Gicasa Review & Rating Updated: December 28, 2023

Summary
Imported
ChinaFlag
China
Dongguan Dongcheng Huada Network Technology Business Department
trading as
uekpoehome001
No. 18
1st Floor
Jinbiyuan Inner St.
Li Xinguang Rd.
Dongcheng St.
Dongguan City
Guangdong 523125 China
[No email address]
[No North American Telephone Number]
Rating
Business Type
For more information on the five faucet company business types, see Faucet Companies
Product Range
Kitchen and Bath Faucets
Certifications
Brands
Gicasa
Street Price
$57-$218
Warranty Score
Cartridge
10 Years1
Finishes
None
Mechanical Parts
None
Proof of Purchase
Not Specified
Transferable
Yes
Meets U.S. Warranty
Law Requirements
No

Warranty Footnotes:

1. The duration stated in the "Warranty Card" that comes with the faucets is ten years on the cartridges and "main body" only.
Download/Read/Print the Gicasa Warranty.
Learn more about faucet warranties.

This Company In Brief

Dong­gu­an Dong­cheng Huada Net­work Tech­nol­ogy Busi­ness De­part­ment is a Chin­ese corporation formed in 2018 that sells Gi­ca­sa faucets on Ama­zon as uekpoehome001.

It sells only through Ama­zon as a third-party seller in what Ama­zon calls its Mar­ket­place.

The faucets are of average quality and virtually indistinguishable from the hoard of Made-in-China faucets sold through internet venues in the U.S. and Can­ada.

Skull

Black Mar­ket Faucets: These 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.

Dong­guan Dong­cheng Hua­da Net­work Tech­nol­o­gy Bus­i­ness De­part­ment is a Chin­ese trading company that sells fau­cets in the U.S. and Can­ada under the Gi­ca­sa brand. It is the third lsuscessive company selling the brand.

The original seller was Guangdong Hong­Qi Furn­iture Co., Ltd. (also known as Guang­dong Red Ban­ner Furn­i­ture Co., Ltd.). Hong­Qi is a Chin­ese furniture manufacturer formed in either 2000, 2001, or 2004 (accounts vary) to manufacture home furnishings.

It does indeed manufacture wood furniture, including some very fancy carved items suitable for Victorian decor that it sells in most countries of the world as Gi­ca­sa Home.

In the U.S., however, it did not sell furniture. It sells fau­cets and fau­cet-related accessories.

It registered Gicsa as a tradmark in 2018 and began selling Gi­ca­sa-branded faucets on Amazon. Why faucets? We don't know but we do know that a lot of Chinese furniture companies sell faucets in the U.S., so Hong­Qi Furn­iture is not unique in that regard.

A few years later another company, Foshan Songmei Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. took over the franchise, selling Gi­ca­sa faucets until very recently.

Dong­guan Dong­cheng Hua­da Net­work Tech­nol­o­gy Bus­i­ness De­part­ment is the current seller, selling the faucets on Ama­zon as uekpoehome001. We have no idea what uekpoehome001 means, if it means anything at all.

The Company

Formed in 2018 as a Chin­ese corporation, Hua­da is solely a trading company. It does not manufacture anything.

The faucets and accessories that it sells in the U.S. and Can­ada are made by other companies. We have not identified the manufacturers. We can make an educated guess based on details of fabrication and finish but we don't like guessing. We are certain, however, that the faucets are made in china.

Gicasa faucets are sold only on the internet through websites that host third-party sellers. Formerly, these included Ama­zon and Wal­mart but today Gi­ca­sa faucets are sold only on Ama­zon.

According to its U.S. trademark filing, the Gi­ca­sa trademark covers a wide range of products including:

"Anti-splash tap nozzles; Bath installations; Drinking fountains; Faucets; Flush levers; Lamps; Microwave ovens; Radiators, electric; Sinks; Sterilizers; Wash basins being parts of sanitary installations; Water purification installations; Automatic flush valves for toilets; Baking ovens; Electric hand drying apparatus for washrooms; Refrigerating machines and installations"

In North America, however, it sells only kitchen faucets and sink accessories such as soap and lotion dispensers and drains, and a few lavatory faucets.

Huada is not very keen on disclosing its actual identity.

Amazon now requires owners of its storefronts to identify themselves and Hua­da does so but in Hanyu Pinyin (or just Pinyin), a phonectic rendering of the compay's Chinese name in the Roman alphabet:

Dongguanshi Dongcheng Hua­da Wangluokeji Jingyingbu.

Unfortunately, translation into English is not always precise. Pinyin often allows more than one English translation. In this instance, the name translated to Dong­gu­an Dong­cheng Hua­da Net­work Tech­nol­ogy Bus­i­ness De­part­ment or Dong­cheng Hua­da Net­work Tech­nol­ogy Oper­a­tions De­part­ment.

