The 7 Best Sump Pumps for Wet Basements (2026)

The best sump pump for most basements is the Zoeller M53 Mighty-Mate, a cast iron submersible that three of the five reviewers we read put at or near the top, rated by Zoeller at 2,040 gallons per hour with ten feet of lift on the discharge pipe. We checked every price and every stock status on Amazon on 2026-09-19.

One number decides most of this, and almost none of the pages we read print it properly. A sump pump's advertised gallons per hour is measured with the water going nowhere, straight out of the pump at zero lift. Your pump has to push water up out of the pit, through the rim of the house, and away. The Wayne CDU790 in this guide is a 4,600 gallon per hour pump on the box and a 3,060 gallon per hour pump at ten feet, which is what a real basement asks of it. Every flow figure on this page carries the height it was rated at, and when a maker does not publish one at ten feet we say so instead of borrowing the zero foot number.

One thing first: we make digging spades, not pumps, so nothing here is ours. Every pick is judged on flow at a stated head, horsepower, switch type, discharge size and warranty, taken from Amazon listing text and the manufacturers' own specification sheets, then checked against what independent reviewers reported. All of it was pulled on 2026-09-19.

Disclosure: as an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. It does not change what we recommend or what you pay. Prices and availability were checked on 2026-09-19 and can change.

Best sump pumps at a glance

Replacing a pump that just died? Match these three things first

Flow matters, but not until the pump fits. This Old House ranks the shopping order the same way we do, putting the basin size level with power and flow, on the grounds that a pump which will not go in the pit is not a candidate at all.

• The pit. Measure straight across the basin and read the Min. basin column. This Old House puts the usual range for a plain pump at ten or eleven inches, and says anything carrying a second pump and a battery tends to want sixteen or more because of the extra hardware, which is exactly the spread in the column above. Four of our seven picks have no minimum published by their maker at all, which is why one cell in that column credits This Old House and another the Amazon listing instead.
• The pipe. Check the size at your old pump against the Discharge column. All seven here are 1-1/2 inch NPT, the SIT-50D's leaving the top of the pump rather than the side, which is a clearance question rather than a pipe-size one. The ESP25n in pick 6 can also go on a 1-1/4 inch pipe, with an adaptor Wayne does not include.
• The switch. This Old House sorts switches into three kinds by the room each one needs. A vertical float rides up and down a post, so it suits a narrow pit and is hard to foul. A tethered float swings on a cord or an arm, so it wants a wide pit to swing in. An electronic switch senses the water instead of floating on it, so it needs no swing room at all. Against our seven: Wayne states an integrated vertical float on picks 2 and 4 and an integrated mechanical float with guards on pick 5, all three working between nine inches on and four inches off, and a user adjustable reed float switch on pick 6. Basement Watchdog uses a pair of reed-triggered floats on pick 3, held in a cage so their travel is bounded by the cage rather than by your pit. Zoeller describes a snap-action float with a guard on pick 1, and Superior a float ball on a metal arm on pick 7, which is the swinging kind. None of our four makers publishes how far its float actually travels, so measure the pit before you assume it fits.

If all three match, the rest of this page is about how much water you get for your money. If they do not, the manual and your local code are the authorities on what the installation needs, and swapping a pump is a job many people hand to a plumber.

How we chose these

We did not hands-on test these pumps. We read every Amazon listing bullet by bullet and pulled each maker's own spec sheet where one exists, saying so where one does not: Superior Pump's page for the 92551 is a dead link, so that pick's specs come from its listing and from Bob Vila. We checked it against five roundups: Bob Vila, Consumer Reports, Popular Mechanics, This Old House and Family Handyman.

Two of those five actually put pumps in water. Bob Vila tested four itself and says it could not put the rest through the paces; three of those four are picks here. Consumer Reports lab-tested eleven backup systems at a ten foot vertical lift, which is where this page's ten foot standard comes from. Popular Mechanics, This Old House and Family Handyman are opinion rather than test data and we never call them testers, and Consumer Reports is cited only about backup systems, because that is all it tested.

Four of the seven picks are Wayne, because Wayne publishes a flow table for every pump of its we picked, at five heights for its primaries. Where a maker and a listing disagree the maker wins, which is why the M53 is a 3/10 HP pump here and 1/3 HP on Amazon. And once a reviewer's exact model lost to a sibling on flow at ten feet, so we took the sibling and put the reviewer's pick in Also considered with the arithmetic: Popular Mechanics' CDU980E against our CDU1000.

