periods of time; and

• Plastic is a lot cheaper than brass or stainless steel – even cheaper than zinc.

However, ABS plastic degrades over time from exposure to ultraviolet and is not dimensionally stable. It expands and contacts more than most other plastics with temperature changes making tight tolerances challenging to maintain.

These characteristics make plastic wands suspect for long-term use in faucets – products that most consumers consider lifetime products.

Better wands are made of metal, insulated against excessive heat transmittal.

The Sure Cure for Too-Hot Spray Wands: The simple cure for spray wands that get too hot is to reduce the temperature of the water. Dishes do not need to be rinsed in scalding hot water.

Faucet Components

The essential components used in Forious fau­cets are ceramic valve cartridges and aerators. Both are necessary for the faucet to function properly. Valve cartridges are especially critical. If the cartridge fails the faucet is out of business until it is replaced.

Ceramic Valve Cartridges

All Forious faucets are equipped with modern ceramic valve cartridges manufactured by Wenzhou Hairui Ceramic Valve Co., Ltd. Hairui is not a major player in the faucet valve business, but makes a respectible valve that has generally favorable reports.

Single-handle faucets with side valves sold by Forious are fitted with a patented proprietary ceramic valve cartridge that Furuisi calls the F-Valve. Accoding to the company, the valve uses ceramic discs that are infused with diamond dust and

"will last up to 5 million uses, far exceeding the industry standard … designed and patented by Forious engineers."

We did find several U. S. patents awarded to Chunhe Qiu, a Forious employee, for valve core assemblies. However, the patent documents do not mention diamond-dust-infusion and we have considerable doubt about the claim of "5 million uses."

Cramic cartridge disks impregnated with diamond dust are a innovation, introduced in 2008. Delta calls these its "Diamond Seal Technology" (DST) cartridges.

The diamond dust has two benefits. It constantly smooths the ceramic discs ensuring that they always mesh perfectly and it scrubs any limescale or other minerals that may accumulate on the disk, prolonging its useful life in hard water areas.

DST valves have been tested to 5 million on/off cycles by an independent laboratory. The standard North American certification testing requires life-cycle testing that puts the faucet through 500,000 on/off cycles to see if it will leak. It also includes a burst test that subjects the valve to ten times ordinary household water pressure to see if it will deform.

Forious valve cartridges have passed both tests, so we don't doubt they are adequate. However, our inspection of F-Valves did not reveal any evidence of diamond dust infusion. So, before we believe 5 million cycles, we would have to see some impartial third party test results.

Our request to the company, however, for a copy of any such test results received no response.

Aerators and Spray Assemblies

Faucet aerators used to be simple devices that merely added a little air to soften the water stream so it would not splash out of the sink.

Today, however, they are also used to limit water volume to the lower flows required by federal and state water conservation laws, and in some cases, to prevent back-flow that can result in the contamination of household drinking water.

The aerators used in some Forious kitchen fau­cets are made by Neoperl^®, considered some of the world's best. We did not examine every one of the dozen or so basic faucet models and cannot affirm that every model includes a Neoperl aerator.

We could not identify the source of the spray mechanism used in pull-down-spray kitchen faucets. From examination, we can say with some confidence that they are all plastic and very simple devices.

They do not have any positive docking features such as MagnaTite^®docking on Delta faucets or Moen's Reflex^® docking system. The spray head is held in place by friction and a weight attached to the spray hose.

Faucet Design and Styling

Forious fau­cets are a mix of contemporary and traditional designs. Some of the designs are patented in the U.S. They are fairly conservative – variations on common design themes produced by dozens of Chinese faucet manufacturers, attractive enough but exhibiting no particular design originality.

The goal of Chinese fau­cet manufacturers is to sell as many fau­cets as possible, which means keeping their designs well within the mainstream to appeal to as many potential buyers as possible.

A style that sells well in these major markets will often be imitated by Asian factories (with minor changes to avoid patent infringement). The lag time is usually 3 to 5 years, so by the time a design appears in a Chinese fau­cet, it is no longer new.

Forious's designs are pleasant and often smartly styled, but many are over a decade old, some are well past voting age, and a few are looking at their thirtieth anniversary in the rear-view mirror.

Faucet Finishes

Forious offers five finishes on its faucets: Black, Brushed Nickel, Chrome, Gray, and Gold.

A few fau­cets are available in in which a base finish is paired with an accent finish. Split finishes include Black/Chrome, Black/Nickel, and Black/Gold.

