What is a Sump Pump?

If you’re looking for ways to protect your home from seepage, flooding, or water damage in general, then you’re going to want to employ waterproofing solutions to your advantage. One such solution, the sump pump, can help you control the flow of water through your home.  

If you need a tool to help keep water out of a section of your basement, you’ll want to take advantage of a sump pump. Sump pumps help drive water out of your home courtesy of charged force. Should you find yourself faced with bad weather or the threat of a flood, you should be able to contend with the problem at hand. 

Sump Pump Accessories 

Note that the basic sump pump can help you protect your home from a substantial amount of damage. Even so, you may find yourself interested in the different accessories you can equip your sump pump with. These can include: 

• Alarms. If your pump fails to turn on in the midst of a storm or flood, then alarms affiliated with the system can start to go off to let you know that something’s wrong. 

• Sump liners. Sump pump liners help keep the inner workings of your sump pump secure, even after long-term exposure to high levels of moisture or excessive standing water. 
• Airtight lids. The water that makes its way into your home isn’t always the cleanest. An airtight sump pump lid helps keep those unpleasant smells—and additional humidity—from reaching the rest of your home. 
• Sump stands. Sump pump stands help separate your pump from its liner, meaning that any debris a liner pulls away from the pump won’t come into contact with the pump’s sensitive inner works. 
• FreezeGuard™ Discharge line protections. Any degree of freezing weather that starts to impact your home can have a devastating effect on your sump pump. The inner workings of your pump can start to take on damage, even as the pipes themselves freeze and fail to protect your home. However, the FreezeGuard™ discharge line attachment can see you through even the coldest of winters. This exterior line attachment allows water being pumped out by your sump pump system to continue to drain even if the line is blocked or frozen. 

The Drawbacks of Sump Pumps 

That said, sump pumps are not infallible home waterproofing devices. These pumps, as mentioned, must be plugged in to work effectively. If the power goes out during a storm, your pump will no longer protect you from flooding. That said, you can just as easily invest in a backup battery sump pump if you’re concerned about power outages in your area. A battery backup sump pump can work just as well as a traditional sump pump, albeit for less time. While you should never try to permanently replace a standard sump pump with a battery backup, a backup should tide you over until the last of the rain has left your area. 

Note, too, that sump pumps are the ideal waterproofing measures to install in your home if you’re contending with concentrated water damage. If instead you’re seeing flooding throughout the whole of your basement, then you may want to invest in something like an interior drainage system. Interior drains work best when paired with sump pumps. Any water that seeps inside your basement is intercepted by the sub-floor interior drainage system, and this water is immediately channeled to the sump pump to be removed. 

When to Install a Sump Pump 

Sump pumps are hardworking waterproofing measures designed to help control moisture levels in a specific part of your home. These systems best suit homes that see concentrated seepage or flooding. 

With that in mind, you’ll want to take advantage of a sump pump if water tends to appear in only one part of your basement. You can often follow diagonal cracks or mold clusters to these spots, as these symptoms tend to indicate localized damage.