Sump Pumps Repair & Installation

Tired of mopping up after a rainstorm? Let The Ultimate Handyman install, maintain, or repair your sump pumps.

Water generally seeps into the basement because of pressure built up around your foundation – water naturally seeks the path of least resistance and enters through cracks in your walls or floors. And if it stays wet you may see unhealthy black mold growing.

If this sounds like a familiar problem, we can design a way to collect this water through a series of pipes that empty into a sump pit placed at the lowest point in the basement, and then expel the water with sump pump. Results? Clean, dry basement, no post-precipitation mopping necessary.

In Southern California the problem is rarely a basement

Most of the country installs sump pumps in basements. Here, basements are uncommon, and the water shows up somewhere else.

• Crawl spaces, which sit below grade and collect what the soil gives them

• Hillside lots, where the property uphill drains toward yours whether you like it or not

• Below-grade garages and sunken entries, where there is nowhere lower for water to go

• Elevator pits and equipment vaults on commercial property

• The low corner of a yard that never dries out after the first real rain

A pump in any of those is doing the same job: removing water from the lowest point because gravity cannot.

A pump is the last resort, not the first

This is worth saying plainly, because a pump is frequently sold as a solution to a problem that grading would have solved for less.

If water is arriving because the ground slopes toward the building, or because a downspout discharges at the foundation, the pump is treating the symptom and will run for the rest of its life doing it. Fix the grade and the drainage first, and then see whether a pump is still needed: drainage installations and repair.

Where the water table is genuinely high, or the site has nowhere to drain to by gravity, a pump is the right answer. Those are real situations. They are just less common than the number of pumps installed would suggest.

What makes an installation work or fail

1. The discharge point. A pump that discharges four feet from the foundation is recirculating water. The discharge has to reach somewhere the water will not come back from

2. The check valve. Without one, everything in the discharge pipe falls back into the pit every time the pump shuts off, and the pump cycles forever

3. The pit itself. Too small and the pump short-cycles and burns out. Sized correctly, it runs less and lasts longer

4. The float. The most common single failure, and usually because the float has something to catch on

5. The power. A dedicated GFCI-protected circuit. A pump sharing an extension cord with anything is a pump that will be off when it matters

6. Backup. The storms that flood are also the storms that take the power out. A battery backup or a water-powered backup is the difference between a pump and a pump that was working

Maintenance that takes ten minutes

• Pour a bucket of water into the pit and confirm the pump starts and stops

• Check that the float moves freely and has nothing to snag on

• Look at the discharge outside and confirm it still goes where it was meant to

• Clear debris out of the pit, which is what kills floats

• Test the backup, on a schedule, not on the day of the storm

Do it before the first rain each year, not after the first failure.

Start with a free 15-minute call

Tell us where the water shows up, whether it is every rain or only heavy ones, whether the ground slopes toward the building, and whether there is an existing pump. In fifteen minutes we can usually tell you whether this is a grading fix or genuinely a pump.

Call (323) 707-4979 to book the free 15-minute consultation.

The Ultimate Pro, Inc. CA License 831700, Class B General Building. Serving Los Angeles, Riverside, Orange and San Bernardino counties since 1996.

Water problems rarely stay where they start, and the longer the diagnosis waits the more of the structure it reaches. Book a free 15-minute call or call (323) 707-4979 and describe what you are seeing. We will tell you whether this is a repair or something that has to be opened up.

Prefer to watch before you call? X Plan Nation is The Ultimate Pro's YouTube channel, where we take construction apart step by step so you can tell good work from work that will come back.

The Ultimate Pro, Inc. · California contractor license 831700 · Class B general building · 18481 Grand Avenue, Lake Elsinore, CA 92530 · Serving Los Angeles County, Orange County, Riverside County, San Bernardino County and the Inland Empire since 1996.