Huada's North American Facilities

Huada runs its trading business from China. It has no functioning presence in North America. All of the details of its sales have been delegated to Amazon: warehousing, inventory, payment processing, and delivery.

It is entirely possible to successfully market faucets in the U.S. without having a physical presence in the U.S. The Ger­man luxury fau­cet companies, manage it extremely well.

Their approach takes advantage of the fact that with smartphones and the Internet, physical proximity to a market is no longer necessary to sell in that market. 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.

But, to be successful, the time difference between customer and company must be overcome. In2aqua and Jörger have done so by ensuring that their technical and customer support is available during North Amer­i­can business hours by telephone.

Hua­da has not.

It provides neither a telephone number nor email address through which it can be contacted during North American business hours. The only option it provdies is message relay through Amazon customer service.

Gicasa commercial-style kitchen fau­cet in Black.

Construction & Materials

The company claims that Gi­ca­sa fau­cet are made from "solid brass." They are, however, by no mean of "solid" brass and there is no independent verification that the brass is lead-free as required by law.

Brass

Brass is the preferred material for faucets for two reasons:

But, brass has one serious drawback. It may contain lead.

Traditional Alpha) brass is a blend of copper and zinc with a small amount of lead added to make the material more malleable, less brittle, and easier to fabricate.

Lead, however, 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 sold in the U.S. or Can­ada 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 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 manufacturers to use substitute materials in their fau­cets where possible.

Zinc & Zinc/Aluminum Alloys

The 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.

Plastics

Plastic is the other commonly used substitute material. It may be safely used in incidental 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 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 Gicasa kitchen fau­cet sprays are also plastic.

Manufacturers give three reasons for their use of plastic:

However, plastic wands also fail much more often than metal wands. And although engineers have made significant improvements to their reliability over the past decade, the problem has not been entirely solved.

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 Design & Styling

Gicasa fau­cets are contemporary designs. The styles are conservative – fairly common designs, 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.

Although some Chinese manufacturers have begun producing original designs, some of which have won awards in international design competitions, Hua­da's manufacturer is not one of those companies.

Designs are usually adopted from Eur­ope and North Amer­ica.

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 Chinshy;ese fau­cet, it is no longer new.

Gicasa's fau­cet designs fit this pattern. They are pleasant and often smartly styled but most 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 Components

The critical components used in Gi­ca­sa fau­cets are ceramic valve cartridges and aerators.

Valve Cartridges

The faucets we examined contained standard configuration ceramic cartridges made in China.

Dozens of Chinese companies manufacture ceramic valves, most of which do not export, so we never encounter them.

What we do know about the cartridges is that they are not one of the better cartridges like those manufactured by Kerox Kft or Sedal S.L.U. that have established a solid reputation for quality products and have been proven by having passed the North Amer­ican life-cycle stress tests.

The Faucet Cartridge

Its cartridge is the heart of a modern fau­cet and should be your very first consideration when making a buying decision.

It is the component that controls water flow and temperature.

Its finish may fail and the fau­cet will still work. It may be discolored, corroded, and ugly but water still flows. If the cartridge fails, however, the fau­cet is no longer a fau­cet. It is out of business until the cartridge is replaced.

It's important, therefore, that the cartridge is robust, durable, and lasts for many years.

The standard North Amer­ican life-cycle test requires operating a cartridge through 500,000 cycles under 60 psi of water pressure without a single failure. At one cycle per second, the test takes six 24-hour days to complete.

The cartridge is also subjected to a burst test under water pressure of 500 pounds per square inch – many times normal household water pressure of 40-60 psi. A cartridge that deforms in any manner under this enormous pressure fails the test and is not certified for use in the U.s. or Can­ada.

Gicasa faucets are not certified. The likelyhood is that the cartridges have never been tested, so we have no idea how well they will stand up to used in a normal kitchen. But a clue is Gicasa's relatively short 10-year cartridge warranty. A good cartridge will last many times 10 years, and most have a lifetime warranty, so we suspect that Gicasa's is not one of the better cartridges.

Aerators

There are dozens of companies in China that manufacture and spray-head assembles. Most are a least adequate.

Faucet 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.

It is important, therefore, that this little device, often smaller than a dime, be the best available and that almost by definition is the Neoperl aerator.

The manufacturer or manufacturers of aerators and spray heads are not identified by Hua­da, and our examination of several aerators and spray heads did not disclose any markings on the devices that would allow us to determine where they are made.

All we can say is that in our testing they modified the stream of water just as they are supposed to so it did not splash out of the sink. We do not know how resistant they are to mineral accumulation that causes clogging or how long they will last in ordinary household use.

We asked Hua­da for information about its aerators but have not received a reply from the company.

Gicasa Faucet Finishes

Gicasa offers five finishes on its fuacets: Polished Chrome, Matte Black, Brushed Nickel, Brushed Gold, and Copper.

Of the five finishes. Chrome and Nickel are electroplated. Black is a powder coating. Gold and Copper may be a powder coating but are more likely a physical vapor deposition (PVD) finish.

