When A Sump Pump Won’t Rest: Tracing A Costly Underground Water Leak

Send us a text

The sump pump wouldn’t quit, the skies were clear, and the water meter sat perfectly still—yet the service line whispered a steady roar. We follow that mystery from the first clue to the likely culprit: a hidden water leak just outside the foundation, feeding the perimeter drains and keeping the pump cycling. Along the way, we show how a sonic listening device turns guesswork into evidence by tracing sound intensity through soil to narrow the dig and confirm the source.

We break down what matters to every homeowner and buyer: where the city’s responsibility ends and yours begins, why the location of the shutoff and meter decides who pays, and how to involve your municipality to verify ownership. We also unpack the real costs of water line repairs, why polyethylene service lines can sometimes be spot-repaired, and how saturated soil near a foundation can become a winter hazard as freezing and expansion stress concrete. Even a finished basement that looks dry can be masking continuous loss if the sump is doing overtime.

If you’re house hunting, we explain why standard inspections don’t include exterior water service testing or sewer scoping, and how those add-ons—like radon or termite checks—can prevent five-figure surprises after closing. With clear examples, we cover using findings to negotiate repairs or credits, and why proactive maintenance inspections help owners catch problems before they escalate. Forewarned is forearmed: when a pump runs on sunny days, it’s not a coincidence—it’s a signal.

Subscribe and share this episode with someone buying in an older neighborhood, and leave a review to tell us the trickiest mystery your house has thrown at you.

Support the show

To learn more about Habitation Investigation, the Three-time Winner of the Best Home Inspection Company in the Midwest Plus the Winner of Consumer Choice Award for Columbus Ohio visit Home Inspection Columbus Ohio - Habitation Investigation (homeinspectionsinohio.com)

NBC4 news segments: The importance of home inspections, and what to look for | NBC4 WCMH-TV

Advice from experts: Don’t skip the home inspection | NBC4 WCMH-TV

OSU student’s mysterious symptoms end up tied to apartment’s air quality | NBC4 WCMH-TV

How to save money by winterizing your home | NBC4 WCMH-TV

Continuing Education for Ohio Agents Scheduled classes
Continuing Education for Ohio Agents Course lis...

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_02 (00:01):
Alright, Laura.
I have you helped me with thisone.
Yes.
So we I did inspection the otherday, and there was some odd,
there was something odd going onin the house.
Now it has not rained here.
It rained yesterday.

SPEAKER_01 (00:18):
But it hadn't prior to it.

SPEAKER_02 (00:20):
But it had not rained for like almost a week
before the inspection.
But yet I'm at this house andthe sump pump is turning,
kicking on automatically byitself because I can hear the
water going trickling into itconstantly.
Sump probably went off every 20minutes, 30 minutes, something

(00:40):
like that.

SPEAKER_01 (00:40):
I think it was faster than that when we were
out.

SPEAKER_02 (00:43):
You think it was faster?
Okay.
So, which is kind of odd.
Where's that water coming from?
They don't live near a lake.
No creek.
It has not rained.
Now, downspout was were not wellconnected.
I did see it.
So that can be that can be partof it.
But like I said, it had notrained for over a week.

(01:04):
When I was near the I can I canhear it from a couple feet away,
the water service line from thecity wall, you know, water line
bringing water to you from thecity to your house.
I can hear water flowing.
But at the same time, I'mlooking at that water mirror
that was down in the basement,and that dial is not spinning at

(01:27):
all.
So there's no water movementthrough that meter going in the
house.
And I already had looked, andthere's I had no water running
within the house.
Dishwasher off, all the waterfaucets were were off.
No water usage at all in thehouse.
But I can hear water goingthrough uh the meter.

SPEAKER_01 (01:49):
Right.
Through that pipe, which I couldeven hear, and my hearing's not
as good as yours.

SPEAKER_02 (01:54):
You put your ear up against that pipe, you can hear
it.
Definitely.
So my suspicion was that thereis a service line coming into
the house, bringing the water tothe house, it is disconnected or
broken somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 (02:10):
Or some kind of leak.