Forious has not disclosed the processes used to produce its finishes. From inspection and non-invasive testing, however, we can usually determine the likely process.

Chrome is most likely electroplated. Black and Grey finishes are probably powder coatings. Gold may be a powder coating, but is more likely applied using physical vapor deposition (PVD).

Brushed Nickel is a special case.

For lavatory faucets, it is either an electroplated or physical vapor deposition finish over the brass material of the faucet. Kitchen faucets are made of stainless steel which looks like nickel, so "brushed nickel" on these faucets is not nickel at all. It is the steel material of the faucet buffed, polished, and brushed to create a "finish."

Electroplating

Electroplating involves immersing the fau­cet and the metal to be used as plating in an acid bath then applying an electrical charge to both objects so metallic ions are drawn from the plating metal to the fau­cet.

Usually, multiple coats are applied, one or more undercoats and then two or more coats of the finish metal.

The process is potentially hazardous to the operator and the environment. It involves toxic and corrosive chemicals that must be disposed of safely. No other coating technology even comes close to the dangers involved in electroplating.

The top coat may be polished or brushed. Chrome, a relatively hard metal, is usually polished to a high shine. Nickel, a softer metal, is usually brushed to help hide the inevitable minor scratches.

Physical Vapor Deposition

Physical vapor deposition or PVD is one of the latest space-age fau­cet finishing technology, rapidly replacing electroplating as the finish of choice.

Although the technology was discovered in the 19th century, it was not used in industry until the 1950s and, even then, only rarely due to its great expense. Its first use was in nuclear reactors. Today, the technology is everywhere and the machinery required is getting smaller, faster, and cheaper all the time.

The process itself is almost out of Star Trek.

Load a chamber with unfinished fau­cet components, remove all the air, and add back a carefully calculated mix of nitrogen or argon and reactive gases.

Add a rod of the metal to be used for the coating. Heat that rod to a temperature so high that the metal dissolves into individual atoms. The atoms mix with the various reactive gases to get the color and finish effects you want and are then deposited in a very thin layer – 2 to 5 microns – on the fau­cets.

A micron is one-millionth of a meter or 1/26,000 of an inch. The average human hair is 83 microns thick. The smallest the human eye with excellent vision can see without magnification is about 5 microns.

Despite being just microns thick, a PVD coating is extremely dense and, in consequence, very hard and durable. By some estimates, it is up to 20 times more scratch-resistant than electroplated chrome.

From long experience, we know that PVD is nearly impossible to accidentally scratch or mar, never fades or changes color, and resists all forms of soiling.

It can usually be maintained with just an occasional wipe from a damp cloth to remove water spots. (And some PVD finishes are given a final chemical coating that resists water spots, so even the damp wipe is made largely unnecessary. A dry buff will do.)

Powder Coating

Powder coating is usually described as semi-durable, not as robust as electroplated or PVD finishes, about as durable as the finish on your car, and requiring more care to maintain a like-new appearance.

It is essentially a dry paint in powder form applied using a special low-velocity spray gun that disperses the powder while giving it a positive electrical charge. The particles are drawn to the item to be finished which has been given a negative charge.

Once the powder is applied, the item being coated is baked in an oven which melts and bonds the powder and changes the structure of the coating into long, cross-linked molecular chains.

These chains are what give the coating its durability, reducing the risk of scratches, chipping, abrasions, corrosion, fading, and other wear issues.

Finish Care Instructions: Always read and follow the fau­cet seller's care instructions. Careful cleaning and maintenance not only preserve the good looks of your fau­cet but also your finish warranty.

Faucet Warranty

The company offers a lifetime warranty on its faucets that is admirably brief and extremely generous. Here is the entire warranty:

"FORIOUS warrants this pluming product to be free of defects in material and workmanship during normal residential use for [the] lifetime of the product. This Warranty only applies to plumbing prodcuts purchased and installed in USA/Europe/Japan/Canada/Mexico."

Unfortunately, the abbreviated statement of the company's lifetime warranty does not even begin to comply with the minimum requirements for consumer product warranties in the U.S. contained in the federal Mag­nu­son-Moss War­ranty Act (15 U.S.C. §2301). In particular, it does not …

• Explain what Forious will do to remedy a defect under warranty. Absent some reasonable limitation on what it will do, the law assumes that Forious will do whatever is necessary to fix the problem no matter the cost to remedy the defect. (16 CFR § 701.3(a)(3))

• Provide "A step-by-step explanation of the procedure which the consumer should follow" to make a claim under the warranty including the mailing address or telephone number to use. (16 CFR § 701.3(a)(5))

• Include the following statement, required to be in every consumer warranty:

  "This warranty gives you specific legal rights, and you may also have other rights which vary from State to State.." (16 CFR § 701.3(a)(9))

In addition to the legal issues, there are practical business issues with the warranty.

