Grohe Faucets for the Dummy Consumer

Grohe kitchen faucet with sprayer

Our research staffers have often noticed that some of the self-appointed "freelancers" in the world of DMS¹ demonstrate a slight problem with interpreting the questions they're supposed to be answering. We assume that happens when someone has no earthly idea what the question means... A case in point might be Christine Lebednik, who collected a juicy stipend for pretending to answer a plumbing question for Hunker.com, "Problems with the Grohe Kitchen Faucet Spray."²

We surveyed the staff and 100% of them assumed this Google search meant that the OQ had, well, a problem with his or her sprayer. You know, like it wouldn't spray, or leaked, or the spray was weak: stuff like that. And if you actually type that line of text into Google, the search results are entirely about how to fix a sprayer that doesn't spray or leaks. You could find the same repair advice for Moen, Price-Pfister, Delta, Kohler... you get the picture. As the old saying goes, "When you hear hoofbeats think of horses, not zebras."

Lebednik, on the other hand, envisioned a zebra. According to Christine,

"As of January 2010 professionals reported minimal operational, installation or repair problems with Grohe kitchen faucets."

Ayup: here, she was telling the OQ that he or she didn't have a problem... which is kinda mean, doncha think? Anyway, Lebednik went on to list potential problems, at least in her view:

Loosening: Some Grohe kitchen faucets can come loose from the sink itself. Fixture Matching: ...even professional contractors can have difficulty matching more than one Grohe faucet in the same setting... Documentation Issues: The catalogue and brochure give information that, even to professionals, seems contradictory... Price Point: ...Grohe faucets cost significantly more than comparable brands... Pre-Purchase Access: Local retailers tend not to stock Grohe faucets...

We note that Christine's second and third "problems" were harvested from someone's blog and her fifth was from a survey of the closest retailers to her house.
Jeez: Lebednik didn't write a word about how to fix a friggin' plumbing problem, which is almost certainly the point of the OQ's Google search! Heck, eHow.com even had another post on that topic (which they've since moved to Hunker, and no, we're not gonna give you a link because that post sucks, too). No, Christine, that was pure-D stupid -- and for your efforts, we're gonna give you a little kudos, something we call the Dumbass of the Day award.

¹ DMS, or Demand Media Studios, is the parent company of eHow.com. although the company has changed its name to Leaf Group. That's sad, because you can say "You can't spell 'dumbass' without 'DMS,'" but you can't say "...without 'Leaf Group.'"
² The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/about_5932877_problems-grohe-kitchen-faucet-spray.html

copyright © 2017-2022 scmrak

SE - PLUMBING