Sump Pump Check Before the Rainy Season in Sonoma County

Does a house in Sonoma or Marin even need a sump pump?

Most homes around here sit on a raised foundation with a crawl space under the floor, not a full basement, so this question comes up every fall. The answer depends on where water goes on your lot, not on what kind of foundation you have. If the crawl space holds standing water after a storm, if the house sits at the low point of the lot, or if the ground water table rises in winter, a sump pump in a lined pit is what keeps the underside of your floor dry.

Water under a house is a slow problem, not a dramatic one. It rots subfloor, rusts duct straps and pipe hangers, and soaks the insulation until it falls out of the joist bays. Plenty of homeowners find it in February, months after it started.

Sonoma Water puts Santa Rosa's long term average at 32.20 inches a year, and the water year it measures against begins October 1. Whatever this season brings starts arriving in about three weeks.

How do you test a sump pump before the rainy season?

Five minutes, no tools:

1. Check that the pump is plugged in and the outlet has power. A GFCI outlet that tripped back in April will sit dead until somebody resets it.
2. Pour water into the pit, a few gallons at a time, until the float rises.
3. Watch the pump kick on. It should clear the pit and shut itself off.
4. Walk outside and confirm water is coming out of the discharge line where you expect it.
5. Listen after it shuts off. If water runs back down into the pit and the pump restarts a second later, the check valve has failed.

Zoeller, one of the long running pump manufacturers, publishes the same routine and puts average service life at 7 to 10 years with proper installation and maintenance. Write the install date on the discharge pipe with a marker so the next person does not have to guess.

What makes a sump pump fail when you need it?

• A stuck float. The float drifts against the side of the pit or catches on the power cord and never lifts. The pump is fine and the pit fills anyway.
• A clogged inlet screen. Silt, gravel, and crawl space debris pack the screen over a summer of sitting still. The motor runs and almost nothing moves.
• A bad check valve. Water in the discharge line falls back into the pit every cycle, so the pump short cycles and burns out early.
• A discharge line that goes nowhere useful. Lines get crushed, come apart at a glued joint under the house, or dump two feet from the foundation so the water walks right back in.
• Age. Past 10 years, a pump that has not been touched is a coin flip.

Where is a sump pump allowed to discharge?

Not into the sanitary sewer. Sanitary districts in Marin and Sonoma define a sanitary sewer as a pipe that carries sewage, and one that storm water, surface water, and ground water are not intentionally admitted to. A sump pump, a roof downspout, or a yard drain tied into that pipe is what the districts call inflow, and enough of it during a big storm is what pushes a collection system into overflows. Novato Sanitary District posts its sewer ordinances online, and every district around here carries the same rule.

The discharge belongs above grade and away from the house, running to daylight or to an approved storm drain. Get it far enough out that the water is leaving the property instead of circling back into the pit.

What happens when the power goes out mid storm?

The storms that fill the pit are the same storms that drop power lines in Sonoma and Marin. A pump running on house current is off at the exact hour it is needed most. Zoeller's own guidance is to have a backup system if your area is prone to outages, and this one is. A battery backup pump sits higher in the same pit and takes over on a charged battery when the primary pump loses power or quits.

The same outage math applies to heat and hot water, which we went through in hot water during a power outage.

When should you call a plumber instead?

Call if the pump hums but moves no water, if it runs nonstop with a dry pit, if the pit fills faster than the pump empties it, or if the discharge line is broken or disconnected somewhere under the house.

Call sooner if the water in the crawl space smells. Water with an odor is usually not ground water. It is a failed drain line or a cracked lateral, and that is sewer line repair work, not drainage work. A yard box or area drain that holds water and will not clear is a different job again, cabled or jetted, covered on our drain cleaning page.

If the pit is filling at 9 on a Sunday night in December, that is an emergency plumber call. Our after hours and weekend premium runs $150 to $350 on top of standard job pricing, which is the whole argument for spending five minutes on the test in September.

CNTRline Plumbing Service Inc has worked Sonoma and Marin County since 2017, and we answer 7 days a week. Call (707) 308-5599.