What’s Up With That?

Ah, you may think this is a rant about balance of trade, or the evil Chinese Communists. Nope, none of that. It is about the water faucet in the kitchen in our new camper and the one in our 2006 Fleetwood Niagara.

The problem is not the Chinese, but America or probably whatever country you live in, if it has a “high” standard of living. The Chinese are known for producing cheap goods, reputably inferior goods. But the truth is, many Chinese manufacturers can and do produce quality goods. The problem lies with companies that off-shore their production to China and set the standard of quality they want produced. Often that standard is not quality at all — only price.

So here’s the problem…

In April of 2006, when our Niagara was barely 6 months old, the kitchen faucet broke. Imagine my surprise when I started to take it off and discovered it was made completely from plastic. It looked like metal, but it was plastic. At the time we were camped at Pismo Beach and it wasn’t that far of a drive to a Osh hardware store. Two good things happened; the first was the faucet was a standard kitchen size and the second was that Osh had the exact same faucet to include the handles in stock — only the Osh version was made from METAL! $37.90 retail dollars later, which included sales tax, our camper was back in business. And that metal faucet was still working great 7 years later.

When we brought our new Milan travel trailer home, I flicked the kitchen faucet with my finger nail, and instead of a metallic “ting,” I heard the dull thud of plastic. I told Joyce we would need to start looking for a new faucet, given our past experience.

Only this time, the faucet didn’t last even 6 months. During our third camping trip the faucet started dripping. When we got home from that trip, the hot water faucet stem broke in my hand.

Everything thing in the faucet was plastic.

So off we went to Lowes and then Home Depot. Some of their faucets well all plastic too. But there were some metal ones available.

We finally settled on one at Home Depot that was made from stainless steel, had brass water connection bibs, and was close enough to fit into the trailer’s decor to satisfy Joyce. Only this one was $89 plus tax.

Come on RV industry, spend a little money on quality plumbing. Maybe you will sell more trailers to repeat customers.