SPEAKER_02 (02:12):
There's a leak somehow, because water's coming
into the house.
But so it's not completelydisconnected.
Right.
There's a there's a leak.
Because my my suspicion is thatthere's water leak at the
service line, and it's just it'sright outside that foundation.
As the water saturates that soiland goes down, it goes into the

(02:35):
perimeter drain line, which arepipes on the outside of the
house and newer houses out andthe inside as well, those just
below the footers, and that willtake the water and route it to
the sump pump to keep yourbasement from getting flooded.
Help helps me get flooded.

SPEAKER_01 (02:52):
Probably very helpful in this case.

SPEAKER_02 (02:55):
So to me, that that makes perfect sense.
Right.
There's a water leak, it's goinginto the pipes, which is now
getting directed to the sumppump, and that's why the sump
pump is going off like every 15minutes or so.
So we we put that in the report,let them know.
Hey, hey, we we suspect this.
Let them know we do have aninstrument, it's a sonic

(03:16):
listening device, which is crazysensitive.
So I I could put this probe intothe dirt and listen for sounds.

SPEAKER_01 (03:24):
Which was crazy to me because you could actually
hear like the water whooshingand leaking out.

SPEAKER_02 (03:31):
It was it's got a constant little bit like a roar.
Yeah, it was it was it was notlike a lion roar, but it's like
constant like something's goingon as I move further back.
It lessened, it lessened.
But this this thing is sosensitive when you drop your
sandals on the on the ground,and I'm like four or five feet
away from you, I can hear thesandals hitting the ground.

(03:53):
That's yeah, and that's howsensitive this listening
equipment is.
So, anyway.

SPEAKER_00 (03:58):
Habitation investigation is the way to go
for a home inspection in Ohio.
Trusted licensed home inspectorsfor your needs.
From radon to malt to warranty.
For a great home inspection, youreally can't go wrong.

(04:19):
Visit home inspections inOhio.com.

SPEAKER_02 (04:23):
Tried tracing the pipe, and you were tapping on
the service pipe slightly,slightly tapping it, and I could
trace that out to the yard, allout to the to the sidewalk area.
Like I guess I can hear wherethe service line is, but the
only area where I can hear likethe noise is near the house,

(04:45):
which once again that makessense.
It's the sump pump goingconstantly, it hasn't there's no
rain for a while, no waterusage.

SPEAKER_01 (04:54):
It's getting into the sump pump somehow.

SPEAKER_02 (04:56):
Wow.
Yeah, you got it.
Water's going it's just outsidethat foundation, water goes down
outside the foundation, thensomething could come inside,
which it is, with your perimeterdrained in drain your drain pipe
inside that basement is catchingthat and directing it to the
sump pump to kick it out.
So it's doing the sump pump andthe pipes are doing exactly what
they're designed to do.

SPEAKER_01 (05:18):
Which is good.

SPEAKER_02 (05:19):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (05:20):
So but whose responsibility would be to fix
that?
Because that's not quite withthe city, it's not quite with
the homeowner.

SPEAKER_02 (05:31):
So here's what you here's what you do with that.
Some homeowners insurances willcover water line leaks, supply
line coming in.
Okay.
You need to have that coverage.
Often the city, if it's andthat's why we were out in the
yard trying to find the meter,we could not locate the meter.
It's it's it's buried, it'sburied underneath the dirt,

(05:54):
maybe mulch.
I I didn't see the meteranywhere.
It was a while tracing that lineout all the way out to the
sidewalk.
So if it's before the meter,100% that that's that's the
city's.
But after the meter, that'sgonna be the homeowner's
responsibility almost always.

SPEAKER_01 (06:14):
And we couldn't find the meter on this one, so we
have absolutely no clue where itwas at, but probably given how
close it was to the house.

SPEAKER_02 (06:22):
I I should rephrase it.
The meter was in the house, butthe city has a shutoff outside
somewhere.
Okay.
That's what I'm sure that Icouldn't find the city shut-off.
So we don't know who it was.
We don't know whoseresponsibility this would be.
So my recommendation for theseller in this case, which we
have not talked to, and wealmost never know their name or

(06:42):
contact information, is theyshould contact the city and say,
hey, we suspect we have a waterleak, and then the city can come
out and look at their stuff, andthey will confirm, like, yeah,
this is a water leak, it's onour side, we'll take care of it,
which is the best scenario forthe buyers and sellers, or they

(07:03):
say there is a leak, it's onyour side, you're gonna have to
get somebody to fix it.
Which that if that happens, thatsucks for the seller, but
hopefully they have some type ofinsurance that will cover that.
That would be nice.
Because what's gonna happen,because all right, winter's
coming.

