Yutong Faucets Aquafaucet • BWE • DFI • Greenspring Review & Rating Updated: 11/27/23
567 Haigong Ave.
Haicheng Subdistrict.
Longwan District
Wenzhou City
Zhejiang 325055 China
Trading as
Aquafaucet LLC
5652 Rosemead Blvd.
Ste. 601
Temple City CA 91780
sales@aquafaucet.net
Law Requirements
Warranty Notes:1. Although the company states that it offers a "lifetime warranty" and a "5-year guarantee of quality" on its faucets, the "warranty" is not written.In the U.S. a product warranty given to a consumer by a merchant must be in writing, must include minimum content mandated by federal law, and must be available to be read before a sale.
This Company In Brief
Yutong Technology Co. of Wenzhou (wœn-JOH), China, founded in 2010, is a company that sells faucets, showers, tub fillers, and bath accessories.
In the little over years it has been in business it has expanded its multiple brands to most of the world.
Yutong is a trading company that specializes in internet sales. It is not a manufacturer. The faucets are made by several Chinese companies.
Black Market Faucets: Most Yutang faucets are not legal for sale in the U.S. and not legal for installation in a drinking water system in the U.S. or Canada. For more information on contraband faucets and how to avoid these potentially dangerous products, please visit Illegal and Black Market Faucets in North America.
For a listing of illegal and black market faucets sold on Amazon, see Amazon's Contraband Faucets.
The Company
Wnenzhou Yutong Technology Co., Ltd. , founded in 2010, is a trading company that buys the products its sells from Chinese manufacturers.
It claims to manufacture some of its faucets, shower heads, and accessories on a
"… complete production line, including gravity casting workshop, CNC machine workshop, polishing workshop, surface finishing workshop, assembly workshop and testing center."
It is more likely, however, that any actual manufacturing is by a sister company, most likely (Zhejiang) Catly Sanitary Wares Co., Ltd., while Yutong concentrates on sales and distribution.
North America is its largest market, producing over 54% of its worldwide revenue. Europe is second with 13%. The balance is derived from sales in Asia and its domestic market in China.
Of the dozens of different faucet models sold by the company,, only fifteen sold under the BWE brand are certified to North American standards.
These are listed in the table of Certified Yutong Faucets on this page.
No others are certified safe or legal to use. The vast majority of Yutong's faucets are uncertified contraband products.
We have also found the same contraband faucets sold by other sellers of black market faucets including Most of these, like the Yutong brands, are sold over the internet at sites that host third party sellers such as Amazon, Walmart, and Wayfair.
Some of its faucets are manufactured by what Yutong literature identifies only as its "cooperating company."
We could not positively identify the cooperating company, but it is most likely (Zhejiang) Catly Sanitary Wares Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of (Wenzhou) Yideli Detergent Tools Co., Ltd. (formerly Huahang Sanitary Wares Co.).
Catly sells sanitary wares throughout the world under its own Catly brand. It also supplies faucets to a few U.S. importers that sell fully certified faucets, including Westover, Inc. of Omaha selling under the
Yutong's Faucet Brands
Yutong sells faucets under several brand names. We may not have found them all but the ones we have found include Aquafaucet®, BWE®, DFI®, and Greenspring®.
These trade names are all registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to either the company or to individuals (such as Danxuan Ding or Fegan Ding) associated with the company.
Greenspring and BWE are also registered in Canada as trademarks.
Yutong's North American Operations
Yutong's entire North American operation is run from China. The company does not have a physical presence in North America.
It has established at least one U.S. company: Aquafaucet LLC, organized in 2016 by one of the Yutong's owners, Danxuan Ding (also know as Daniel Xuan Ding).
Aquafaucet LLC is, however, an empty shell.
It has no employees and conducts no business. Its address in Temple, California is a mail drop. The address is shared with several dozen other Chinese-owned California companies as an accommodation provided by an accounting firm, Kevin Cheung CPA. for a fee.
The corporation exists solely to create the illusion of having a physical presence in the U.S.
There is no North American customer service, no North American stock of replacement parts, not even a North American telephone number.
The only contact with the company is by email. Our tests revealed that emails are received in and answered from China.
It is possible to manage North American faucet sales from offshore, but most foreign faucet companies that sell in North America set up a local subsidiary that stocks inventory and does the actual selling.
