That’s some pump.

Yet another example of the half done nature of our house—like the sinks and doorknobs that were installed but the labels never removed, or the kitchen remodel that installed new baseboards but left off the quarter-round, or the shower that was tiled but not completely caulked.

There’s a sump pump installed in our basement but given that it’s underground, it wasn’t included in the inspection. In fact, there wasn’t an electrical outlet nearby so it wasn’t even plugged in. When Jonathan rewired the basement, he added an outlet specifically for the pump—and that’s when we discovered that it wasn’t pumping water out of the basement, it was pumping it right back into the basement. We want a water feature but we were thinking backyard, not basement.

Basically what happened was that every time there was a heavy rain and the basement flooded, the water would drain into the underground well. Because the sump pump didn’t work, the water sat there and eventually rusted out the entire pump. We addressed the first problem fairly quickly—by simply cleaning the gutters we cut down on most of the flooding—but the next step was more difficult.

Fortunately, the pump was covered under our purchase insurance and we had it replaced. The guys even trenched the outflow pipe coming from the house (it had just been laying across the lawn before.)

It does make us wonder how much maintenance was done on this house over the last decade. The basement clearly had water issues and had been reinforced years ago. Given that, why ignore the leaf-filled gutters and the broken sump pump? Old houses are a lot of upkeep and not all of it is fun but we’re comforted by the fact that our upkeep will help preserve our home for another 86 years.