An unexpected flood

Yesterday, Judy noticed some water in the utility room, in particular along cracks in the floor.

We discovered that with all the rain we have had over the past two weeks, the sump was filled with water almost to the top of the floor. But the sump pump was not running. I plugged it into the other outlet and it still did not run. Then I plugged a fan into the same outlet, and the fan verified that the outlet was live, but the pump was dead.

James and Karin spent an hour or more bailing out the top 6" (15 cm) of the sump, but the water kept coming.. James called a friend who does home inspections to see if he could come over and fix the pump, but he was not available.

So James called Dennis another friend, who is a tradesman who does home inspections. Immediately Dennis came over. He verified that the pump was not working, and left to buy a new pump, Unfortunately the new pump was a submersible pump but it had no float mechanism to turn it off and on. So Dennis returned that pump and bought another, He removed the broken pump and installed the new one. Success!

After 30 minutes of pumping the sump was almost empty, although water continued to drain into the sump. Dennis worried that the water being pumped out was draining back into the sump, but he verified that this was not the case. At this point Dennis needed to leave to attend a dinner with his wife and a couple they are ministering to.

We really appreciate the service freely given by our friend. The water had been forcing itself up through cracks in the utility room floor, There was a serious danger of water coming up through the floor of the other rooms, which would have required replacing the flooring in all of our home. A major disaster was barely averted. 

James reimbursed him for the pump but Dennis would take no money for all the work that he did for us.

Bless him and others like him! They make the world a better place for all of us!