A few companies, however, do manage North American operations from other continents. Some, like the German faucet company, do it very well. Others do it badly. Yutong is one of the companies that does it poorly.
| Retail Source Table | |
|---|---|
| Retail Website | Brand Name(s) Used |
| Amazon.com | Aquafaucet, BWE, and Greenspring |
| BHG.com | BWE |
| HomeDepot.com | BWE |
| Overstock.com | DFI |
| Wayfair.com | Aquafaucet, DFI |
| Walmart.com | BWE, DFI |
The secret is to have a reliable distributor in the U.S. or Canada that can stock replacement parts and take care of warranty issues. In2aqua has a reliable North American distributor, Yutong does not.
Yutong's Business Model
The Yutong business model is to contract almost everything to do with retail sales in the U.S. and Canada to third parties.
It sells only through retail websites like Amazon that host third-party sellers and take care of the entire retailing process for a fee, including warehousing, inventory management, payment processing, returns and refunds, and delivery.
Yutong does very little other than arrange for periodic shipment of containers of faucets to Amazon's fulfillment centers.
Other sites used for retail sales by Yutong operate in much the same way, minimizing Yutong's involvement in the North American sales process to almost nothing.
In addition to Amazon, Yutong's faucets are sold on BHG, eBay, Home Depot (online only), Lowes, Overstock, Walmart (online only), and Wayfair as well as some lesser known websites such as NewEgg, WaterSolutions, and EcoSweetHome.
The faucets are also sold by third-party sellers, the most prominent of which at one time was a brand owned by Wenzhou Eyekepper E-commerce Co., Ltd. to sell faucets and other products on Amazon and Walmart.
Eyekepper, however, has returned to selling its primary products, eyeglasses, and has ceased selling faucets as of the date of this report.
Faucet Finishes
Available finishes vary depending on the manufacturers from which the faucets are obtained. Generally, however, the faucets are available in severa; finishes, including some . The finishes include Chrome, Brushed Nickel, Oil-rubbed Bronze (ORB), several blacks, Copper, and at least two golds (or brasses).
The finishes are except the blacks which are , and the golds which are a (PVD) finish. (See the Yutang Finishes.)
Electroplating and PVD finishes are considered durable. Of the two, PVD is the more durable – by some estimates, 10-20 times more scratch-resistant than electroplatings. Powder coatings are semi-durable, about the same durability as the finish on your care. They require more care in use to avoid damage.
For more information on the types of faucet finishes and the advantages and drawbacks of each, see Faucet Basics, Part 5: Faucet Finishes.
Almost every faucet is available in chrome, brushed nickel, and ORB. Many are also offered in matte black. A few can be found in copper, brushed gold, and polished gold. The finishes available on a faucet are clearly identified on the Aquafaucet website and most vendor sites.
Yutong's oil-rubbed bronze differs from most ORBs. It has copper highlights. Highlights are more typical of antique bronze finishes. They are intended to simulate wear on the finish over time which has exposed the copper beneath the finish. ORB finishes usually do not have highlights.
Faucet Designs
Some of Yutong's designs are original – inspired, the company says, by natural waterfalls and Aladdin's lamp. We beleive these original designs to be those shown in the table below.The designs make generous use of what the company calls waterfall spouts (others call them pump spouts) in which the top of the spout is open to create a falling water effect. Falling water is a very popular motif in Oriental design.
They differ from the usual run of Chinese faucet designs that are largely unexciting, too often copies of Western styles, and rarely cutting edge. The goal of most Chinese faucet manufacturers is to sell as many faucets as possible, which means keeping designs well within established style boundaries to appeal to as many potential buyers as possible.
To learn more about faucet styles, see Faucet Basics, Part 4: Style and Configuration.
Yutong's faucets are heavily skewed toward traditional faucet styles. Many of the traditional pump-spout faucets have the feel of Art Nouveau design from fin de siècle France. While not as stylish or as innovative as the Art Nouveau faucets in the they are also not nearly as pricey as these luxury French brands that start around $500 and climb rapidly skyward from there.
Faucet Construction
The faucets are brass with a zinc alloy used for non-critical parts such as handles and base plates. We have not found any Yutong faucets identified as constructed from stainless steel. However, most of the company's faucet listings do not specifically identify the material from which the faucet is made, so some of the faucets could be made of stainless as their primary material.
