Imagine this. You come home from a nice weekend at the lake. You’re refreshed and ready for another week. Then you find three feet of standing water in your basement. As you fruitlessly bail water from your indoor lagoon with a bucket, you do some thinking. Your wallet burns as you consider the cost of flood damage. That no-good, old sump pump literally rained on your nice weekend by failing and allowing your basement to fill with water. Not good.

Checking your sump pump

Sump pumps are automatic, making them easy to forget about. Don’t. Checking your sump pump is important. First, make sure the outlet pipe is not plugged. Unplug the sump pump. If the sump has a lid, remove it and use a flashlight to check if the sump is clean and that the pump intake pipe is not clogged. Next, plug the pump back in. Slowly pour water into the sump, trying to simulate the speed that water normally would flow into the sump. Depending on the sump size, you may have to poor quite a bit of water in. Watch the on/off float switch’s action and listen to the pump. If the pump does nothing, replace it.

A professional eye

We can send a plumber to check and replace the sump pump if needed. Sump pumps older than five years really should be changed, or at least examined. Keeping your sump pump in working order is crucial to minimizing, or eliminating, the horrendous happenings of a flooded basement.