The best sump pumps, reviewed

1. Zoeller M53 Mighty-Mate: best sump pump overall

The Zoeller M53 Mighty-Mate (ASIN B000H5PYR2) is the pump three of our five sources reach for: Bob Vila's best value cast iron and one of the four it submerged, This Old House's best overall, Family Handyman's best overall. It leads on three things a buyer can use. Its body is cast iron where most pumps at this price are not: a cast iron switch case, motor and pump housing, with a plastic impeller and base. And Bob Vila's testers got the luckiest data point in the whole source set: a real storm flooded the basin while this pump was on their bench, and they reported it cleared the water and kept the basement dry. Zoeller also documents it better than anyone here: flow at three heights rather than one headline, 43 gallons per minute at five feet, 34 at ten and 19 at fifteen, which is the 2,040 gallons per hour at ten feet in the tables; a shut-off head of 19.25 feet, the height at which the pump stops moving water at all; 9.7 amps at 115 volts; and a listed weight of 23 pounds. The switch is a float-activated snap-action switch with a guard over the float, and the warranty is three years. A non-clogging vortex impeller passes half inch solids, which is the part that matters in a gritty pit. Where it loses, and this is the honest case against our own top pick: it is the slowest of the five plain primary pumps here at ten feet and the most expensive water of them per gallon of flow, well behind pick 4 on that measure. If your lift is over about fifteen feet, or your pit refills fast enough that you watch it, pick 4 moves two and a half times the water for a little less money and you should buy that instead. Buy the M53 for the cast iron and the record, not for the flow.

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2. Wayne CDU790: best value

The Wayne CDU790 (ASIN B0002YVQA2) is the cheapest pump here that still has a cast iron volute, a million-cycle float switch and a three year warranty, and it moves 50 percent more water at ten feet than our top pick for less money. Wayne publishes the whole curve: 4,600 gallons per hour at zero feet, 3,810 at five, 3,060 at ten, 2,220 at fifteen, 1,200 at twenty. It is a 1/3 HP, 120 volt permanent split capacitor motor in an epoxy-coated steel housing with a cast iron volute and cast iron seal plate, an integrated vertical float switch with a polypropylene float that turns on at nine inches and off at four, a top suction intake that Wayne says removes the need to drill a weep hole, and UL agency approval. This pump is also the clearest illustration of why this page exists: This Old House lists it at 63 gallons per minute with no height attached, and Wayne's own curve puts 63.5 gallons per minute at five feet and 76.7 at zero. Where it loses: per gallon of flow it is not the cheapest water here, and pick 4 beats it on that measure while costing more to buy.

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3. The Basement Watchdog SIT-50D: best for a pit that runs constantly

The Basement Watchdog SIT-50D (ASIN B08GZCCYXX) is the only pump here with two float switches on the same pump, and Bob Vila is the reason we trust that feature rather than just repeating it. Bob Vila's testers wrote that they tried to create a flood and could not get the pump to flinch, then manually disabled one of the floats to see whether the backup would work, and it did. Basement Watchdog states 4,400 gallons per hour at zero feet and 3,540 at ten, which its specification panel repeats as 59 gallons per minute at ten feet. That is the cheapest water of any pick on this page bar one. It is a 1/2 HP copper-wound permanent split capacitor motor in solid cast iron with a maximum head of 25 feet, a caged pair of micro-reed floats on a freestanding piggyback plug, a three year warranty, and a body 6.25 inches square by 12 inches tall that the maker says typically fits narrow pits. Basement Watchdog is also the only manufacturer in this entire guide that publishes an amp draw at a stated height: 4.2 amps at ten feet of total head. Where it loses: the maker publishes flow at zero and ten feet only, so if your lift is closer to twenty feet there is no number here to plan with, and pick 4 has a published figure at every height.

