Homes.com published a plain guide to sump pumps last month: what the thing is and what a buyer should ask about one before closing. Staff writer Dave Hansen talked to plumbers around the country for it, and Travis Hargrave was one of them. It ran August 27, 2026 under the headline “What is a sump pump?”.
Most of it is written for parts of the country where houses have basements. Ours mostly do not. The advice still holds up, it just lands in different places.
What a Sump Pump Is
It is a pump in a pit at the lowest point of a basement or crawlspace, about two feet deep and eighteen inches across, where groundwater collects instead of in the house. When the water rises far enough it lifts a float switch, the pump runs, and a discharge pipe carries the water ten to twenty feet from the foundation. Standing water grows mold in a day or two, and saturated soil pushes on the foundation from outside.
Why This Reads Differently Around Lafayette
Almost every house we work in sits on a slab, and basements here are close to nonexistent. Older raised houses have crawlspaces, and one that holds water after every hard rain does the same damage a wet basement does, out of sight. Low lots are the other case. When a yard cannot shed water fast enough in a storm it backs up toward the house, and the fix is outside: grading, gutters, and storm drainage that gives the water somewhere to go. A house with a bathroom or laundry below the sewer line needs a sewage ejector pump, and you know the day that one quits.
A slab house can also have a water problem no pump would catch. A supply line leaking under the slab reads as a warm spot on the floor, a meter that keeps turning, or a bill that jumped for no reason. That is leak detection work, not drainage work.
Travis on Buying the Pump
In the section on what to look for in a pump, Hansen wrote that the plumbers agreed: buy quality, skip the bargain units. Travis put it this way:
“I tell people you get what you pay for, especially with pumps that may sit a long time before being used,” said Travis Hargrave, CEO of Hargrave’s Plumbing in Lafayette, Louisiana. “Cheap may seem nice, but floods are the exact opposite of cheap. Don’t skimp on your sump pump if you can avoid it.”
What makes a pump different is the duty cycle. It can sit dry for eight months, then get asked to run six hours straight in a storm, and that is the only test it ever takes. Frank Gaborik of Danika Plumbing gave the specs worth shopping by: half a horsepower for most houses, a vertical float switch over a tethered one, cast iron over thermoplastic, and a check valve so pumped water cannot run back into the pit.
Signs a House Has a Water Problem
Ryan Osterkamp of Quality Comfort Home Services listed the tells:
- Standing water on the lowest level after a rain.
- Dampness or condensation that never dries out.
- A musty smell you cannot track down.
- Water stains along walls or the base of the slab.
- Ground that slopes toward the house instead of away.
A Backup, and a Bucket of Water
Tyler Pittenger of Service Force Plumbing made the point that lands hardest in hurricane season: the power goes out in the same storm that fills the pit. Gaborik priced a battery or water-powered backup at roughly $200 to $500. Testing it costs nothing. Pour a bucket of water into the pit every few months and watch. It should start on its own, move the water out, and shut off. If it sits there, or it runs while the level stays put, you found the problem on a dry Saturday instead of at 2 a.m. Pumps last seven to ten years and backup batteries two to three. When one fails with water already coming in, that is an emergency plumbing call.
Homes.com quoted Jordan Low of Comfort Heating Cooling Electrical & Plumbing on cost: $100 to $300 for the pump, $1,000 to $1,500 for a straightforward install, and $4,000 to $7,000 or more with a perimeter drain. Those are the article’s national figures for basement work in other markets, not a price for a job here.
Thanks to Homes.com
Thanks to Dave Hansen and the Homes.com team for including Travis, and for covering a piece of equipment nobody thinks about until it fails. You can read the whole thing, including what buyers and sellers should ask during a sale, at Homes.com.
Water Where It Should Not Be? Call Hargrave’s
We are not a basement waterproofing company, and there is not much call for one around here. What our team handles is the rest of it: drainage that keeps runoff off your foundation, pumps that quit, and the wet spot with no rain to explain it. Reach out and we will send someone to look.
