Basement Flood Restoration & Sump Pump Backup

A March storm parked over Oak Ridges for six hours, and the Oak Ridges Moraine did what it does: the water table rose hard against every foundation on the street. This homeowner's sump pit was filling every four minutes — and at hour three of the storm, the pump died mid-cycle.

The Damage

Two centimetres of groundwater across the finished basement before the homeowner found it. The first two companies who quoted wanted to sell a whole new sump system — liner, pump, drainage, the works — at numbers that started at five figures.

What We Actually Did

• Got the water out and the basement safe first — the plumbing emergency ends when the damage stops growing
• Diagnosed the pump: a seized float switch, a $150 repair — not a dead motor
• Repaired the existing pump, replaced the check valve that had been letting water fall back into the pit, and verified the pit liner
• Added a battery backup system — because in Oak Ridges and Jefferson, the power fails in storms exactly when the pit fills fastest

The Education

We showed the homeowner the neighbourhood geography: their street sits on the moraine, spring melt and storm recharge push the water table up every year, and a sump pit that fills every four minutes in a storm is doing its job — the equipment just has to survive the workload. A battery backup and a thirty-second bucket test every quarter is the whole maintenance program. Honest verdicts cost us the five-figure sale and earned a review that now sells our next ten sump calls.