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4. Wayne CDU1000: best for high volume

The Wayne CDU1000 (ASIN B0062FTMV0) is the cheapest water on this page, barely, and it is not close on the thing that actually matters, which is what is left at height. Wayne publishes 6,100 gallons per hour at zero feet, 5,640 at five, 5,100 at ten, 4,560 at fifteen and 3,840 at twenty. That twenty foot figure is more water than five of the other six picks move at ten feet, and exactly as much as the sixth. It is a 1 HP, 120 volt permanent split capacitor motor in cast iron and stainless steel, with the same integrated vertical float switch and float guard as pick 2, the same nine inch on and four inch off levels, CSA agency approval, and a five year warranty where pick 2 gets three. Bob Vila makes it its most versatile pick and puts it at up to 5,400 gallons per hour at a ten foot depth; Wayne's own table says 5,100, and we have used Wayne's. Where it loses: Bob Vila's one criticism is that some owners have reported rust-prone components, and a 1 HP motor is more pump than a dry basement with a short run will ever need.

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5. Wayne WSS30VN: best combination primary and backup

The Wayne WSS30VN (ASIN B07H4S6X9N) is the only model here that both a bench tester and a lab have had their hands on. It is Bob Vila's best overall and its favorite of the four pumps it submerged, chosen for ease of setup, reasonable price and high water-pumping capacity. Consumer Reports lab-tested it among its eleven backup systems. This Old House makes it its best battery backup. It is one box containing a 1/2 HP, 120 volt primary pump and a 12 volt DC backup pump, and Wayne publishes a curve for each: the primary does 5,100 gallons per hour at zero feet, 4,500 at five, 3,840 at ten, 3,060 at fifteen and 2,040 at twenty, and the battery pump does 2,700, 2,100, 1,500 and 660 at the same first four heights. The sell sheet repeats it in gallons per minute and the two agree. It weighs 46 pounds, uses an integrated mechanical float switch tested to a million cycles, and carries a three year warranty. Wayne states it removes up to 10,000 gallons on a single battery charge. Where it loses, and these are real, because the sticker price is not what you spend: the battery is not included and Wayne specifies its own 75 amp-hour WSB1275, and Wayne's own literature states that the system requires a check valve, also not included, for which Wayne sells its own 1-1/2 inch check valve kit. As configured you are buying all three, and the table below lists both add-ons.

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6. Wayne ESP25n: best battery backup for a pump you already own

If the pump in your pit still works, the Wayne ESP25n (ASIN B07GJXRZ1V) is the honest way to buy protection without throwing away a working motor. It is Bob Vila's best battery backup, and it sits in the pit beside the pump you already own rather than replacing it. Wayne's own table gives 2,900 gallons per hour at zero feet, 2,340 at five, 1,680 at ten and 600 at fifteen, and the headline figure disagrees three ways: Wayne's own bullet puts the maximum at 2,500, as Bob Vila does, and the Amazon listing says up to 2,700. The ten foot figure is the one Wayne's table and bullet agree on, 1,680, and it is the figure used throughout. The listing describes an epoxy-coated steel housing on a cast iron base with a thermoplastic impeller, and says it fits a 14 inch or larger basin. Wayne adds a user adjustable reed float switch, an audible alarm that sounds whenever the battery pump is running, an LED that shows the battery's charge, and a smart charger. Its discharge is 1-1/2 inch NPT, and Wayne's manual says a 1-1/4 inch pipe needs an adaptor that is not included. Wayne's listing states up to 10,000 gallons on a single charge with its 75 amp-hour battery, which against 1,680 gallons per hour at ten feet is about six hours of pumping; the runtime table below does the same sum for every backup here. Where it loses: the warranty is two years, the shortest of any pick that states one, Wayne publishes no amp draw for it, its flow falls to 600 gallons per hour at fifteen feet with nothing published at twenty, and the battery is sold separately, as the listing says outright. Wayne specifies its own 75 amp-hour WSB1275, so as configured you are buying both.

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7. Superior Pump 92551: best pedestal pump

The Superior Pump 92551 (ASIN B006H3X2XQ) is the one job on this page a submersible cannot do: it keeps the motor up out of the water on a column about three feet tall, where you can see it, hear it and get at it without reaching into a wet pit. Bob Vila makes it its best primary and Family Handyman its best pedestal. It is a 1/2 HP motor turning a five-blade impeller, with a solid steel drive shaft, float ball and impeller, a cast iron base, stainless steel construction, a fully adjustable automatic float switch on a metal switch arm and a ten foot power cord, and it is cULus Listed and CSA Certified. It will handle liquids up to 180 degrees Fahrenheit. The listing states 3,600 gallons per hour with no height attached to it; Bob Vila is the only source that gives it at a stated head, at 2,700 gallons per hour at ten feet, which is what this page uses. Where it loses: neither the listing nor any Superior Pump page we could reach states a warranty at all, which is the one blank on this page we could not fill, and Bob Vila's criticism is that the pump is susceptible to debris.

