“(...) Over and above this the entire product life cycle is considered at the design and development stage to create safe products with economical use of resources and for a long service life.”
GROHE Sustainability Policy, February 2008
Fittings undergoing a life test
GROHE Water Technology is synonymous with the proverbial long service life of its products, which is achieved through both quality management and compulsory endurance tests (life tests).
For this purpose, we have created our own life testing laboratory in which we test our products extensively and minutely before shipping them to customers.
The life test enables conclusions to be drawn within a relatively short period of time which would otherwise take several years at the normal rate of use. The effects of wear and tear, limescale, soiling, changing temperatures, aging and corrosion on the testing criteria of leak tightness, actuation force, control response, hydraulic values, reset function, etc. are recorded as if in time-lapse motion.
Here, the fittings or their components are operated continuously by a special machine. Based on the normal “real life” rate of use, up to several hundred thousand fitting movements are simulated. At the same time, the operating conditions, such as water temperature and pressure as well as operating forces or water quality, are chosen in such a way that conditions, although still realistic, are made even more difficult.
Life tests are conducted at all the development stages of our products. In the early stages, single assemblies or functional components are tested, and at later stages of development, entire fittings, from a prototype or pilot production, are tested. It is only after passing these qualifying tests that products are released for batch production.
Fittings undergoing a life test
The work of the life test laboratory produces reliable products with a long service life, which helps to conserve raw material resources and reduce water and energy consumption. But it also brings about new developments and innovations such as Carbodur® coating for ceramic discs or Silimer jet nozzles. Both developments make a positive contribution to active environmental protection.
Carbodur®: diamond-like carbon as a “lifelong lubricant”
Carbodur®: diamond-like carbon as a “lifelong lubricant”
Carbodur®: Diamond-like carbon as life time lubrication
GROHE functional head parts with ceramic sealing elements have set standards in mixer technology. The specially designed and ground ceramic discs have long proven their worth in the inner workings of our fittings.
In the mid-nineties, GROHE, along with its partners, developed a sophisticated plasma coating method in which the contact surfaces of ceramic discs are coated with an extremely fine layer of diamond-like carbon.
As this Carbodur® coating is exceptionally smooth, the need for lubricants is eliminated and the ceramic discs operate virtually free of wear. After many years of use, fittings are just as easy and comfortable to operate as on the first day.
By 1997 this method had been developed to the production stage and GROHE has itself been producing ceramic discs in Carbodur® quality ever since.
Silimer jet nozzles
The flexible Silimer jet nozzles, visible as grey, elastic ducts jutting from our shower heads, allow blocked nozzles to be cleaned easily and manually with a simple wipe. This innovation does away with the need to use de-scaling agents to clean blocked nozzles.
