Flood Basement: Did you clean your sump pump?

Over the past few months, we have been having many different problems with our basement flooding and it is begining to drive us crazy as you can imagine. Overally, it is not destroying me because I am a newer homeowner and have not thought about these issues very much, but I am learning quickly as I am being forced to do so cause life keeps happening.

The last time our basement flooded, the water stayed in the basement for about four days before I got fed up and went down there and tried everything I could think of. Ok, it wasn’t that bad cause the water was only about two inches deep and it has been much worst than that in the past.

The problem was that my sump pump was working, it had been on the majority of those days, but it was clogged up because when a basement floods everything that is on the floor is drug to the sump pump. Leaves, dirty, gook, and who knows what else had crowded the base of our sump pump not allowing the water to properly flow through the machine.

The water level trigger on the sump pump indicated that there was water in the well, thus the sump pump turned on, but the water could not move through the machine because of the dirt. Therefore, this water just sat in my basement for days until I recognized this problem.

I opened the well, disconnected the pump, and cleaned the base of the sump pump where the water enters. Let me tell you that this was one of the nastiest things I have ever experienced in my life. Yuck!

However, it worked. Once I cleaned the base of the sump pump with all the gook and mess that was in it, the water began to flow straight out of the basement and out of my life. What a feeling?

I cleaned the sump pump with some rubber kitchen gloves on my hands, a trash back, and by sliding my fingers along the base collecting the dirt as I went and dumping it into the bag. It definitely was a dirty job, but it had to be done.

At the end of the day, the water in my flooded basement was removed, my sump pump doesn’t remain on for hours at a time anymore, and my life is a lot more simple as a result. So, the next time you cannot figure out why you have standing water in your basement, be sure to check the sump pump and how clean it is, clean it out and you may have just saved yourself several hundred dollars in repair cost.

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