Get Ahead of Lakeside Flooding

If you live near Lake Ontario, you are familiar with area-wide flooding and damage that excess water has caused. While sandbagging may be diverting water away from your home, there is more that can be done inside your home. Waiting until the water is inside your basement is too late to prevent costly destruction. Once water is in the basement, you could spend thousands of dollars to fix mold issues and structural damage.

During any water incident, you want to prevent the water from reaching equipment such as the furnace, appliances and water heater. Although you already have a sump pump, it is most likely not going to support the current flooding issue.

Inspecting your current flood protection

For the first level of flood mitigation, you will want to inspect your drainage and storm systems. They may need to be cleaned and possibly replaced if they are deteriorating. Through this testing, you will discover if water is being disposed of properly and in the right location.

Additional flood prevention

Once you have inspected your systems, you may need to add a secondary backup system. In some cases, even a secondary system is not enough. Installing a larger pump with larger piping on a dedicated circuit may be a more efficient solution. This can divert more water more quickly—keeping pace with the flooding that is occurring outside.

Ultimately, you will want to increase how many gallons can be pumped. A standard sump pump can evacuate 30-50 gallons of water per minute. With increased capacity systems, you can achieve up to 200 gallons per minute.

For added reliability, we recommend connecting these systems to a whole-house generator. This connects your pump system directly to a continued power source so that it can operate even in a power outage. Additionally, you can add wireless sensors to alert you when water is being detected.

When it comes to your family’s safety and comfort, we want to make sure you have every option available to you.

If you are interested in learning more about flood protection options, call (585) 546-1400. An experienced, licensed plumber will review your home’s needs and provide you with a comprehensive plan and estimate.

By Andrew Torres
Residential Sales Manager