The warranty does not disclose what the company will do to fix a problem with a faucet. Evidently, it is of the opinion that it needs do no more than replace the defective parts or the whole faucet. But, that's not the law.

As written, the warranty commits the company to doing whatever it takes to fix the faucet and, in addition, any other damages caused by the faucet. The company's liability has no limit.

Consider this situation:

A Forious faucet leaks, flooding the kitchen and doing serious damage to the cabinets and flooring. The water also leaks through the floor damaging the ceiling and walls, carpet, and most of the furnishings in the rec room in the basement below. The cost of repairing and replacing the damage will run to several thousand dollars.

Because all the damage can be traced directly back to the leaking faucet, Furu­i­si Build­ing Mat­er­i­als is liable for the entire cost of repairing the damage to the kitchen and rec room.

Undoubtedly Fu­ru­i­si did not anticipate the extent of its possible liability when it offered its warranty, but it needs to do so.

The company also needs to consider the duration of its warranty.

As written, it is a "forever" warranty, transferring to each subsequent owner of the fau­cet for as long as the fau­cet is in service. Its service life could well be over 100 years. We routinely encounter fau­cets that have been in use since the 1880s.

All of this is very good for the buyer, but is undone by two factors:

• It is highly unlikely the company will be around nearly anywhere like 100 years. These shadow sellers from China pop up for a while, then disappear in the fog behind the Bamboo curtain never to be heard from again. The average lifespan is 5 years. Its warranty, no matter how strong, ends as a practical matter when the company ceases business in North America.

• Forious' customer service is so poor that there is no effective channel for making a warranty claim unless you are the original owner.

• If the company does not pay, its warranty would be hard to enforce in a court. It is safely ensconced on the Chinese mainland and difficult to serve with legal process. (Not impossible, however.)

Customer Service

A faucet warranty, no matter how comprehensive, is only as effective as the company's customer service. The Forious website claims that

"Forious provides 24/7 customer service. Reach out at service@forious.com for any queries."

But, in fact, customer service for Forious products is very poor.

We have "reached out" to the company more than a dozen times with "queries" about its faucets and other matters but have yet to receive a response.

Our emails are tagged to inform us if and when they are opened. They were opened, and presumably read, but the company did not reply. We have also reached out through the website's contact-us page, again with no result.

All of these efforts have led us to conclude that attempting to contact the company by email is a waste of time

While the company provides a toll-free customer service telephone number, it is not answered. A recorded message invites the caller to leave a voice mail or press zero for the operator. Pressing zero, however, merely leads back to the same recorded message.

If you leave a message, an English-speaking representative will call back in one or two days. If you miss that call, however, you will need to leave another message to start the process all over again.

Nothing about this process supports the company's claim that

"customers … are at the heart of everyghing we do…"

We rate the company's customer support as "very unsatisfactory."

This lack of responsive support is a problem if your Forious faucet has developed a problem and you need replacement parts right away.

Installation & Serviceability

Furuisi claims that Forious faucets are easy to install, a claim that our plumbers confirmed. Installation ins tructions are in English and very clear. The faucets ranged from "very easy" to "easy" in our installation tests on a four point scale of "Very Easy" to "Very Hard."

Side-handle kitchen faucets equipped with the company's F-Valve, however, failed serviceability testing.

This test determines whether basic serviceing can be performed without uninstalling the faucet. This usually involves replacing the valve cartridge.

We found, much to our surprise, that side-mounted F-Valves cannot be removed and replaced without destroying the cartridge, a fact not disclosed by Fur­ui­si in any of its documentation.

If the valve leaks – and a leaking valve is the most common faucet problem – there is no cure other than replacing the entire faucet.

Forious Website

Fu­ru­i­si does not have a website under either its English or Chinese name.

Forious, Inc. does have a U.S. website, but this site – Forious.com – based on a Shopify template, is more than a little unfinished. It has improved over earlier versions when most of its pages were blank but is still not quite done.

For example, the invitation to "pop in for a cup of fresh tea and a cookie" lists the pop-in address as

"8808 Ave Dermentum, Onsectetur Adipiscing, Tortor Sagittis, CA 880986."

