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Client tried to sue me after a sink install flooded their basement
I was in Greenville last March running a new kitchen line for a rental property, the fitting blew at 2 AM while I was asleep, and their insurance denied it because they said my work wasn't up to code, so I had to fork over $3,200 from my own pocket to settle - has anyone else had a homeowner twist a simple job into a legal mess like that?
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jesse9943d ago
Man that's a rough one, sounds like the fitting wanted to join a midnight swimming club all on its own. Next time maybe chuck a GoPro in the crawlspace to catch the pipes plotting against you. $3,200 is a steep price for a plumbing lesson in how insurance companies love to play dumb.
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the_holly1d ago
Respectfully, I gotta push back a little on blaming insurance companies here. Sure they can be a pain, but $3,200 might actually be fair depending on what went wrong. A pipe that pops off in the middle of the night usually means there was a bigger issue like water hammer or improper support that got ignored for years. Most policies won't cover gradual damage from poor installation or old pipes that were bound to fail. Maybe the lesson here isn't about GoPros or insurance being dumb, but about actually checking that the pipe was secured right in the first place.
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taylor.amy3d ago
Jesse, I have to admit I used to think homeowners were mostly reasonable people until one flooded my own basement three years ago. Your midnight swimming club comment made me laugh, but it hits too close to home after I had a client claim I used the wrong type of pipe for a water heater replacement. The insurance adjuster actually told me my work was "technically correct" but they still denied coverage because of some outdated local code I missed. Now I take photos of every single connection and keep a digital log of materials exactly like that GoPro idea you mentioned. It changed how I look at every job, no matter how simple it seems.
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