KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Audio Showings - What You Need to Know About Cabinets

Episode Date: October 18, 2024

And welcome to another edition of the nerdy agent podcast, Business Tip of the Week. Business tip. We're going to talk about water and some pumps. As we've been discussing on these business tips, we are talking about house knowledge, things that agents should know when they go into a house. This week, we're going to talk about some pumps. So the first thing I want to talk about is how to find a sum pump. Typically, if you see a, typically a black cover that's about 24 inches in diameter in a circle. all the way around, and a pipe coming out of it and going to the exterior of the house. That is a sump pit that would be used as part of a sump pump system. And sometimes you'll see the 24-inch diameter circle little cover thing and no pipe going out.

You might still have a drain tile system with a sump pit, but you don't have the actual pump in there. So, Luke, what is the one big mistake everyone makes when they look for a sump in a basement in terms of just assuming that everything's fine if you have sum pump. The big mistake? I made a mistake. Let's start over again.

Are we going to start this over? Yep, start over. I was basically saying, like, I hate the fact that every agent walks through a house and it says, oh, some pump, we're good. Theoretically, you should be. Not really. Where's your discharge pump run?

Well, yeah. Where does your grading look like outside? There's no sum pump. We have a big problem. But the grading is bad that it doesn't, with a sum pump it actually is going to, it doesn't need to have greater grading. Correct.

But like it's also, everyone says, oh, there's no sum pump. Yeah, I don't want to get too, I don't want to get too far into the weeds with it. Though,

I just want to explain what it is. Okay, fine. I will shut my mouth. Haley, run it. Oh. And welcome to another edition of the nerdy agent podcast business tip of the week.

Business tip. Sun pump. AJ, where are you? As we've been discussing, we are talking about house knowledge, stuff agents can understand. And this week we're going to talk about some pumps, some pits, drain tile systems.

So to start, to give you an idea on what you should look for for these, the biggest indication is going to be a circle cover that's usually black, sometimes gray. It's about 24 inches in diameter. It's usually in a corner or near a foundation wall. And most of the time we'll have a pipe coming out of it going outside the house. That is itself a sump pit. And a sump pit always has a drain tile system going towards it. and then a sump pump inside of it with a pipe going outside is what you're looking for. Some of them will not have the pipe going outside.

That would just be a sump pit and a drain towel system. In that situation, typically I'm just looking inside of it to see if it's super dry because you'd be surprised. Some people would say, oh, there's a, there's a sump pit. Where's the sump pump? We're going to be in trouble. Our basement's going to flood. But if no water ever goes into the sump pit, your basement's not going to flood. And so some cities have required people put these in longer than when it became code, since it's newer now.

And they put them in, but they didn't put the stump systems in. Eden Prairie is a big one for this. I actually see a lot of houses there that don't have a pump. And they don't need one because water never comes in based on the drainage of the lot and whatnot. The other big indicator, if it's a new system that's been put in after the house was already built, is going to be typically like 12 to 24 inches of concrete off the foundation looking brand new. Because how they put these systems in, and this is what I explained to all my clients, is they're going to jackhammer all of the foundation 12 to 24 inches outside of the inside the

foundation wall in the basement they're going to jack that up they're going to dig down they're going to drill holes in the block underneath the soil those holes are going to be what accepts water into that house and then i just tell them it's like a little it's like a little ravine yeah gully they put rock tubing sand in there and they pitch that to the sump pit that water then all accepts into the house goes to the sum pit. The sum pump in the sum pit has a float and as the water rises, the float rises and once it hits its critical level, it kicks to turn the sum pump on. It pumps the water out of the house and it continues there on. So forth. If you only have a sum pump, a stump pit and you don't have a sum pump. So like the discharge, how much does it cost to add that

onto? I want to say it's like $1,500. Yeah, it's not too bad. No, it's not too bad. The sum pit system, if you're having a ton of water issues, which we should talk about water on podcast and how you can solve that in the basement and do do the sump pit system some drain tile it's also not crazy we put it in one of our houses on like a 20 foot run and i think we spent like three thousand dollars somewhere around there to do a whole basement i want to say is more in like the six range for what i've been told sounds about right um so but that's the that's what you're looking for that's what i explain to all my clients on how those work because your clients will not understand how some pump and drain tile systems work so it's nice to be able to teach them about that

At the same time, you should also point out whether or not there's a backup generator. So sometimes they're always plugged into an outlet. Sometimes there's a big box next to that outlet that's also plugged in. If there's a big box there, it's a backup generator. That just means that there's a big storm. The electricity goes out in the house. It kicks on to keep the sun pump running because that's the big thing that can happen with these. That's important.

