While not claiming to be much of an expert in this field I'll take a shot at this, as for some reason you've not yet gotten any other responses -- I believe cpvc refers to "chlorinated" pvc, I think meaning along with whatever else that the basic polymerized plastic has one more chlorine atom and one less hydrogen than the basic polymer structure of basic rigid "pvc" (that I think is most commonly also referred to in some areas as upvc or "unplasticized" pvc) plastic. While still resulting in a material that exhibits a reduction in “minimum breaking strain in relation to time” (or stress regression) and a degradation in some long-term properties with the introduction of some amounts of cheapening fillers, I believe cpvc with a significantly greater percentage of chlorine is understandably a somewhat denser plastic material with generally some greater short and long-term tensile strengths, particularly at higher temperatures. I believe you would see this if e.g. you were to superimpose the stress regression curves of the document “Material and System Selection” at
on pg 1.28 for “cpvc” over the similar curves for “pvc” on pg 1.27 .
I suspect the cost of cpvc is also greater than pvc for the same schedule/thickness (I guess due to extra processing issues etc.), as appears is also illustrated on this same basic site where you can compare at least list prices at
I know some failure modes of both types of piping were discussed in a paper “Failure Analysis of PVC and CPVC Piping Materials”, by Michelle Knight of Noveon presented in NACE “Corrosion2003”, though CPVC is apparently alleged by some to be a “...stronger, more chemically resistant material..” (such as when offered up as a replacement for failing regular pvc ventilation piping such as in the article, “CPVC Piping System Prevents Corrosion” at