Worse than a lump of coal: A sump pump failure for Christmas

I woke up on Christmas morning to find an alert on my mobile that my basement water leak sensor had been triggered overnight. Not having heard a peep from my sump pump the day before when the heavy rain had started, I suspected instantly that my basement had flooded.

Because 2020.

This was after I had spent most of the day cleaning up.

I went downstairs to find an unpleasant confirmation that my sump pump had failed: about a 1/2" of standing water all over my basement floor.

My DIY home improvement spider senses immediately kicked into high gear. My gut reaction was that I was going to clean this up myself.

Ironically, I had recently had my eyes on a water transfer pump to boost the water pressure from my hose bibb to my garden hose. I kicked myself for dallying to get it. Now, with all of the home improvement stores closed for the holiday, I was up the creek without a pump.

I immediately posted on Nextdoor to see if anyone in my neighborhood might have a pump I could borrow. Then, I immediately set to work with the only tool at my disposal: a puny little two gallon wet-dry vac.

After two hours of carrying the wet-dry vac full of water up and down my basement stairs to empty it, I had made some modest progress, but I was worn out. I Googled how much ServPro would charge to clean out a flooded basement. It seemed like the typical cost was $1,500-$3,000. No thanks!

I then checked Nextdoor. Miraculously, someone just down my street had a water transfer pump and offered to loan it to me. LIFESAVER!

I spent the rest of Christmas Day working furiously with the pump, wet-dry vac, and mop. At the end of the day, I had fully dried up the floor. I turned on my dehumidifier and set two fans on full blast to dry the batt foil insulation on my concrete foundation walls and what little drywall I had in the basement.

Fortunately, I had anticipated potential flooding and stored all of my important belongings on shelves out of harm's way.

With another few days of heavy rain forecast for the next week, I went to Home Depot the next day and got the best sump pump they had: A Basement Watchdog BW4000 combo primary pump and battery-powered backup pump:

This was my first time replacing a sump pump, but I found the process rather easy. It was as simple as unbolting the sump pump cover, moving a few drain pipes out of the way, and twisting apart the discharge pipe/check valve assembly:

The large-diameter pipe to the right is for radon mitigation.

The Basement Watchdog pump discharge outlet is 1.5" in diameter, and the kit came with a 1.5" rubber coupler. However, my discharge pipe was 2" in diameter, so I went to my local Ace True Value and got a 1.5"-to-2" rubber adapter coupler.

Here's the new pump all settled in and in all of its glory:

And here's the old pump:

A few things I came to appreciate as a result of this ordeal:

(1) 2020 really, really sucked all around.

(2) Nextdoor is a great resource, and I have some really nice neighbors (and some sucky ones).

(3) It's not all that surprising that many Americans just have water transfer pumps laying around. As I note in the introduction to my blog, this is, after all, a nation of doers.

(4) The humble sump pump is an incredibly important piece of equipment in the house. I should have replaced the crappy pump that my contractor installed with a better one earlier on.

(4) Every homeowner that has a house that's susceptible to some type of flooding issue should have a portable water transfer pump. Needless to say, I now have one, and it's already proven its value, as I shall explain in a separate post.