Yutang's Faucet Cartridges
Cartridges used in Yutong faucets. Top and bottom are mixing cartridges used in single-handle faucets. They are both standard configuration cartridges which makes the interchangeable in most faucets. In the middle are stem cartridges or headworks used in two--handle faucets, hot side cartridge on the left, cold side on the right.Valve Cartridges
The cartridges in its fifteen certified faucets are made by Sedal S.L.U. and Weingbo Wanhai Cartridge Technology Co., Ltd., both well-regarded technical ceramics companies. We know nothing, however, about the origin or quality of the cartridges in its uncertified faucets.
Sedal is chartered in Spain but does all of its manufacturing in China. Its cartridges are popular among Chinese manufacturers making faucets for the North American market.
Wanhai cartridges are frequently installed in Chinese-manufactured faucets destined for the European Union, where the company sells under the Quore brand from offices in Spain and Italy.
Its ceramic cartridge is the heart of a modern faucet. The cartridge controls water flow and (in single-handle faucets) water temperature. With a working cartridge, a faucet is a faucet doing what faucets do: metering water in a safe and controlled manner. Without a working cartridge, a faucet is just a strange-looking paperweight. So, it is important that the ceramic cartridge be tough, durable, and long-lived.
Neither cartridge is considered first-rank, but both companies make responsible products.
We judge the cartridges to be reliable. They should give leak-free service for many years. If they do go bad, however, they are easy to replace and widely available from sellers of replacement faucet parts, big box lumber stores like Menards and Lowes, and even from the local hardware store.
To learn more about the types of faucet valves and cartridges and the advantages and disadvantages of each type, see Faucet Basics, Part 2: Faucet Valves & Cartridges.
Hoses & Aerators
The faucets also include very good braided stainless steel hoses from Fanski, a Malaysian manufacturer, and aerators from the Swiss company, Neoperl®.
It is important, therefore, that this little device, often smaller than a dime, be the best available. And that, almost by definition, is the Swiss-engineered Neoperl aerator.
Stainless steel riser hoses that connect the faucet to the water supply are becoming the universal standard, replacing the old solid brass tubes that are time-consuming to install and require special tools for bending the tube without kinking it. Fanski makes a very good quality hose, comparable to those made by Brasstech and other U.S. manufacturers.
Yutang's BWE Website
The only Yutong brand that has its own website in English is BWE. Yutong's The North America is well-designed. Navigation is menu-driven and intuitive.
However, there is no search function, which impedes finding a particular faucet. A flexible and robust search function is useful, for example, in finding all of the faucets, showers, fillers, and accessories in a particular finish as opposed to the labor-intensive process of searching them out one by one.
The website lists only a fraction of all the faucets actually sold by Yutong under its various brands. We easily found a dozen faucets for sale on the internet that are not in the website catalog.
If the faucet is on the website, however, the information provided about the faucet is comprehensive. It includes the manufacturer of the cartridge used in a faucet – information that is rarely provided on faucet websites.
Our plumbers rated installation as "easy" on a four-point scale from "very easy" to "very hard".
The site also identifies the material used in the handles of its faucets – a zinc alloy. Most faucet companies use zinc in parts of a faucet that do not need the strength of brass, but few admit to zinc in their "all brass" faucets.
Zinc used to make unpressurized parts of a faucet such as handles and baseplates saves a few dollars in fabrication costs (zinc is much cheaper than brass) and does not affect faucet quality. It is not a practice just of manufacturers of inexpensive faucets. We see it used in faucets costing hundreds, even thousands of dollars.
Most BWE Website faucet listings have a link to installation instructions that are considerably more than just installation instructions.
Usually, they are a comprehensive summary of information about the faucet, usually including a dimensioned drawing of the faucet and care instructions along with detailed, step-by-step directions for installing the faucet.
In addition to the lack of a search function, there are a few other features common on faucet websites that are missing from this one. The most striking is the absence of a "where-to-buy" feature, which, being a company in the business of selling faucets, is information that Yutong might want potential buyers to have.
Yutong Faucet Warranty
Yutong has no faucet warranty.
