Hudson Reed USA

Full review
I am not sure how to begin describing how poor this company is. I have so many problems with their service and the products themselves. It seems that they have just recently began selling in north America and they did absolutely no research on the details of North American plumbing. One of many problems I had was with a shower valve I purchased. It showed up and was damaged. It came after many more days than they said it would take. I then had to wait quite a few days for them to respond to my problem. Eventually they agreed to send a new valve. By this time I was running out of time on my bathroom renovation and needed it but this problem was only the very beginning. When my plumber tried to install the valve we found it would not take 1/2" supply lines even though their web sight says it does. Again I had to wait for a response to my problem. Eventually they sent me what they said were couplers that would allow me to transition half inch supply to 15mm supply lines needed for this shower valve. These did not work because the old Euro 1/2" supply that they assumed we have here is not the same as North American half inch supply (ours is 5/8" OD). Again I had to wait for a response to my problem and it did not come. I called them at 1am (I am on the west coast). I now had to shower at a friends as I was using my basement suite bathroom before, which was now rented out (this would have been fine if the fixtures had worked the first or second or third time - I would have had enough time) Back to my phone call.. They told me they would be sending some new chrome elbows to connect north American supply to my shower valve (this actually made some sense to me as I had made a study of the problem and possible solution at this point) They told me I would simply need to get some of my own olives (this is the UK term for the brass compression rings) to go on my supply pipe. No problem I said. Naturally it still did not work. North American compression rings for half-inch supply are too wide (not the diameter but the actual height of the ring when it is flat on its side). Bring on the machinist friend of my sister. I had him make some compression rings for me. The shower valve is now installed but it has a small leak so all night long there is an intermittent dripping noise. It seams to build up a head of water in the pipe to the showerhead and when it is high enough it starts to drip and siphons some water out of the pipe. (I took a look inside the valve and it is one of those ceramic disk things that are not supposed to leak so I don't know what the problem is).

This was only my problem with the shower valve. I actually had problems with them sending me the wrong taps for my sink also. First they sent a totally different tap set than I ordered. Then they sent the right one but with the wrong handles (After corresponding with me about what type of handle I wanted). They finally got the taps right on the third attempt.

I also had to pay customs duty on the good even though at the time of my order the web sight said "all prices were inclusive of duty but excluded any local taxes that may fall due" I took a look at their sight just now and it seems they have removed this statement now.

I have never written on this sight before but I felt people should know what Hudson Reed is all about.

In summary:

The equipment I ordered looks fantastic. The engineering of the equipment is poor and the customer service and execution of orders is very bad.