Touchless Kitchen Faucets -- American Standard's Beale Pull-Down Kitchen Faucet

In March, I wrote about putting my current status as an empty-nester in perspective and preparing to downsize.  It's very topical among my baby-boomer peers right now.  (I welcome recommendations of where I should move.  Feel free to leave yours (California, excepted.))

I've undertaken some of the preparations I discussed to get ready to sell my house, among them replacing my old kitchen faucet.  This is what my old faucet looked like:

 

You can see that it had a brass finish that had actually peeled off.  What do you expect from a builder-grade faucet after 21 years?  Just in time, American Standard offered me their Beale Pull-Down faucet with Selectronic Hands-Free Technology, and I jumped at the chance to try out a new-fangled touch-free faucet.

Because my old faucet had an eight-inch spread with a separate hose attachment (requiring 4 holes in the sink), I needed to get a new sink to accommodate the Beale faucet (which only requires a single opening).  No big deal because my old enamel sink could also stand to be replaced.

 

Here's the sink after the plumber started dismantling it.

Because I also didn't want to replace my countertops (which, I confess, could stand replacing, but I'll leave that to the next owner), I opted for a similar over-mount enamel sink with the same dimensions.  It was no problem for the plumber to remove the old sink, install the new sink and reconnect my existing garbage disposal.  The faucet was easy to install; however, there was a glitch with installing the solenoid device which enables the hands-free operation of the faucet.

 

Here's Andre, my favorite plumber, installing the battery pack for the faucet.

If you're thinking of a hands-free faucet, I'd recommend using a plumber experienced with the installation.  At least with the Beale, the solenoid installation can be confounding.  That seems to be a shared experience due to confusion with separate arrows on the device for flow and installation.  It’s easy to install the solenoid backwards since one of the arrows, the one that applies to installation, says “up” and when installed correctly, points down.  Go figure.

Installation aside, I'm very happy with my new faucet.  I opted for the stainless steel finish which looks like brushed nickel (the faucet also comes in polished chrome).  It's easy to use, multi-functional and certainly is a vast improvement over what I had.

 

Click on the picture below to view my video debut featuring the benefits of my new Beale Pull-Down Kitchen Faucet.

Comments

[Sean Mahan]

What an upgrade! I saw the video and it was breathtaking. So sleek, practical and minimal. I love the design. That hands-free technology is what most caught my attention: I've never used it before but now I feel like I need it asap, LOL. Love the post!

[Alina Simmons]

Love it. This was done very well.