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Also considered: models that missed the list and why

Eight more pumps that a shopper will run into. Every one of them is a pick on one of the five lists we read, and each line says why it is not one of ours. Prices and stock were checked on 2026-09-19.

• Wayne CDU980E. Popular Mechanics names it, and it is the 3/4 HP step below pick 4 from the same family, with the same discharge, switch, basin size and five year warranty. It saves a little money and gives up 357 gallons per hour at ten feet, which is why pick 4 has its slot. It is also the sharpest example of the numbers problem on this page: Wayne's own table says 4,743 gallons per hour at ten feet, Wayne's own bullet says 4,600, the Amazon title says 5,490 and Popular Mechanics says 4,620.
• The Basement Watchdog Special CONNECT. Currently unavailable on Amazon: it was backordered when we rechecked on 2026-09-28, which is why it gave up pick 6. It is Bob Vila's best smart pick, with a weekly automatic exercise cycle, a USB port for an optional WiFi alert module, and the only backup in our sources whose maker publishes an amp draw at a stated head, 18 amps at ten feet. Basement Watchdog rates it at 1,850 gallons per hour at ten feet against the ESP25n's 1,680.
• Superior Pump 92250, down to twelve in stock. Two of our sources like it: Bob Vila submerged it and made it best bang for the buck, Family Handyman made it best budget. It is the cheapest way into a working pump. It missed because it is a 1/4 HP thermoplastic pump that Bob Vila's own tester described as definitely on the lower end in terms of pumping capacity, and at 1,200 gallons per hour at ten feet it moves less water than the battery backup in pick 6.
• Zoeller M57. A Popular Mechanics pick, and it shares the identical published curve with pick 1 because Zoeller prints one table for the 53, 55, 57 and 59. The difference is the body: all cast iron with a cast iron impeller instead of a plastic one, at a higher price. Worth the money in gritty water, identical on the published curve and every motor spec, and six pounds heavier at 29 against the M53's 23.
• Wayne Basement Guardian HALO75, down to eight in stock. Family Handyman's best smart pick, a 3/4 HP pump with a phone-connected controller, Alexa compatibility and a five year warranty. It is the one model here whose cost per gallon cannot be computed: Wayne publishes no flow table for it, so its 5,490 gallon per hour headline has no height attached and there is nothing to put in the table below.
• Liberty Pumps 237, on a seven to twelve day ship estimate. This Old House's best heavy-duty pick. At 11 pounds it is the lightest of the three pumps whose weight is published here, and it fits a 10 inch basin, the smallest requirement stated on this page alongside the M53's. It missed for two reasons: a seven to twelve day ship estimate is the wrong answer in a wet week, and Liberty publishes its curve only as a graph, so there is no stated number at ten feet. Worth knowing before you shop it as heavy duty: Liberty's own sheet describes an aluminum motor housing and a polypropylene base rather than cast iron.
• Basepump RB750, down to three in stock. Consumer Reports lab-tested it, and it runs on household water pressure with no battery to replace, on a five year warranty, as long as anything here. It missed because it needs city water pressure and a supply line at the pit, so it is no use on a well, and Basepump states it spends one gallon of city water to remove two gallons of sump water at 90 PSI and ten feet. At 750 gallons per hour at ten feet it moves the least water of anything in this guide.
• Zoeller AquaNot Spin 508 ProPak53. Family Handyman's best battery backup, a preassembled system whose primary is the same pump as pick 1, and over the price ceiling for this guide. It is worth naming anyway for one line in Zoeller's own copy: six hours of continuous pumping on a fully charged battery and 48 hours or more at a ten percent duty cycle, which is the only place a maker here puts a flat-out figure and a duty-cycle figure side by side. Its Amazon listing says 5.5 hours rather than six, lists a check valve in the box and names no battery, and Zoeller's own page says the battery is sold separate.

One more, for completeness, because it is on a list a shopper may be reading next to this one. Popular Mechanics names the Little Giant 506160; we could not find it on Amazon at a price and a stock status we could check, so it is not in the tables below.

