When I purchased my first house, I had no idea I had a basement sump pump installed for the protection of our house from flooding. I found out about our sump pump only after my neighbor showed me our unit. Basically, this is what happened.
It was a rainy season and it rained for three days. One day, I heard some kind of pumping sound from the basement. When I tracked down the noise, it was coming out from a wooden box. What happened was the previous owner made a wooden cover right above the sump pit and made a custom cabinet right above it. After removing the cover, I discovered a weird looking hole with a motor-like machine in it. I asked my neighbor to come over and explain to me what the machine does and why it was making the noise.
One thing he mentioned was that I should get a battery backup for the sump pump because our neighborhood loses electricity quite often when it rains a lot. He also mentioned to me what was the point of having a sump pump when it goes down with a power outage. Getting a battery backup for the sump pump was especially essential for us because I lived in a townhouse where all houses share sidewalls. If my neighbor’s house gets flooded, there’s a good chance that ours would as well.
So investing in a battery backup for the sump pump was not only an important decision for our house but for our neighborhood as well. If you’d like to learn more about battery backup for sump pump and what to look for when choosing a battery-powered sump pump for your basement, check out my other article, “Do I Really Need a Battery Backup Sump Pump?”