The Aerator is real nice, and probably a better design than the original. But you have to hear this... My old one was stuck on there, as they often get with age. I took a pair of pliers to it, because I wasn't worried about the finish on the old one since I had this new one to replace it anyway. It didn't seem to be coming loose, so I worked it back and forth a bit. I quickly realized that instead of the threads coming loose, I had loosened the solder joint on the brass fitting that this Aerator screws into. So I took the faucet apart to see if I could sweat the brass fitting back on the copper tube. Unfortunately, because I'm an idiot not a plumber, I forgot to turn the water off when I took the handle apart and I had water flying everywhere pretty quick. Silly me. So an hours worth of cleaning water up later, I'm back on track and now have the faucet out and the entire contents of the cabinet spread across the hallway floor. I find out that this is basically a fatal problem for the faucet, and really shouldn't be fixed. So, of course, I try to fix it anyway and end up heating the main brass body (where the faucet hot and cold seals and springs reside) to the point where the two main water inlet tubes' solder joints melt and come loose. No big deal, I'll just make sure I solder them in and add a little extra solder as well. So I grab the solder marked lead free, and make a holy mess of the whole thing for a couple hours. By the time I've finally hacked this thing back together, I look at the solder again and realize that I've used lead free Acid Core solder, not just lead free solder. That probably isn't good, so I abandon the whole thing and decide to go buy a replacement faucet instead. For not much more money, you can buy a stainless faucet instead of chrome, so now I'm shopping for fancy faucets because the ball and chain wanted to re-do the bathroom anyway and I might as well buy the upgraded faucet now. But in the future remodel plans, I was thinking to buy a wideset faucet instead of a centerset faucet, which would require me to go ahead and replace the countertop now instead of later. And of course, upgrade it to granite or something nice. Now the kids bathroom has been without a sink for 3 weeks, I'm at the home improvement store with the wife, and she wants to remodel the entire bathroom including the tub and shower door, all the faucets, the countertop, strip the wallpaper, texture and paint the walls, and get some new flooring. And to top it all off, we can't agree on a single piece. I figure this five dollar Aerator is gonna end up costing me several grand, plus my sanity. And for that, this stinkin thing gets 1 star!