What a gallon of pumping actually costs

Every pump here is compared on the same measurement, at the same height: gallons per hour at ten feet of lift, which is the height Consumer Reports uses on its own bench. Divide the price on the day by that flow and you have what a gallon of pumping costs. Every flow figure comes from the maker's own sheet unless the source column says otherwise. Picks first, then the second tier, each listed from the lowest cost per gallon of flow to the highest when we checked.

What the spread says, in one line: moving water is cheap and insurance is not. Across the thirteen models with a sourced figure at ten feet the cost per gallon of flow varies widely, and the four cheapest on that measure are all plain corded primary pumps. Everything at the expensive end is buying something other than flow, and in four of the five cases that something is a battery.

Which is the problem with the ranking in the table above. Three of those rows understate what you would spend, because every battery backup and combination system here needs a battery that is sold separately, and Wayne states that its combination system also needs a check valve it does not supply. There is a second problem, and it is ours: the table above rates the Wayne WSS30VN and the Zoeller ProPak53 on their primary pumps, which is not the pump that runs when the power is out. So here is every backup the way you would actually buy it, rated on the pump that does the job, checked on Amazon on 2026-09-19.

Two things change once the battery is in the price and the sums are done on the backup pump. Per gallon of flow at ten feet, backup protection costs several times what the cheapest corded pump on this page does, for all four systems we can price on that basis. The ProPak53 sits outside that either way: Zoeller publishes no flow for its backup pump at all, and even taken on its primary pump's 2,040 gallons per hour with a battery like the one four rows up it lands far above the cheapest corded pump here. For the two add-on backups the battery alone raises the cost per gallon sharply; for the Wayne combination system the jump is bigger still, because the first table rates it on the primary pump rather than the one that runs in an outage.

And the Basepump, which looks like the extravagance per gallon of flow when you read the first table, lands second cheapest of the four: no battery to buy and a five year warranty, as long as anything here. It still only suits a house on city water, and it still moves the least water of anything in this guide. But it is not the expensive option, and the first table on its own would suggest it was.

One thing the ranking buries, so it is worth saying plainly: the Wayne WSS30VN is the dearest protection per gallon here, and it is also the only pick that replaces your primary pump while it does it. The Zoeller ProPak53 is the only other system on this page that does, and it costs more again. The three cheaper rows all sit alongside a pump you already own and are still relying on.

What size sump pump do you need? Flow at every height

Sump pump flow falls as the pipe climbs, and the fall is steep. This is every published figure for the seven picks at each height, straight from each maker. Blank cells are not omissions: they are heights at which that manufacturer publishes nothing, which is itself worth knowing before you plan around a number.

All figures in gallons per hour. Two things fall out of it. The first is how much a pump gives up: the Zoeller M53 loses 56 percent of its five foot flow by fifteen feet and stops entirely before twenty, while the Wayne CDU1000 still has 3,840 gallons per hour left at twenty. The second is that only Wayne fills the row. The M53's zero foot cell is the reason: Zoeller publishes a maximum of 43 gallons per minute with no height attached to it, and that is the same number its own table puts at five feet, so the honest reading is that the M53 has no separate zero foot figure at all. Makers label these curves total dynamic head rather than height, and the figure your house asks for is the climb from the pump up to wherever the pipe leaves the building, plus the run after it. If that number is near the top of a pump's published range, the honest read is that the pump is near its limit, and the maker's manual and your local code are the authorities on what the installation itself needs.

So start with your lift, then choose on flow at that height rather than on horsepower or on the number on the box. Read across at your own figure rather than at the pump's advertised maximum. Around ten feet, every pick here still moves between 1,680 and 5,100 gallons per hour and you can choose on other things; at fifteen feet and up the field narrows fast. Then read the cost section above and see whether the pump you landed on is buying flow or buying insurance.

How long a battery backup really runs

Backup pumps are sold in hours, and the hours are not what they look like. Every claim below is the maker's own, and every computed column is the same division: a stated capacity divided by a stated rate. Do it and four different marketing numbers collapse into one answer.

