Our simple steps on how to avoid a flooded basement

If you have a basement conversation in your home, guaranteed you will have an active sump pump (ground water) and/or foul pump (foul water).

A sump pump is key to keeping your home dry, particularly your basement. A sump pump discharges water from accumulating in your basement.

A foul water pump is designed to collect foul water from basements and/or ground floor extensions. A typical application would be the collection and discharge of foul water from a basement fitted with a bathroom and/or utility room.

Sump pumps usually work in harmony with a cavity drain system (such as the Delta Cavity Drain System), a Type C waterproofing technique used to waterproof a basement.  The pumps are submersed (installed below a basement floor) and are frequently referred to as a ‘submersible sump pump’.

Like any electrical/mechanical equipment, a sump pumps will not last forever.  For most property owners there is no warning before a sump pump fails.  It will be a silent event which goes unnoticed until the dreaded flooding, mainly after heavy rainfall.

A backup plan for when a sump pump fails is one of those things, most people don’t think about until it’s too late and a flood incident has occurred.

A second pump (or dual pump) is a great option.  A second pump will automatically start, if the first pump should fail.  This ensures your basement will not flood in the event that your primary pump fails, but this does not address the issue of power failure to your property.

A common type of back-up plan is a ‘battery back-up’.  This is a large battery (usually cased), as well as a dual sump pump, this system will save your basement from flooding in the event of a power outage.  A good quality battery-back up can run 2 ground water pumps without mains power for up to 4 days depending on number of cycles per hour the pump runs and should be able to sit in standby mode for up to 3 weeks.  A quality battery back-up will be inaudible.

It’s recommend a good quality high level alarm is installed to work in harmony with your sump pump system.  These alarms will sound if the water level in your sump pump gets too high.  If you don’t have a backup system in place, these alarms will at least tell you that you have a problem and you need to take action.

PumpSecure is a new monitoring plan available from PPS (Package Pump Systems) which allows PPS to keep an eye on your pump station in real time and detect if something is going to go wrong before it does.  Using predictive maintenance and remote monitoring it will reduce the cost of breakdowns fees associated with sump pump failure, along with ensuring your basement does not flood in the event of pump failure.