When was the last time you carefully looked at your sump pump? If you said “Uh…never?” you’ve got a lot in common with most people in the Montgomery County, Maryland area. Sump pumps are the kind of thing that you don’t really ever think about – until you get hit with a torrential rain storm and suddenly your basement is under three inches of water! If the only thing you know about your sump pump is the fact that it’s broken, don’t stress – just call Wheat & Sons for sump pump repair!

Sump Pump Testing

Before we get into the importance of sump pump testing, let’s talk a little bit about what a sump pump actually is. Your sump pump is, you guessed it, a pump installed in what’s called a sump pit, which is always located at the lowest point in your house. The point of the sump pit is to collect water from your home’s foundation and redirect it away from the house.

To this end, every sump pit contains what’s called a “float switch.” The float switch works the same way as the float switch in your toilet (imagine that) – when the water level gets to a certain point, the pump activates to pump it up and out, away from your house.

One of the most important things you can do to keep your sump pump in good shape is have it tested regularly. In general, you should only need sump pump testing about once every few months. Sump pump testing is pretty easy – just pour a few buckets of water into the sump pump and see if it kicks on. If it does, that’s good. If it doesn’t, you should get your sump pump repaired as soon as possible – you don’t want to get caught off guard by a freak rainstorm!

Sump Pump Repair

You can live with a clogged toilet or a slow drain. It’s inconvenient, but it’s not the end of the world. If you have a sump pump problem, on the other hand, it’s all but imperative that you get sump pump repair as soon as possible – especially if your basement floods readily. You never know when you’ll get hit by the next big rainstorm, and the worst time to find out you need sump pump repair is when you need to splash through a few inches of standing water in your basement to see the pump – watching as your family’s vacation pictures float by.

Sump Pump Battery Backups

Sump pumps are designed to move water out of your house during big storms. Of course, sump pumps are connected to your home’s electricity, which means that if the storm causes a power outage, you could have some problems! Fortunately, many sump pumps come with battery backups that kick on in the event of a power outage and should stay on for the duration of the storm. If you need your sump pump battery backup repaired (or if you want to install a battery backup for your sump pump), call Wheat & Sons!  If your sump pump doesn’t have battery back-up, you need to get one that does!  Gulley washers often accompany large thunderstorms containing heavy winds.  There’s nothing worse than a fully operational sump pump with no juice to power it.

If you want a local plumber to come out and inspect your sump pump, or if a sump pump test has shown that you need sump pump repair, call the experts at Wheat & Sons today!