Which temperature convention do you prefer for pulldown kitchen faucets?

[Pink Jazz]

I was wondering, which convention for temperature do you prefer for pulldown kitchen faucets, back-hot and forward-cold, or the opposite? Moen and Kohler usually follow the former, while Delta usually follows the latter.

I prefer the former. We usually like to keep our faucet on hot, and it just seems cleaner to have the handle vertical in the hot position.

[abefroman329]

I don't really care as long as I know which is which.  It took me the longest time to figure out the way my in-laws' pulldown kitchen faucet was set up, and it also takes forever for the hot water to start running to the faucet, so I kept sitting around waiting for the cold water to heat up.

[hotdogPi]

You chose today to post this. You must be a fan of xkcd, right?



I don't have a preference, but as a side note, my cats have been known to turn it on.

[Pink Jazz]

I don't really care as long as I know which is which.  It took me the longest time to figure out the way my in-laws' pulldown kitchen faucet was set up, and it also takes forever for the hot water to start running to the faucet, so I kept sitting around waiting for the cold water to heat up.

Usually Moen and Kohler are back-hot and forward-cold and Delta is the opposite. However, sometimes the installer may be used to a particular convention that the supply lines may be hooked up in a way that he/she is used to. For example, my grandfather's Moen kitchen faucet is hooked up in the "Delta style" convention (Delta is a popular brand in Puerto Rico).

[JayhawkCO]

With having a child, I like it to have effort to make it hot, so back hot, forward cold is better since he's more likely to grab and pull than push.

[7/8]

Assuming the handle is on the right-side of the tap (which I think is normal in these cases), then I prefer forward as hot and back as cold, since if you're looking at the handle from the right-side, this would mean left is hot and right is cold (the normal convention).

Having said that, the one at my house is the opposite, so I'd get used to whatever it is anyway.

[vdeane]

Meanwhile, I'm used to left being hot and right being cold (with lifting the handle up/down regulating the flow), struggling to figure out what you all meant by "forwards" and "backwards" until I remembered that the one my parents got as part of their kitchen renovations has this weird thing that works more like described here.  Did kitchen faucet design radically change in the last decade?  I just thought what my parents had was some bizarro thing.

[J N Winkler]

My preference:  not to have a pulldown kitchen faucet at all.

It's been a while since I stayed in a hotel with a vessel sink in the bathroom, so I hope that fad has died out too.

[Pink Jazz]

Meanwhile, I'm used to left being hot and right being cold (with lifting the handle up/down regulating the flow), struggling to figure out what you all meant by "forwards" and "backwards" until I remembered that the one my parents got as part of their kitchen renovations has this weird thing that works more like described here.  Did kitchen faucet design radically change in the last decade?  I just thought what my parents had was some bizarro thing.

Most people are going with high arc pulldown kitchen faucets, which usually have one handle on the side. You pull the handle forward and back to change the temperature and in and out to turn the faucet on and off. Manufacturers cannot simply agree on which way is correct, with Moen and Kohler having back for hot and forward for cold, and Delta preferring the opposite.

[J N Winkler]

Did kitchen faucet design radically change in the last decade?  I just thought what my parents had was some bizarro thing.

No, kitchen faucets have not radically changed:  just a couple of years ago I installed one to the tried-and-true design with hot on left and cold on right.

Pulldown faucets are both a fad and a ploy to allow the fixture manufacturers to sell you the same thing twice within a short period of time--once to be fashionable and once again when you realize what you just bought doesn't work well.

[skluth]

I had my kitchen gutted and remodeled over the summer. It took me a few weeks to figure out which position was hot or cold because all water in Palm Springs during the summer is hot. Our water lines are barely below the surface and the water cisterns/tanks on the mountainsides heat up every day as they bake in the sun. Our average low temp in early August is 80°F. I have no preference either way because sometimes it doesn't even matter.

[kkt]

I like push away for hot, pull for cold.

And I like the one arm design.  If my hands are dirty, I can still control the faucet with one finger without getting the handle dirty too.

[Scott5114]

Mine is forward-back for flow rate and left-right for hot-cold.

I need to replace it because the spray nozzle has gotten so clogged that only a trickle of water comes out. I've soaked it in CLR a number of times but it only seems like it helps for a day or so and then goes right back to not working. There's no way to open the spray nozzle either. I've just been using it with no aerator on at all, which is kind of fun since it has the effect of taking a power washer to the dishes, but it makes a hell of a mess if you're not careful.

I would just replace the spray nozzle, except there is no indication at all of the brand of the fixture, so I have no idea where I would even get it. There are replacement nozzles on Amazon, but mine has a little magnetic catch that keeps it in place when not being used in spray mode, which none of the replacements on offer have.

[SectorZ]

I thought all that went front to back were back-hot/forward-cold.

Guess I've never encountered the opposite.

[kphoger]

I was literally complaining about this to my parents (at whose house I was washing dishes) on Thanksgiving.  Until that day, I'd never tried to put any thought into the matter–just stuck my fingers under the stream to see if it was hot or cold.  But here's the thing.  If you look at the handle from the side, and imagine it as a knob, then that's the way it should be.  In my parents' kitchen, the handle is on the right, and back is hot and forward is cold, so in my opinion that's the reverse of how it should be.