Mr. and Mrs. Soker were excited! They’d scheduled their family vacation months ahead and it was finally time to go. All year long, they’d been poring through travel guides and excitedly planning their days off in paradise. The kids had saved up their allowance and spent the last week glued to their computers, looking up info on the Internet. When they’d heard a large storm front was moving in, they worried their flight would be canceled, and they sighed with relief when they lifted off. Their vacation had begun!

While the Sokers basked on the beach, visited museums, and cruised around town, the biggest rain in five years fell on their home town. Streets were flooded, yards became swamps, and all across town, dozens of basements flooded. Because the Sokers had installed and maintained their sump pump system properly, they didn’t worry about a wet basement. Though they heard news of heavy rains, they continued to enjoy their vacation.

Stormy Weather

The next day, they called their neighbors to check on the weather. The rain had slowed down, but most of the town had lost power for several hours when the downpour was heaviest. When Mrs. Soker heard this, her heart leapt in her chest. She asked her neighbor to look in one of her basement windows, and he confirmed that the basement was flooded. Their cellar was filled with valuable, loved, and sentimental things! The Sokers were forced to immediately end their vacation to go home and try to save what they could from the flood. Cleaning out a wet basement is a long, smelly, miserable job, and it was definitely not what they’d been looking forward to all year.

While this story is hypothetical, situations like this happen all the time with basement sump pump systems. The problem is this: without a battery backup sump pump, your basement waterproofing system will shut down when the power goes out. And when does the power go out most often? During a heavy rainstorm!

Backup Sump Pumps

Even if you have a generator, your basement will flood when your sump pump fails unless you are there to turn the generator on every time the power goes out. It’s absolutely vital for you to have a battery backup sump pump that can keep the basement dry until the power returns. DC powered sump pumps come in many designs and levels of quality, but a reliable cast-iron battery backup pump should be able to pump out at least 10,000 gallons of water before losing its charge. The time a sump pump lasts will depend entirely on how heavy the rain is, but no matter how you look at it, 10,000 gallons is a lot of water!

With a reliable sump pump battery backup, you’re protected from more than just storm power outages. This sump pump backup system will keep you protected even if the pump becomes unplugged, the circuit breaker trips, or the primary sump pump clogs or fails for any reason. Additionally, dependable battery backup sump pumps can also turn on if your sump pump becomes overwhelmed by heavy rains or flooding, potentially giving your basement waterproofing system the extra kick it needs to keep a dry basement.

Sump Pump Questions for your Contractor

Before you have your basement waterproofing contractor install a battery backup in your sump pump system, ask him these five questions:

1. How many gallons of water will my sump pump remove on a single charge?
2. Will my battery backup sump pump lose its maximum charge over time?
3. Is my battery backup sump pump made from cast iron or cheap plastic?
4. Does my battery backup have an alarm that will let me know when it’s running?
5. Will I have to be home for my battery backup sump pump to work?

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