The answer is four to seven hours of pumping, on every battery system here, whatever the headline says. The arithmetic is plain. Wayne's listing claims 10,000 gallons on a charge, and divided by the battery pump's own 1,500 gallons per hour that is 6.7 hours. Basement Watchdog's 48 hours is explicitly at a ten percent duty cycle, which is 4.8 hours of running. Zoeller states six hours outright and then quotes 48 at the same ten percent.

Wayne's 26 hours deserves credit rather than the suspicion a number that size usually earns, because Wayne prints the condition next to it in its own footnote: 26 continuous hours of protection, at 5 gallons a minute of incoming water, on a 75 amp-hour battery. Five gallons a minute is 300 gallons an hour against the pump's 1,680 at ten feet, so the pump is running under a fifth of the time, and flat out the same battery is about six hours. Wayne is the only maker here that states the inflow rate its runtime claim assumes, and that shape is what all of these claims are.

So read it the other way round, because this is the number that should actually decide it. Four to seven hours of flat-out pumping is not four to seven hours of outage. At the ten percent duty cycle the makers themselves use, 4.8 to 6.7 hours of pumping is roughly two days of protection, and Basement Watchdog and Zoeller both say 48 hours outright. The pit refills slowly and the pump waits between cycles. What you cannot expect is two days of a pump running continuously, which is what a flooding basement in a long outage would ask for.

How many watts does a sump pump use, and what runs one in an outage?

Makers publish this inconsistently, and the two figures on this page are not the same measurement, which matters if you are sizing anything to run one.

Zoeller publishes 9.7 amps at 115 volts for the M53, a nameplate figure, not a figure at a stated head. At 115 volts that is about 1,120 watts. Liberty publishes 5.2 amps at 115 volts for the 237, about 600 watts. Basement Watchdog publishes something more useful and rarer: 4.2 amps at ten feet of total head for the SIT-50D, the draw while doing a specific job rather than a plate rating, though it does not publish the voltage alongside it, so we have left that one in amps. Wayne publishes no amp figure for any of the pumps here.

Two practical consequences. A sump pump is an induction motor, so it draws more on startup than while running, and a nameplate rating is the one to plan against rather than the running figure. And whatever you plug it into has to clear that startup, which is why this question belongs with the outage question rather than the pump question. If a wet basement and a power cut tend to arrive together at your house, our best portable power stations guide covers the battery route and our best inverter generators guide the fuel one, both with rated and peak output for every model, which are the two numbers to check a pump's nameplate amps against. A dedicated battery backup, like picks 5 and 6, solves the same problem from the other end: a 12 volt DC pump that never needs the house circuit at all.

Do you need a battery backup, and which kind?

Consumer Reports puts the case for one plainly and it is not only about outages: it notes that sump pumps have an average life expectancy of a decade and quotes Dave Jones, a master plumber with Roto-Rooter, saying that even if your power is on, sump pumps fail all the time because of age or lack of maintenance. A backup covers the pump failing as well as the grid failing.

There are three shapes and this page has all three. A combination system, like pick 5, replaces your primary and brings its own battery pump in one housing, which Consumer Reports says simplifies installation, because the one unit replaces your primary pump and brings its own battery pump with it. A battery backup, like the Wayne ESP25n in pick 6, sits alongside the pump you already own and is the cheaper route if that pump is healthy. A water-powered backup, like the Basepump RB750 in the second tier, uses household water pressure instead of a battery, and the FAQ below has the trade. For what any of them actually gives you in hours, read the runtime table above rather than the box, and for what each one needs you to buy, the as-configured table.

Pedestal or submersible?

Only one of the seven picks here is a pedestal, and the split is genuine rather than a formality. A submersible sits in the water, which is quieter and lets the pit be covered, and it is the shape every reviewer we read defaults to. A pedestal keeps the motor on a column above the water, which is why Bob Vila describes the Superior Pump 92551 as keeping its motor safely out of harm's way and giving easy access for routine checks.

The practical read: a pedestal is the answer when the pit is too narrow for anything else, or when you want to see and hear the motor. Note that the height table above cannot settle this one for you, because Superior does not publish a curve, and the only figure at a stated head for the 92551 comes from Bob Vila.

On noise itself we have nothing to offer, and that is worth stating rather than fudging: not one of the makers in this guide publishes a decibel figure for how loudly its pump runs, which is why there is no noise column. If a quiet pump is the whole job, the one model a shopper is likely to arrive here asking about is the Liberty Pumps 257, a Popular Mechanics pick that another guide on this subject rates the quietest on its list. We left it off ours because it was down to one in stock when we checked, and because no Liberty page we pulled carries a decibel figure for it.