The BWE Website variously refers to a "five-year warranty", a "limited lifetime warranty, and a "5-year quality guarantee." Other Yutang literature mentions a one-year warranty on Aquafaucet and DFI brand faucets.
There is no actual warranty on the website nor in the box with the Yutong faucets we acquired for examination and testing.
The U.S. Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (15 U.S.C. §2301) says it needs to be posted on the website with a conspicuous link to the warranty at each faucet listed for sale so a potential buyer can easily find and read it before making a purchase.
We asked customer support for a copy. In response, we were advised "not to worry" about it. We then asked the company's product manager who replied that the company was in the process of reducing its North American warranty to writing.
Whoever is reducing it is the world's slowest reducer. That conversation was over months ago, and we have still not seen a written Aquafaucet warranty.
|
Certified Yutong Faucets
As of November 23, 2023 |
||
|---|---|---|
|
Fifteen basic faucet models, all of them single-handle bathroom faucets, are certified compliant with North American standards and are legal to install in a drinking water system. Each model is availale in up to six different finishes. As far as we know, they are sold only under the BWE brand.
|
||
| A-6135 | A-6135H | A-6137 |
|
|
|
| A-6137H | A-6556 | A-6556H |
|
|
|
| A-6557 | A-6558 | A-6558H |
|
|
|
| A-6559 | A-6559H | A-6560 |
|
|
|
| A-6560H | A-6561 | A-6561H |
|
|
|
To read, download, and print Yutong's actual faucet listing certificates, click on the document indicated below.
|
||
Under U.S. law a consumer warranty must be in writing, so until the Yutong warranty is reduced to writing and posted on its websites, legally the company has no warranty.
Yutong Litigation
Californian sued Yutong in 2022 for violation of the California energy code. According to the California Energy Commission:
This case was the result of an investigation performed by California Energy Commission (CEC) staff. CEC's investigation and testing process identified that Wenzhou was manufacturing and offering for sale kitchen faucets, showerheads, and lavatory faucets that did not meet the efficiency standard, failed the marking requirement, and were not certified to the Modernized Appliance Efficiency Database System (MAEDbS).
To settle this matter, Wenzhou executed a Settlement Agreement with CEC on October 4, 2022, for $60,710.00. The penalty monies are deposited into the Appliance Efficiency Enforcement Subaccount established by SB 454 of 2011 (Pavley). Wenzhou has also agreed to a compliance plan to redesign the non-compliant models to meet the efficiency standard, add the appropriate marking, and certify all models to MAEDbS before continuing to sell in California.
Testing & Certification
Before a faucet can be installed at your kitchen or bath sink, it must be certified to North Americal quality, durability, safety, and (most important) lead-free standards.
Certification is a simple concept.
A manufacturer submits its faucets to an independent laboratory where they are extensively tested.If they pass all the tests – and there are many of them – they are "listed" in a certificate confirming that they meet all required standards.
All of us understand the meaning of "UL Listed" when it comes to appliances. It is a guarantee of quality and safety.
Faucets are listed in the same way except instead of calling them "listed", they are referred to as "certified."
However, unlike appliances for which listing is usually voluntary, sink faucets by law must be certified. If they are not certified, they cannot legally be installed in a drinking water system in the U.S. or Canada.
The legal penalties for installing an uncertified faucet can be severe.
At the very least, the uncertified faucet will have to be removed and replaced by one that is certified – at your expense.
There may also be a fine and, for repeat offenses, a little jail time involved. So, it pays to ensure that any faucet you buy is certified.
Life-Cycle Testing: One test of faucet cartridge longevity, for example, is to operate the faucet cartridge through 500,000 on-off cycles – equivalent to about 70 years of use in a typical bath or kitchen.
The test takes six days to complete.
A faucet that fails at any point in the test is not certified.
(Watch a video showing the operation of the machine that puts faucets through life-cycle testing. Warning: it's very noisy.)
After a decade of selling only uncertified faucets, Yutong submitted a few of its BWE faucets to testing and certification in 2020.
Just 15 lavatory faucets have been certified so far, however, all of them single-handle lavatory faucets. No two-handle lavatory faucet has been certified, nor has any kitchen or commercial faucet.
The faucets that have been certified as of the date of this report are identified in the Certified Yutong Faucets on this page.
But, even those few faucets that have been certified are not fully legal for the U.S. market.
