in the 20+ years I've lived here. It wouldn't matter much if it did - there's not much down there - but it's never more than normal basementy-damp in the corners. Maybe it's because I'm on sandy soil.

But it's going to keep raining for the rest of the week, so we'll see if that record holds.

We've not had a sump pump failure, but last year, some leaves clogged the gutters on the back of my house, causing it to overflow, and we got some water in the basement through one of the window wells. Yuck. I had to break out the wet or dry vac.

It's also over 100 years old. Never a basement leak. They are also in sandy soil, far away from any creeks or rivers and there is no shallow underground water.

Where I live, my house is right on top of a underground stream. My sump pump goes from March-November, every 15-30 min around the clock. It's a brand new house. I already had some slight leakage the first spring melt after it was build because the rough grade wasn't done and the water starting pouring against the foundation instead of being directed away from it. That's fixed and we've had no further problems, not even last summer with intense summer downpours in storms that flooded many other basements. However, I'm always worried about the sump pump giving out. It happened to someone I know in the area, and they ended up with 4 inches of water in the basement. Yikes!

worries about that. I bought a spare and modified the outlet pipe so I could quickly replace it. Even if you hire a plumber to replace a broken sump pump, it's a good idea to have a spare one that matches your setup so the plumber can quickly install it.

Also, make sure the floor drain in your basement is working. I dump a few gallons of water down mine from time to time, just to make sure it will work, if needed.

attached to my furnace and it drains into the floor drain, so I'm pretty sure the drain works properly. It does have a back-flow valve in case of sewer back up so that's a bonus. We get so many summer storms that our town was having major problems until they started building retention ponds in the new areas. They also made back-flow valves code for new construction. My sump-pump does empty into the sewer but it has an automatic switch over to pumping it out on the lawn in case of sewer back up.

Sometimes I wonder about if a basement is worth it, and then tornado season rolls around, and I'm like, oh yeah, it is.

It doubles the usable space in our house, too, even though it's only partly finished. I don't mind concrete block walls, though. The previous owners, though, carpeted the basement. This summer, I'm pulling all of the carpet up and putting tile down on the floor. Nothing worse than a wet carpet in a basement.

If I amend it with compost, it's great for growing a garden (in addition to not causing a leaky basement). My parents' house was much newer than mine but it was built in an area of clay soil, and they had to trench around the house and install a sump pump that ran almost all the time in wet weather, or their (nicely finished) basement would leak. But my ugly old unfinished basement that I don't use for anything but utilities and storage doesn't leak. There is no justice, I guess.

In the summer the AC runs and the water drains off the coils, and gets pumped outside. The system was in the basement, in the center of the house.

I keep my fingers crossed.

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end up leaking eventually. Stuff shifts. Cracks develop. Houses last a long time and change over the years. That fact keeps companies like the one that created that advertising video in business.

We had tons of rain, and serious flooding - areas in town flooded that have never flooded before (according to the long-time residents).

And you're right - you get very used to hearing the sump pump kick on and off...and get worried when you don't hear it.

On edit: Oh yeah - and if there's a severe storm and power goes out, an electric sump pump stops working, and you can have big problems. We have a water-powered back-up to our sump pump. If power is interrupted, the main water supply to the house runs the sump pump. There are also battery-back-up pumps, but then you need to check the battery periodically to make sure it isn't dead.

This time of year, especially during major storms, I've been known to wake up in the middle of the night and listen for the pump before I go back to sleep. A flooded basement isn't something you want to wake up to.

As long as it's in the sump.

I put leaf guards on my gutters last year. I'm resting easier this year and don't have to climb up and clear the gutters before every storm. A friend of mine just got some basement flooding from a window well. Two leaves had clogged the gutter's outlet opening. Two leaves! The gutters overflowed and the water came in through the window well. Blech!

two years ago. The septic alarm went off for that one, as well.

a squirrel that went down the main sewer vent on the roof. It crawled into the pipe that drains our laundry sink and connects to the floor drain, which is on a side drain instead of the main drain.

I did a load of laundry. I went into the laundry room and found an inch of water on the floor. It took me hours to clear the drain of that dead squirrel. Damn! I didn't realize that the vent wasn't screened. It is now.