Where the water goes, and where a pump stops

A sump pump is the last line, not the first, and where its water lands is a yard question. A discharge line that ends a few feet from the foundation returns the same water to the same pit, and that pipe run is part of the total dynamic head the makers publish. Winter adds the failure mode nobody plans for: a line that freezes is a pump running against a closed pipe, so this is the season to walk it before the ground hardens. On the pump itself, Wayne's product pages describe their power cords as giving easy access to a nearby GFCI protected outlet, and state that the WSS30VN combination system requires a check valve which is not included. Beyond that the manual and your local code are the authorities, and the installation is a job many people hand to a plumber.

Most wet basements start further out than that, in grading that runs toward the house and beds that hold water against the foundation, and that work is ours rather than a pump's. Our how to winterize your garden guide has the seasonal order of it and our fall yard cleanup tools checklist the kit, and if the discharge ends in a hose you drag back and forth, our best hose reels guide covers keeping it out of the way. When the ground itself is the job, that is where we live: Spear Head Spade makes one double patented digging spade, and the spade finder says which size fits your soil.

Frequently asked questions

What size sump pump do I need?

Measure how high the water has to climb from the pit to where the pipe leaves the house, then read each pump's flow at that height in the flow table above rather than the number on the box, which is a zero lift figure. The deeper your lift, the shorter the list: only three of our seven picks publish a flow figure at twenty feet at all.

Do I need a 1/2 HP or 3/4 HP sump pump?

Horsepower is a poor guide on its own, and the pumps in this guide show why. At ten feet of lift the 3/4 HP Wayne CDU980E moves 4,743 gallons per hour against 3,540 for the 1/2 HP Basement Watchdog SIT-50D, which is the gap you would expect. But two 1/2 HP pumps here are 1,140 gallons per hour apart at that same height, and a 1/3 HP Wayne beats a 1/2 HP pedestal by 360. Decide on flow at your own lift, and treat horsepower as a rough sorting aid. If you want the most water for the money, the 1 HP Wayne CDU1000 costs only slightly more than the 3/4 HP model and moves 357 gallons per hour more at ten feet.

Which is better, Wayne or Zoeller?

They win on different things, and both are in our picks. Wayne publishes a flow table for every pump of its we picked, at five heights for its primaries, which is more than any other maker here does, and the three Wayne primaries in the cost section are among the cheapest water per gallon of flow on the page, including the cheapest of all, well ahead of the Zoeller M53. Zoeller's single sheet carries flow at three heights, a shut-off head, an amp draw and a weight, and the M53 is the pump three of our five sources put at or near the top. Buy Wayne for flow per dollar, Zoeller for the cast iron body and the record.

How many watts does a sump pump use?

The makers publish it inconsistently, so there is no single figure. Zoeller's M53 is 9.7 amps at 115 volts, about 1,120 watts on its nameplate, and the section above gives the other published figures and explains why a nameplate rating, not a running one, is what you size a generator or a power station against.

How long does a sump pump last?

Consumer Reports states that sump pumps have an average life expectancy of a decade, and quotes Dave Jones, a master plumber with Roto-Rooter, saying that even if your power is on, sump pumps fail all the time because of age or lack of maintenance. That is the argument for a backup as much as for a replacement schedule.

Do I need a check valve with a sump pump?

Check what the pump you are buying says, because it varies and it is not always in the box. Wayne states plainly that its WSS30VN combination system requires a check valve and that one is not included, which means buying Wayne's own kit, a real line item when you compare prices. Whether your installation needs one and where it belongs are questions for the pump's manual and your local code.

Is a battery backup or a water-powered backup better?

It depends on your water supply first, not on the pumps. A water-powered unit needs city water pressure and a supply line near the pit, so it is not an option on a well; Consumer Reports describes this type as lower maintenance with a longer lifetime, and a more involved installation. A battery backup works anywhere, gives you four to seven hours of actual pumping per charge, and costs more than its price tag: once each maker's specified battery is added and the sum is done on the pump that runs in the outage, the water-powered Basepump comes out second cheapest per gallon of flow of the four backup systems we can price that way, rather than the most expensive.