Yutong has not registered any faucet with the U.S. Department of energy in compliance with the federal Energy Policy & Conservation Act (EPCA).
Any Aquafaucet brand "distributed in commerce" in the U.S. must be registered as mandated by 10 CFR § 429.12.
False Certification Claims
You cannot rely on a statement by Yutong that a particular faucet is certified.
On the websites at which it sells faucets, BWE regularly identifies its faucets as certified when, in fact, they are not. So a claim in the description of a Yutong faucet that it is certified cannot be taken at face value and must be confirmed.
If it is not in our table of Certified Yutong Faucets on this page, it is not certified.
Faucet Buying Rule: If Yutong cannot produce an actual listing certificate showing your selected faubet by brand name and model name (or number), it is not certified, so don't buy it.
Contact Us: If you are uncertain whether a faucet is certified, you may send us an email (please do not telephone) at starcraftreviews@yahoo.com stating the brand name and model name or number of the faucet. We will investigate its certifications and respond with two business days.
There is no charge for this service although a donation to help continue these faucet reviews would be greatly appreciated.
Confirmation of certification can be difficult. There is, unfortunately, no central database. Each testing organization publishes its own list.
Certified faucets are identified by the testing laboratory using model numbers. More often than not, however, a Yutong faucet offered for sale on Amazon or one of the other e-tail websites has no model number. This is especially true if it is being sold under a brand name other than BWE.
Faucet Certifications: To learn more about how faucets are regulated in North America, see Faucet Basics, Part 3: Keeping Faucets Safe & Reliable.
Faucets are always supposed to be clearly identified by model number or model name. This is a requirement imposed by certifying agencies. Failure to do so can cost the faucet company its certifications.
The requirement ensures that buyers, plumbing contractors, and local building code officials can easily determine whether a faucet is certified. Without the model number, it is difficult and sometimes impossible to tell whether a faucet is certified. The safest course where the faucet cannot be positively shown to be certified is to move on to another faucet.
Because of the high lead content in brass used by Chinese manufacturers to make faucets for the Chinese home market, it is very important that any faucet you buy is certified lead-free to North American standards. (See the sidebar Lead in Chinese Faucets for more information.)
Comparable Faucets
Certified faucets made in China comparable to Yutong brands in price and quality, but not necessarily in design, include
Conclusions
For a little-used guest bath, a BWE faucet from the list of BWE's certified faucets migh be a reasonable value provided the risk of the lack of a written warranty is acceptable to you. At less than $130 in most instances, the price is certainly right. However, in a well-used master or main bath, the lack of a warranty is an issue. We would wait until the written warranty is available to see exactly what kind of post-sale protection the company offers and for how long.
Stay away, however, from Yutong's uncertified faucets. This means, avoid any faucet not identified in the Certified Yutong Faucets table above. This includes
- every kitchen faucet,
- every faucet identified as a commercial faucet, and
- every two-handle faucet.
Uncertified faucets are illegal for you to use in a drinking water system in the U.S. or Canada and installing an uncertified faucet puts you at risk for substantial legal penalties and other costs.
1. Price is not enough. The prices on Yutong faucets make them attractive, but, as the list above demonstrates, a great many other companies sell Chinese-made faucets for about the same price that are fully certified, legal to use in a drinking water system, and backed by a warranty of some kind. Many are guaranteed for the lifetime of the buyer.2. Toxic Substances Have Not Been Excluded so the presence of lead, arsenic, cadmium, and mercury in most of the faucets is a real and substantial risk. Because these faucets are made in China where the use of lead in faucets is not regulated, the risk is even greater than usual.
3. Yutong offers no written warranty on the faucets, suggesting that even the seller has no confidence in their long-term durability.
4. There are no replacement parts in the U.S. If they are available from China, the shipping time is up to 70 days.
You are the one that will pay any fines, assume the cost of replacing the faucet with a legal product, and be subject to any other (including criminal) penalties imposed by the laws of your State or Province, not Yutong Technology Co. which is in China and out of the reach of most local law enforcement.
We are continuing to research the company. If you have experience with a Yutong brand: BWE, Aquafaucet, DFI, or Greenspring, faucets, good, bad, or indifferent, we would like to hear about it, so please contact us or post a comment below.