Electricity goes out during a big storm. It's raining a bunch. Pit fills. Can't pump out because you lost electricity. And then it floods the basement. So that's the basics on what, explain to people. Now, as far as looking at a sum pump system and how well it's done, right, you don't just walk into a basement and say, hey, there's drain tile and a sum pump that we're good,

right? Or there isn't one. That's what I feel like most people do. Exactly. That's the problem. It's like, so the assumption is sum pump equals good. No sum pump equals bad, but we don't understand how they work and we don't know how to communicate to our clients if this one is a good one or not. So tell them, we see a sum pump, right? We explain. what it is, how it works, then what else should the agent look for to make sure the sum pump, drain tile, some pit system is working correctly. Yeah. So, I mean, you probably hear about grading a lot. If you do inspections, they come up on about 98% of inspections that grading could be improved on a house. I think they come up even when grading maybe is fine on a house, but that's just a

separate conversation. So you want to think about water in a way of where is water going to run to? if it rained in your house, think about like, where are the low points? And so as water gets outside, it's going to run to certain areas, and it will run underground as well. So some pumps are needed in a lot of Minnesota houses because we have basements, which are underground, and the water is going to run towards that area that's underground. If you have bad grading outside and your house is sloped, if the soil outside is sloped to the foundation, that water is going to run to the foundation, it's going to leak back into the house. You're going to need something like this to ensure that you don't end up with water all over your basement.

So that's why they're most important. But a couple of things that need to look for is like if you have a house that's got great grating outside, you may not need a sum pump. So if you have a good gutter system that flows the water out or if you have French drains outside, you could be set in a way where you don't need one. I don't have one in my house and I don't have water in my basement. Okay. So if your lot kind of flows a certain way, you can be fine without one.

So as an agent, don't walk an house, be like, oh, no, no sum pump. This house will be bad. Think, oh, no, sum pump. I should really make sure I pay it. attention to the grating outside because if it's fine, you might be okay. Or if it, if the lot slopes off a hill, it won't be an issue. But if it doesn't and it slopes towards the house, then there's probably been a history of water that's been in that basement. Okay. Secondly, the biggest mistake people make with some pumps is the discharge pipes.

So you think about Luke mentioned, the water fills up. It hits the float. The float has to discharge out of the discharge pipe, which runs outside. If your discharge pipe runs outside but doesn't run to a place where it empties the water. and the water will then run away from your house, you haven't actually fixed any sort of problem. You've basically just brought water into the house, emptied it out, and a lot of times if that discharge pump pipe empties close to the house,

the water is just going to run right back into the house and right back into the pump and then dump right out outside the house and then eventually what happens is the motor will get burnt out because it's just going to be running all the time. And so you need to make sure you keep a good eye on where that some pump discharge pipe is running. You'll be able to see where that pipe runs

because it runs up and out the house. And so just look at where it runs out the house and then follow it to see just where it's going to truly empty because we have heard a lot of people that say, you know, you've heard horror stories, right? Someone says, I had water in my basement, but I have a sum pump. How is that possible?

Well, either A, you didn't have the battery backup and a storm went on and therefore the water kept going and the sum pump didn't work. Or B, you just emptied water out and then it ran back in your house and eventually it burnt out and then the water overflowed. So those are the two biggest things that I would be looking for. The discharge tube pipe two, just make sure that's in a location that's a little bit out of the way, right? We've also heard horror stories of someone drove over it with their John Deere. Yep.

Pinched it. The water couldn't get out. So it all backed back up into the system. Exactly.