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For the rest of a non-toxic kitchen, see dedicated posts on:
100% Lead-Free Faucets
There is a very unfortunate certification for faucets which is named “lead-free” but means the faucet can contain 0.25% lead. If you are concerned with lead (no level of lead is a safe level and it’s difficult to chelate), you want to look for 100% lead-free faucets.
The ones I have seen that are 100% lead-free are made of 100% solid stainless steel.
Parmir claims to make 100% lead-free faucets made of 100% stainless steel.
The other options for 100% lead-free faucets can be pricey.
- MGS an Italian company
- Nivito and in Canada
- Bay Castle makes 100% stainless faucets.
- Trywell makes a 100% stainless steel spigot for RO systems.
- Waterstone has some stainless steel options and those ones are 100% stainless.
If you cannot afford a 100% lead free faucet you can add a certified filter to the tap like this Brita one which will remove lead.
It’s ideal to also have a whole house system or reverse osmosis (RO) as well to remove contaminants.
The type of system needed depends on if you are on city or well water, and which contaminants your water contains.
If you are on well water, a RO or charcoal system is not advised without having a primary UV or ceramic filter to take care of microbes first.
Please contact me if you would like help choosing the best type of filter system for your home. I find the companies that sell and install whole systems almost always oversell what is needed.
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Anna says
Just an FYI, Waterstone uses vulcanized rubber as their supply line. Some manufacturers use latex as the rubber. I can’t imagine heated latex in chlorinated water will be a good thing in the long run. Not to mention, the hoses in the pull out faucets are made out of junk in most cases too. Why spend $1400 on a kitchen faucet that ends up producing toxins? I might as well spend $300 on a Parmir product. Parmir has not gotten back to me about what their hose materials are made from, but I can’t imagine it being worse than what Watersone is doing.
IC says
Actually, <0.25% brass can leach a lot of lead, because of its microstructure; the lead is not evenly distributed, but forms channel-like networks. When the leaded brass is cast from the molten metal mixture, the brass solidifies first, and the lead collects in little blobs at the edges of the grains of brass (if you look at a galvanized metal surface, you will see the interlocking grains of metal). For actual test results on leaching, see the Environmental Defense Fund blog posts on lead in faucets, the first of which is here:
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2018/11/06/nsf-61-lead-from-a-new-lead-free-brass-faucet/
The lead in the brass is not necessary, but it is deliberately added because it improves the machineability of the brass. When the metal is cut, the lead smears across the cut surface, and the metal cuts better. Just a small amount of lead is needed for this effect, though since lead is very cheap, the higher the metal's lead content, the less the manufacturer has to pay for the metal. Without any lead, the manufacturer can't machine the faucets and other fittings in one pass; they have to do a rough cut and then a fine cut. Which also costs them more. See Wikipedia's article on brass:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass#Lead_content
Appallingly, manufacturers who deliberately add lead to their fittings can still sell them as "lead-free" in the US, as long as the weighted average of the wetted surfaces is <0.25% lead. So if they include a quarter of a square inch of pure lead touching the water in their faucet, they must include 100 square inches of lead-free metal in contact with water in the faucet to average it out. As the EDF posts show, faucets can pass this test while leaching huge amounts of lead.
You might want to only buy fittings which tell you that they are made with no added lead, and give test results telling you the amount of lead in the alloys (should be undetectable), and the amount of lead that leaches from them (ditto). If the manufacturer can't give you their own test results when asked, go elsewhere (the tests are legally required). If it says "NSF/ANSI/CAN 61: Q ≤ 0.5" means that the average lead concentrations are less than or equal to 0.5µg per sample use, on AVERAGE. This is the detection limit in some commercial labs.
Some of the links in this article are to manufacturers who do not seem to have posted test results; the blog could do us all a great service by phoning around manufacturers and posting the test results they give, and what alloys they use.
Corinne says
Thanks for posting that. The water tests I have seen have not showed leached lead. Right now we dont have enough companies who have verified their testing, or third party testing of multiple brands.
It would be a good idea to test your tap and see, I add water filtration anyway.
Carol says
Thank you for the post, however, I cannot find any of the lead free faucet brands you mentioned.
Corinne says
They are unusual and hard to find. The ones with 0.25% don’t seem to actually leach, as water testing results showed though. I will be updating this soon.