Sink Repair

How much does it cost to repair a broken sink? It can vary a lot, and for good reason. Most of the time, a broken sink can be fixed with some common repairs, but you know what they say about plumbing: If it were easy, we'd all be doing it. The hard stuff makes you appreciate the easy things in life, like brushing your teeth. Also, sinks might mostly be 'common' in that they're not rare, but they are diversified. They're different in different houses in different places. All this translation from sink to sink, house to house, makes cost pretty variable, too. I asked some professionals how much it could cost.

A plumbing technician

Certainly! Here’s a rewording of the sentence:Indeed, it is the job of plumbers to repair kitchen sinks.

Repairing a chip in a sink can be a fairly variable expense. If your sink has only a small chip and is made from a material that is fairly easy to work with, like stainless steel, you might get by with a DIY repair kit that costs 20 to 50 dollars. If the sink is made from a more complicated material, like quartz, or has more significant damage, counts on a professional to make the repair. Average sink chip repairs cost from 100 to 300 dollars, so your best bet is to call around and get a few estimates.

If a sink breaks, the average homeowner's insurance policy likely covers it. If a pipe suddenly bursts, or if the damage stems from some other cataclysmic event—say, a mischievous teenager smashing the bathroom up on an otherwise Saturday-morning clean-day—then home insurance has the sink saga covered. But if the sink simply gives up the ghost and falls apart because it's been hanging there for a decade, then it's probably not covered. And if the insurance adjuster can make a case—either through the policy verbiage or the heft of a plumbing code book—that a pipe gradually corroding was the reason for the sink's breakdown, then a claim is very likely to be denied.

The challenge of replacing a sink can vary widely and is contingent upon several factors: the kind of sink, its locale, and the plumbing expertise of the person attempting the replacement. A top-mounted sink might be a replaceable project for a DIYer with basic skills. It essentially involves plumbing disconnection and connection again, with the sink being top-open to any kind of access needed to get to the plumbing. An undermount installation, on the other hand, not only has to be sink-under but also has to be installed in such a way that it looks good and works well with any countertop material. And, let me tell you, a granite countertop is not the only kind that has to look great and work well with the sink positioned below it.

Types of homeowner insurance generally do not cover sink repairs that result from usual deterioration over time or from not properly maintaining the sink.

Insurers do consider policyholders who have made claims to be riskier to insure, and so they may raise the premiums of such policyholders. But this isn't a universal truth; many factors affect whether or not rates rise after a claim, and what those rates might be if they do rise. The main ones are the type of claim made—whether it's a weather-related disaster or a fire, for example—and the seriousness of it. A claim for an upended life because of some insurable disaster is certainly cause for coming home to some increased premiums; a claim for something a lot less disastrous, our upended home insurance premiums notwithstanding, probably doesn't warrant a premium bump.

Generally, homeowners insurance will pay for the replacement of a faucet only if the cause of the faucet's need for replacement is an event that the policy covers. This typically means that if a faucet needs to be replaced because it got damaged in an event that was sudden and accidental (like a pipe bursting), your homeowners insurance might cover it. But if the faucet just plain wore out and failed, that's not typically covered. That's a maintenance issue, and insurance basically doesn't cover maintenance. But check your specific policy.

Most homeowners insurance does not cover the repair of sinks.