Fact: If you are considering buying a home in Maryland or Virginia with a basement, be glad if the home was built with a sump pump. Sump pumps serve a very useful purpose, they "pump" water from under the house to the outside of the house where it can drain away.

We often meet home buyers from out of the area who believe that when they see a sump pump in the basement of a home they are previewing, that there "must be something wrong". In fact, the presence of a sump pump means that the builder installed it in the construction phase to avoid future water penetration problems in the future.

Home buyers relocating from areas where homes are built without basements are not familiar with the construction process of homes with basements. Just think, when you dig a hold in the ground, install a foundation in it, you must prepare for the fact that most of our areas have a lot of "ground water" or underground streams that, under rainy conditions, where normal run-off will not carry water away from a home or foundation quickly enough, water will come in the basement either from outside doors, or through the floor joints, OR simply through the foundation walls. So, the sump pump, which is installed in a well in the basement floor, will collect water from pipes installed under the basement slab, drain into the sump pump and be pumped out and away from the house.

So, welcome that sump pump and know that, with proper maintenance and awareness of the area in which your home was built, a sump pump is a very good thing.