N BAS C CD 1901 Basin Mixer with Pop-Up Waste - Chrome

Excellent taps well made very pleased

Such a utilitarian household product but I love these taps. For years I have put up with taps that had round handles, were ugly, and hard to turn with soapy hands. These taps look and feel classy and are a delight by comparison. I’ve always loved the traditional look of this tap design but had not bought them as I thought they would be hard to fit and I didn’t want the expense of a plumber to replace my old taps that weren’t actually broken. Well I was right about the hard to fit part due to the cramped space I was working in, but I’m proud of myself for managing it. Apart from looks, and their solid feel, I also like how they are so easy to turn and they release a lot of water at once due to the large spout, which means the water doesn’t come gushing out everywhere. My only gripe was that the hot tap turns clockwise to turn on. The hold and cold taps turn on in opposite directions which I think is stupid! So I paid a little extra for a cold tap valve to put into the hot tap and now they turn on the same way - ahh bliss.

Great price for these elegant taps. Good quality on first inspection. The only oddity is that the hot tap is a clockwise "on" rotation. The cold is normal anticlockwise "on". They replaced an exiting identical tap set which were both clockwise "on". Why the updated rotation is an improvement will be an eternal mystery. They also come with a 10 year Bristan warranty which has to be registered on-line. Of course the online registration has very poor functionality, which seems to be yet another benefit of everything going on-line.

Great looking taps . They look amazing in my bathroom.

I mulled the “easy to install” score a bit. They’re as easy to install as any basin tap....i.e. not very. But they’re no worse. We’ve had two sets of these. The first I installed in our downstairs cloakroom on a small cloakroom basin. The first time I’d done this job. I ended up buying two types of basin spanners (the fixed type and the ones with toothed claw which self adjusts). It was a horrible horrible job as clearance on the basin was so tight. Not a fault of this product hence the score, but be warned! Only other niggle was that first set arrived with a small but obvious nick in the chrome on top. Had to replace but Amazon made this easy. I fitted the second set on a normal sized bathroom basin. With the right tools already in the toolbox and a little experience it went very smoothly. The taps are usual Bristan quality (we have replaced all our taps gradually and now have Bristan throughout. Only the kitchen mixer is slightly suspect with green corrosion forming at the swivel point, but we do have very hard water). Brass threads and nuts mean you can tighten these up easily and confidently. I was able to reuse the existing olives when fitting the basin taps. No leak issues. The washers between tap base and basin top are a decent thickness so these sit well. We have a modern Bristan mixer on another basin and the washer on that is not adequate). Cartridge operation means these are nice to use. Our original taps had very little use (its a little used bathroom) but had leather washers which disintegrated alongside the tap washers, did not feel nice to use and leaked green corrosion even if not used. They were so bad that we’d ended up going to our ensuite to wash our hands even if using the other bathroom just to avoid using those taps. So having these is a transformation. Let’s hope they last a while. The cloakroom ones have been in for about 18 months and are still perfect.

These taps are very nicely made, but they lack some important information in their specifications. I bought them because we have an old bathroom sink with square tap holes. These Bristan taps have a boss at the bottom, where they fit atop the sink, of 50mm diameter, very generous, easily enough to cover the corners of the sink squares, where water can tend to leak through to the floor. However, this information was not available in the specification, either on Amazon, or on the Bristan website. Just one rubber washer is included, of only 40mm diameter. It must therefore be intended that this be fitted underneath the retaining nut. There is no 50mm rubber washer supplied to fit between the tap boss and the sink, which means the metal boss will be clamped directly onto the hard basin surface, not very good engineering practice, I feel, metal-to-enamel - and possibly leading to water leaks (unless something like 'Plumbers Mait' is used). A 'buffer' is needed, in my opinion. It will be seen from the photos that there are two hexagonal shapes on the top part of the tap assembly, which look as though they are functional nuts. However, these are only decorative, and are part of a chrome-plated, screw-on shroud, which covers the guts of the tap. If this is unscrewed and removed, a further (brass) hexagon is found underneath. This is for removing the main, quarter-turn valve assembly. The latter valve seems to be non-standard, and I gather from Bristan that this is the case. This presumably would mean that replacements would have to be Bristan, so one needs to consider how long the company will continue to manufacture suitable parts. The opening and closing of the valves are handed in the same directions for each of the hot and cold taps - anti-clockwise to open, clockwise to close (looking on the top). This would mean that lever handles would not suit these taps. Lever handles need to be 'mirrored', left and right-handed, for hot and cold taps. My verdict: nicely-made taps that probably work well (I returned mine, so I don't know). They look and feel very substantial. However, Bristan, you need to do your homework - could do better, not least of all by providing more technical details for Amazon and for prospective buyers. One last thing: many thanks to Amazon for a great returns service, collected from our door, at no cost, excellent, and totally painless!

Well made and value for money.

Easy to fit, feel quality