KitchenAid Chrome Instant-Hot Water Dispenser - KHWL160PCR

Comments about KitchenAid Chrome Instant-Hot Water Dispenser:

After having two InSinkErator units that both failed within two or three year I promised myself I never would I buy that brand again. The KitchenAid unit was only about $60 more and has a real brass faucet (compared to InSinkErator's look-like-chrome plastic). The heater tank also has a easily adjustable temp control right on front. I had to call KitchenAid before ordering to make sure it had a stainless steel tank as that info is not clear from product specs on line. Installation was not great due to limited lengths of lines supplied and a warning to only install it below where the faucet gets mounted. But I have a Kohler sink with drain (and garbage disposal) more toward the back of the sink bowl. This required mounting the unit on the side and in front of the garbage disposal and requiring extension of one copper 1/8" line and one plastic line. The copper was not a problem, but the plastic 3/8" ID line looks like silicone, and that is difficult to find. The best solution appears to be cutting it in about half and get a brass or stainless steel 3/8" OD tube from hardware or hobby shop to splice into it, so the end that attaches to the heater is silicon that can handle temps far above the max water temperature. The other complain I have about installation is there are two 1/8" copper lines that both use a weird quick connect plastic fitting, but no info is supplied about how far they require the tube connected to them to go in, so I will watch carefully for a few weeks to gain confidence in them and hope I don't incur big bucks in water damage as one is on the high pressure side of the system. I would rather they be tried-and-true compression fittings.

At normal water pressure the hot water stream out of the faucet has a bad pattern and it is easy to get your hands sprayed by hot water. Unfortunately, I installed the supply line at the valve that also supplies cold water to the sink, so I cannot easily tweak the valve closed some to solve the problem without reducing flow to the main cold water faucet. I will probably eventually install an in-line valve on the 1/8" supply line. The source of the problem, however, seems to be a bad design of the faucet outlet---the filter screen there is pretty coarse and cannot be changed out as far as I can tell so the facuet seems to act like most faucets act when you take their filter out.