Oh man.....bad day. Thanks for sharing. Now I will make sure to turn the water off before I replace my powder room vanity sink.

I hate CPVC.That stuff gets very britle with age and sometimes will just shatter with the slightest amount of pressure.I've been lucky enough to never have any major damages cased buy it.Usually on the out flow side of a shutoff or in a basement.I always locate the main shutoff and meter before working on any plumbing.

Liability insurance sucks.I pay around $3200 a year and have never had to file a claim. Another factor people don't see when complaining about our bid prices.

It just goes to show that sometimes bad stuff happens - even to good, competent people. Sorry about the claim, but I guess you juts paid more "tuition".

Insurance is a strange thing. You pay through the nose so if you have a problem you're covered. Then they cancel on you the first time you file a claim. And take the cheap way out by just settling and then dumping you.

Insurers never bet against a sure thing... They do not want any claims, they want to keep your money and run....

So frustrating. And an excellent reminder to me to review where our whole house shut off valve is. I haven't used it in a few years and I tend to forget that kind of thing.

Sorry for the bad job experience and every sorrier for the insurance--that's so typical of insurance companies.

I'm so sorry, that's such a huge bummer.

Honestly, I don't understand how there isn't a law in place to keep insurance companies from cancelling as soon as a file is claimed. Especially when long-time, no-claims customers finally make a claim. It flies in the face of what insurance companies present themselves to be and shows their goal isn't to use the collective good to mitigate individual risk and make a reasonable return, but to soak up profit without any social consciousness.

Sorry to hear about this, Joe.

Last year the inline water heater under the auxiliary sink arced and blew a hole in the copper tubing. I panicked and ran out to the meter and turned off the water, then remembered there's a shut off where the supply line enters the cabinet. : /

There was so much junk in the cabinet, I couldn't see the handle, but most of it's gone--I learned my lesson. Let's hope you never need a shut-off valve again.

Oh, too bad. Sorry to hear this happened to you!

I like sharing my failures as well as my successes here. I just took a pounding on a refinish job. I estimated 12 hours and it took 36, but that's another story.

The lesson here is that when you're looking for a contractor, you don't just want to hear about his successes. You want to find out what's going to transpire when the job is about to go down the toilet or is already swirling in the bowl. Every contractor has stories like these; the ones that don't are lying.

Does your guy have liability insurance or is he a Craigslister?

"Do they still use the CPVC pipe or is their a newer PVC pipe that works better?"

Like most articles, there are two sides to every story. I just read of a massive CPVC commercial failure, but it turned out the installers didn't follow the installation specifications. Modern CPVC is a fine product installed properly, but a cleaning lady shouldn't be able to snuff a stub with a mop nor should a contractor with a 4lb. sink.

Got 30 year old CPVC in my house with no issues. Better than the copper with pin holes that it replaced.

An education that your insurance mostly pays for is getting off easy. Surprised that you don't already shut off the whole house when doing repairs. Those old under the sink shut offs are always a leaky problem, and relying on the mains to work is much more reliable. Nothing worse than a shutoff suddenly geysering just because you tried to make it do it's job. Better to just do the big dog in the first place if you aren't allowed to do pipe work.

A roofer doesn't shut the water off to the house. It seems nearly inconceivable to him that his hammer would fall out of his pouch, hit a pipe and break it. Kinda the same thing here.

Ah, that sucks!!

"Got 30 year old CPVC in my house with no issues. Better than the copper with pin holes that it replaced."

LOL sell that to a plumber...

Eh, that is why ya have insurance. Not a huge deal, really. Even the best workers have mistakes, hence why you are covered. I would not sweat it.

Our 30 year old house had no shut offs when we moved in 15 years ago. It was one of the first things I did on move in. We have also been replacing the copper pipe as we remodel:)

Copper doesn't like aggressive water but I would still rather have it in my house than plastic.*

Full disclosure - we manufacture copper plumbing fittings.

I'm fairly sure there's never been a copper pipe with a properly soldered fitting break when struck by a 4lb. sink. Ever.

I hate water. So much damage in so little time. I am surprised your insurance company has no interest in going after the CPVC manufacturer.

Oh Joseph I'm sorry. What a pain. What's that saying.... Sometimes bad things happen to good people.

"I am surprised your insurance company has no interest in going after the CPVC manufacturer."

I'm saddened, but not surprised. Insurance is a numbers game, not a justice game.

I paid ten thousand dollars for this brush twenty years ago. It was cheaper than fighting a crooked general contractor. Long story, but kinda the same thing.

Ms. Andrews says this means that my sample pipe was so bad they couldn't even test it to see how bad it was.