The Problem With the Sump Pump Your Builder Installed

It costs less than a set of winter tires. It is protecting flooring, drywall and everything you keep downstairs. And it was chosen by the lowest bidder.

By Household Plumbing, 310 Adelaide St S, London  |  6 minute read

There is a piece of equipment in your basement that was chosen by someone who will never have to live with it.

When your house was built, the builder needed a sump pump in the pit to pass inspection. He was buying forty of them that month. He bought the one that cost the least, because every pump on the shelf moves water on the day it is installed, and the day it is installed is the only day a builder ever sees.

Whether it is still moving water in year eight, at four in the morning, during the first big thaw of a London February, was never his problem. It is yours.

We have been selling and replacing sump pumps on Adelaide Street since 1972, and the pattern is remarkably consistent: almost nobody replaces a sump pump before it fails. They replace the flooring, the drywall, the baseboards, and then the pump.

This article is about doing it in the other order.

How long do sump pumps last? Less than you think

Seven to ten years for a submersible pump doing normal duty. A cheap pump in a busy pit can die in three or four. That is not a number manufacturers advertise on the box, but it is the number their own service data supports, and it is the number we see at the counter.

Now do the arithmetic on your own house. If your home was built before 2019 and the pump in the pit is the original, it is at or past the end of its service life right now, whether it ran fine last week or not. That is the part that catches people: a sump pump does not wind down and give you notice. Almost every pump that fails was still running the week before.

What a failed sump pump actually costs

Drag the slider. Illustration of a typical pump-failure flood, 2 to 4 inches of water.

And here is the detail worth reading your policy over: most home insurance policies treat a burst pipe as a sudden accident and pay, but treat a pump that quietly wore out as preventable maintenance, and do not. Policies vary. But "the pump was eleven years old" is not a sentence adjusters tend to reward.

Against that, the entire replacement question is a $263 decision. That asymmetry is the whole story.

Almost every pump that fails was still running the week before.

See the $263 pump we stock in London →

The part that fails is not the part you would guess

Here is what two generations behind a plumbing counter teaches you: most flooded basements with a pump in the pit were not caused by a dead motor. They were caused by a switch that never fired. The motor was fine. Nobody told it to start.

Builder-grade pumps use a tethered float, a ball on a cord that swings sideways as water rises. In a narrow pit, or any pit with silt or gravel in it, that float can hang up against the pit wall or catch on the discharge pipe. The motor is perfectly healthy. It just never got the signal. That is a working pump sitting under a flooding basement, and it is the failure mode nobody checks for.

The second difference is the body. A pump motor sits in water and makes heat. Plastic traps that heat inside the housing; cast iron pulls it out into the surrounding water, so the motor runs cooler, and a cooler motor lasts longer. Same pit, same water, years of difference.

So when we say "builder-grade," we mean specifically: plastic body, float on a cord. The two cost-savings that show up eight years later, at the worst possible time.

The two-minute sump pump check (do it tonight)

Any one of these means you are choosing the replacement date. All five mean the water is choosing it.

What sump pump replacement costs in Canada

The pump: $99 for a plastic big box unit, around $263 for a proper cast iron one with a rod float. A plumber's labour for a like-for-like swap adds a few hundred; a handy homeowner with a check valve and a union already in place can do it in an afternoon.

The $99 pump is not a scam. It moves water on day one. The question was never day one. The question is year six, in February, on the twelfth straight hour of running. That is the only test that counts, and it is the test the cost-savings fail.

How to replace a sump pump yourself (and when not to)

People ask us two things at the counter: can I replace a sump pump myself, and how long does it take. For a like-for-like swap in a pit that already has a check valve and a union, the honest answers are yes and about an hour.

1. Unplug the old pump and lift the lid off the pit.
2. Undo the union on the discharge pipe (the threaded coupling above the pump) and lift the old pump out. Expect a bit of water and silt.
3. Clean the bottom of the pit. Silt and gravel are what snag float switches later.
4. Fit the new pump with the same discharge adapter, set it level on the pit floor, and make sure the float has clear travel with nothing touching it.
5. Reconnect the union, plug in, and test by pouring a bucket of water in until the float lifts. It should start, clear the pit and stop cleanly.

Call a plumber instead if there is no union or check valve (the pipe has to be cut), if the discharge line is undersized or frozen, or if you are adding a battery backup. A plumber's labour for a straight swap in London typically adds a few hundred dollars to the price of the pump. If you would rather not do it yourself, call us: sump pump installation is a service call we handle, or we will point you to the right person.

The pump we stock, and why we chose it

We keep the Myers MDC33V10 on the shelf: cast iron body, vertical float on a stainless steel rod, 48 gallons per minute, 1/3 HP. Myers has been building pumps since 1870 and is part of Pentair, a trade brand rather than a house brand. For most London homes 1/3 HP is correctly sized; step up to 1/2 HP for a high water table, a deep basement, or a long discharge run.

One more thing worth knowing. Most of the sump pumps we sell go out the door in March, after the thaw, after the scare. It is the same pump in October as it is in March. The only difference is whether you are also paying for flooring.

If you are not sure what you are looking at down there, call 519-438-1121 first and describe it. We have been doing this since 1972 and we will tell you straight, including when the honest answer is that yours can wait another season. That call costs nothing and it is the fastest way to stop wondering.

Household Plumbing is family owned, BBB accredited with an A+ rating since 1986, and has been on Adelaide Street for over 50 years.