The first ten minutes
- Power. If the panel is dry and you can reach it without stepping in water, switch off the basement circuits. If you cannot, stay out of the water.
- The pump. If there is one and it is silent, check the breaker and lift the float by hand. A pump that starts when you lift the float has a float problem, not a pump problem.
- The downspouts. Look outside. A downspout dumping at the wall in a storm can be redirected in a minute with anything that carries water away.
- Call. Say which community you are in, whether the water is rising, and whether it smells of sewage. That tells us what to bring.
When we arrive
- Get water off the floor — a portable pump if yours has failed, into the pit if it has not.
- Find where it is coming in: the cove joint, a crack, a window well, up through the slab, or a sewer backup. Each one has a different next step.
- Stop or slow it for the night where that is possible — a crack can be plugged, a window well pumped, a discharge line thawed.
- Write down what we found, with photographs. Your insurer will want it and so will you.
What we will not do at night
Excavate, inject, or quote a permanent repair in the dark. The permanent fix is scoped in daylight, in writing, with the price — and you decide then, not while standing in water.
Sewer backup is different
Water coming up through a floor drain or a basement toilet is the municipal sewer or your own lateral backing up, not groundwater. It is a health hazard, it is usually a separate insurance rider, and the long-term fix is a backwater valve — a plumbing job, which we will tell you plainly rather than sell you a drain that would not help.