If your home has a basement, then you’ve got what many homeowners might consider a bonus level. You can use that area for storage, a playspace, a guest room, an office, or a game room and entertainment center. Some homeowners even go so far as to make them full in-law suites or finished apartments that they rent out. While you can explore a number of different possibilities, you also have to worry about flooding down there. A basement, or even just a crawl space, is underneath your home. At that level, storms can mean water collects down there. Fortunately, you can install a sump pump to prevent disaster. Here are six great reasons to consider a sump pump.
1. Keep Your Lower Level Dry
A sump pump gets water out of your lower level. Whether it’s a basement or a crawl space, finished or not, you don’t want water accumulating down there. The right sump pump takes the water and gets it through a pipe to the outside of your home. A check valve between the pipe and pump keeps water that’s being pushed out from flowing back in. Your home and possessions stay dry, and that hopefully includes the foundation of your home. An effective sump pump installation moves the water far enough from your physical residential structure so that the foundation isn’t put at risk of cracks, erosion, or shifting just from stormwater.
2. Prevent Trouble
This one can vary from home to home, but having a sump pump installed might actually be a necessity. Many municipal building codes may require one to be installed. If you don’t have one installed, you might face fines or penalties if it’s ever discovered. You would have to get one put in then, plus pay any extra fees that you accumulate along the way. Failing to be in compliance with local building codes can make it complicated to do home expansions or renovations that involve inspections or permitting. For that matter, it might even complicate the process of selling your home later down the line.
3. Prevent Mildew or Mold
When a basement gets flooded, it becomes an ideal environment for mildew or mold to grow in. Either one is a potential hazard to the physical health of anyone living in your home. Skin irritation, sore throats, and nasal congestion would only be the beginning of the potential illnesses and ailments everyone you live with starts falling victim to, and mold damage on its own can spread and threaten the very structural integrity of your home itself. Mold remediation is a cumbersome and expensive process to go through, so you should avoid it whenever you can.
4. Save Money
The biggest protection that sump pumps might offer you is your wallet and bank account more than anything else. Replacing physical possessions ruined by water damage can cost hundreds to thousands of dollars. Fixing damage to your home can cost thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars. What you spend on a sump pump is an investment that protects your savings, especially if your homeowner’s policy is stingy in terms of coverage for water damage. You might even get a discount on your homeowner’s insurance if you have a backup sump pump installed alongside your primary.
5. Protect Expensive Systems
Think about the components of your home’s various systems. Is your hot water heater in the basement? What about HVAC equipment? There are likely many electrical and plumbing parts down there too. Anything located in your basement is at risk of flood damage, whether it’s a furnace or an air conditioner. If they’re destroyed, you have to replace them. Even if they’re just temporarily disabled, that’s the time you and your family have to live without them. A sump pump can prevent all those nightmare scenarios from happening in the first place.
6. Boost Your Home Value
If you’re going to sell your home in the future, try to look at it through the eyes of potential buyers. They’re going to see the potential for flooding. If they don’t, then their home inspector probably will. In either case, they’ll want to know that a sump pump is installed and functional. A new installation is going to be a selling point to them because they’ll have a good idea of how many years of life it has left to it. If they’re going to buy your home, then they’re not going to want to spend a lot of money on it anytime soon. In fact, they might not even be able to, so a new sump pump can be very enticing to homebuyers.
What Exactly Is a Sump Pump?
Knowing the benefits of having a sump pump is useful information to you, but you should also have some idea of what a sump pump actually is. These devices move water out of your basement to the exterior of your home. A typical sump is a pit constructed as a hole carved out underneath your basement floor. This pit is called a basin and serves as the location of your pump. The pump installed has valves that detect when water pressure or levels are escalating. When the water reaches a point that is too high, the sump pump will automatically start pumping the excess water away from the basement and your home via a discharge line. This line is also known as an effluent, and it sends the extra water to a prearranged drainage area. Sump pumps can be powered by electricity, battery, or even water.
Consider a Backup Sump Pump
It’s common to have a primary pump wired into your home’s power supply alongside a backup pump. Most backup pumps are powered by either battery or water in the event a power outage disables the primary pump, as losing power is possible in the kind of stormy weather that would flood your basement in the first place. Backup sump pumps pose other potential advantages than just during power outages. They can help a primary sump pump if there is too much water for the primary unit to handle by itself. They can also kick in if the primary sump pump breaks or becomes mechanically deficient. Depending on your homeowner’s insurance policy, you might even get a discount on your premiums simply for having a backup sump pump installed in your home.
Let the Professionals Handle It
The right sump pump can be something that saves your home and possessions from water damage, so it’s often a very worthwhile investment. It’s also worth having professionals handle the installation, considering the intricacies and specialized work involved. If you live in Media or the surrounding area, work with Dream Team Home Services to get a sump pump installed. We can meet all your plumbing, HVAC, and electrical needs to keep your home safe and comfortable. Contact us today!