This is not a real address: it is merely a placeholder in the Sopify template until the actual address is entered.

On the other hand, according to Los Angeles County real estate records and the U.S. Postal Service, its claimed address of 3960 Glendale Ave. in Los Angeles is not a real address either. So don't plan on tea and cookies in the near future.

We suspect that the site was created solely because third-party hosting sites like Amazon strongly encourage hosted sellers to have an English-language website. Forious does not, however, seem to be taking it seriously.

It does contain images of all of the faucets and accessories sold under the Forious brand, and what may be MSRP or list prices (which bear little relation to the street prices at which the products are actually sold). Often the list pice stated on the website differs from the price on the literature that accompanies the faucet.

One Forious "5 pieces bathroom hardware set, 24 inch" is listed on the site for $0.00. We did not find any retailer selling at that price, however.

Exclusive Models

Furu­i­si sells about a dozen basic faucet models in North America. The exact number varies from time to time.

Fur­uisi assigns unique prefix to its model numbers for each of its major retailers and a finish suffix for each finish, a practice that inflates the apparent number of faucet models.

Counting all of the prefixes and suffixes, it has a total of about 40 different model numbers for its dozen basic faucets.

The retailer prefixes are:

All other sellers, including most faucets sold on Amazon, are prefixed FF for kitchen faucets or FB for lavatory faucets.

The 0023 kitchen fau­cet, for example, is the LLL0203xx for Lowes stores, WM0023xx for Wal­mart, WW003xx for Way­fair, and FF0203xx for all other sellers, including Am­a­zon. The "xx" is the finish suffix. (See the sidebar "For­i­ous Model Num­bers" for the breakdown of a Forious model number.)

The faucets are exactly the same but the different model numbers allow each seller to claim that:

• The faucet is exclusive to the seller and

• It has the lowest price on that particular model.

It must have the lowest price because is the only seller with that particular model number.

This marketing slight-of-hand is not unique to For­i­ous fau­cets. All of the major fau­cet companies, including do exactly the same thing.

Testing & Certification

At our last update early this year, only Forious stainless steel kitchen faucets had been tested and certified to all joint Canadian/U.S. faucet standards. As of this update, all Forious faucets have been certified.

Here are the details of Fu­ru­i­si's certifications.

Comparable Faucets

Faucets made in Asia comparable to Forious in quality with the same or a better warranty, but not necessarily comparable for design or price, include

Conclusions

Forious prices are very reasonable for the quality of the product. However, you should consider a purchase only if the lack of a legal warranty, no source of replacement parts, some cartridges that cannot be replaced, and inadequate post-sale customer support don't bother you.

The Pros

• Certification: The company's faucets are certified safe, dependable, and lead-free.

• Quality: The faucets are well-made using what appear to be good cartridges and top-line aerators

The Cons

• Warranty: The company's warranty does not comply with the content requirements of federal warranty law. Although the company claims a lifetime-of-th-product all-risks warranty, it does not explain how to initiate the warranty process or what it will do to fix a problem with a Forious faucet.

• U.S.-Based Product Support: The company provides inadequate after-sale support. The process of getting replacement parts or making a warranty claim is managed from China and is, at best, cumbersome and lengthy – weeks if not months. The complaints we have received about the company all relate to post-sale customer support.

• Replacement Valves: As far as we can determine, there is no source for replacement ceramic valves on this side of the Pacific. Our request to the company to identify where replacement parts and, particularly, replacement valves could be obtaine went unanswered. We are also not at all certain that valves in single-handle faucet can be replaced.

Rating Panel Comments

Our rating panel was impressed by the quality of the faucets, but a majority of the panelists would not install one in a busy kitchen or bath for lack of reliable after-sale support, particularly citing the lack of a replacement parts source in the U.S. or Canada. As a prep or bar faucet or one in a little used guest powder room, most of the panelists would take a chance.

Keep in mind, however, that the company could pull out of the North Amer­i­can market at any time, taking its lifetime warranty with it. The absence of a substantial physical presence or recognized distributor in the U.S. suggests that it is not in the North Amer­i­can market for the long haul.

We recommend that if you do buy a Forious kitchen faucet, you do so cautiously while fully aware that the valve cartridge cannot be replaced if it develops a leak.

Continung Research

We are continuing to research the company. If you have experience with Forious faucets, good, bad or indifferent, we would like to hear about it, so please contact us or post a comment below.