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 minor scratches that are inevitable.

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 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 mixes art with science.

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.

A PVD finish can usually be maintained with just an occasional wipe from a damp cloth to remove water spots.

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.

Gicasa Faucet Warranty

Despite Gicasa's promise of "lifetime limited support", its warrnty is for just ten years on the cartridge and "main body" only. Finishes and mechanical parts other than the cartridge are not guaranteed.

U.S. law requires consumer product warranties to be in writing and to specifically set out its terms and conditions in plain and simple languare.

The Gicasa warranty is in writing but violates a number of the requirements of the federal law that controls the form and content of consumer product warranties, the Mag­nu­son-Moss War­ranty Act (15 U.S.C. §2308).

The first and most serior problem is its caption which reads "Warranty." This caption makes the warranty a full rather than the more common limited warranty. (15 U.S.C. §2303(a), 16 CFR §700.6)

To be a limited warranty, a warranty must contain clearly designate the warranty as a limited warranty in its caption with the magic words "limited" and "warranty" in its caption or title.

The words can be arranged to make a variety of acceptable captions: "Limited Warranty", "Limited Faucet Warranty", "Limited Lifetime Warranty", "Gi­ca­sa Limited Warranty", and so on. The caption must be conspicuous and "clearly separated from the text of the warranty." So long as the words "limited" and "warranty" are included, it gives fair warning to the buyer that its protection is intended to provide less than full warranty protection.

Unfortunately, the word "limited" is nowhere to be found in the Gi­ca­sa warranty.

A full warranty gives a buyer many more rights, voiding many of the restrictions and limitations written into the Gi­ca­sa warranty.Here are the most obvious errors.

  1. A warranty much explain what Gi­ca­sa will do to remedy a defect under warranty. (16 CFR § 701.3(a)(3)). The Gi­ca­sa warranty states it will repair any defect "freely," By "freely" the company undoubtedly means "no cost" to the consumer but the warranty does not explain what is involved in getting a free repair: send the fau­cet to China, call a plumber to make the repairs in the consumer's home, and so on. And, if the fau­cet has to be returned to the company, who pays for shipping?
  1. Gi­ca­sa tries to exclude any labor costs to "to repair, replace, or remove the [fau­cet]" from warranty coverage. However, a fau­cet falls into the category of a product that "has utility only when installed" and the company must, therefore, under a full warranty, pay for the labor to remove, repair, and reinstall the fau­cet. 16 CFR §700.9.
  1. The warranty must 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)). The Gi­ca­sa warranty gives no instructions on how to make a claim.
  1. A warranty must include the following statement, required to be in every consumer warranty: (16 CFR § 701.3(9))
  2. "This warranty gives you specific legal rights, and you may also have other rights which vary from State to State"

Clearly Hua­da should revisit its warranty to comply with U.S. law if it intends to continue to sell faucets in the United States.

Download/Read/Print the Gi­ca­sa Warranty.

Gicasa Customer Service

Huada has no presence in North America and that lack of presence includes the absence of a North American-based customer service. Customer service for Gi­ca­sa products is by email through Amazon.

You can't just call a toll-free number and get something done. You have to email then wait for a response.

Due at least in part to the time difference (China is between 13-16 hours ahead of the U.S.), it typically takes a minimum of 6-9 hours to get a reply, and often as long as 48 hours. If your Gi­ca­sa fau­cet is malfunctioning and you need replacement parts, that is far too long.

There is also the language barrier. Hua­da's customer agents probably speak far better English than you do Mandarin but English is not their first language, so communication can be slow and difficult with lots of questions and more questions, and explanation after explanation until some sort of understanding is achieved.

We rate the company's customer support as unsatisfactory.

Gicasa Websites

The closest Hua­da comes to a North American website is its Amazon storefront. The storefront does not, however, provide nearly enough information about the faucets sold by the company to permit an informed buying decision.

The best place to get the information needed to make an informed buying decision is the listing for the individual faucets.

The listing typically includes the fau­cet's dimensions (often in metric rather than inches), flow rate, primary material but you have to scroll far down in the listing to the section headed "Technical Detils." The intervening area is filled with illustrations that are, however, worth examining for additional nuggets of hard data.

Many of the specifications important to an informed decision are missing. Among the most critical are:

Gicasa Testing & Certification

Comparable Faucets

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

Conclusions

There is absolutely no reason to buy a Gi­ca­sa fau­cet. The selleer has ignored almost every law and regulation that apply to the sale of faucets in North America.

The prices on Gi­ca­sa 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 written warranty of some kind. Many are guaranteed for the lifetime of the buyer.

Gicasa faucets cannot be legally installed in a public or private drinking water system anywhere in the U.S. or Can­ada. A plumber probably will not install one for you, and if you do it yourself you risk, at the very least, having to replace the fau­cet with a legal product and the possibility in some jurisdictions of a fine and some jail time.

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