(07:24):
If that ground is saturated andit freezes and and expands, it
can cause some issues to thefoundation.
Definitely gonna cause somewetness inside of that.
And it was a finished basement.
I did find moisture around themeter area on the floor there,
so it is it is actually leakingout somehow.
Somehow, somehow there'smoisture getting there.

(07:46):
So hopefully it's on the cityside, the city will take care of
it, or the people have aninsurance to cover that.
I I tried to find out what theaverage cost is for waterline
repairs.
It's all over the place.
I think$15,000 to$3,000.
Kind of depends what all theythink they need to re replace.

SPEAKER_01 (08:08):
How far they have to dig and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 (08:10):
Yeah, if this is uh what this is a polyethylene uh
pipe.
So they could just dig down andre-cut it and replace a section
of it, hopefully.

SPEAKER_01 (08:22):
Which would not be that bad at all.
Heck, we could do that.
I mean, that's pretty simple.
It would just be finding thatleak.

SPEAKER_02 (08:29):
Finding the leak, which according to the listening
device was close to the house,close to um the house there.
So they just dig straight down,they'll probably start digging
down, hit a bunch of water, hita bunch of wet dirt, and then
let's say, oh, there it is.

SPEAKER_00 (08:44):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (08:44):
I would like to be there, or at least see a picture
of the water leaking, because Ilike to see how how much was
flowing out.
It looks like there's quite abit flowing out.
There really does.
Based on on how fast that sumppump was was firing.

SPEAKER_01 (08:59):
Yeah, and it wasn't just a little water, like when
you were out in the street, youcould look and you could go the
whole way down, like severalhouses down the street and see
where this had been obviouslyflowing for a while.

SPEAKER_02 (09:12):
Yeah, the sump pump kicked the water out to the
curb, which is nice.

SPEAKER_01 (09:15):
Right, and it was doing its job.

SPEAKER_02 (09:18):
So yeah, if if you if you're in a Columbus, Ohio,
Central Ohio area, and you uhare buying a house, you may want
to consider having that thattest done to your house.
We can come by up the soniclistening device and help
identify if there are any leaks.
Now, will this thing catch everylittle tiny leak?

(09:38):
If there's like a tiny, supertiny leak that just barely drips
out into the soil, that's notit's not gonna pick that up.
It's it's it's just it's justnot enough.
But you it is best chance andonly chance really to have that
that checked out because thewater line is outside the scope
of the standard home inspection.

(09:58):
You have to pay for extraservices to do that.
Just like when you do radontesting, termite, that's that's
not within the scope of the homeinspection.
And a lot of people don't knowthe sewer line.
Once it passes through the theuh foundation wall, the floor,
that's outside the scope of thehome inspection as well, which

(10:18):
is why you pay to have yoursewer line scoped.
Yes.
That way you know, hey, 62 feetout, there's there's a damaged
pipe.
That is gonna be very expensiveto fix.
So you want to make you want youwant to know everything about
the house before you buy thehouse.

SPEAKER_01 (10:33):
Because once you buy that and you sign those papers,
whatever problems you didn'tknow about, they're still your
problems.

SPEAKER_02 (10:39):
Still your problem.

SPEAKER_01 (10:39):
And you're paying for them.

SPEAKER_02 (10:41):
Yeah.
Well, on the home inspection,even though say you say just did
the hand standard homeinspection, didn't do the sewer
scope or didn't do the waterlineleak test.
If that shows up down the road,a home inspection company is not
responsible for that.
Because that is by law, by thestate's standard, that is
outside of the scope of the homeinspection.

(11:03):
Right.
There's nothing you can do aboutit other than pay money to get
it fixed.

SPEAKER_01 (11:07):
But at least if you have that tested or looked at
prior to closing on the house,you have a better idea of what's
going on and you walk into itknowing you know how much you're
gonna have to pay.
So if you go in and you knowthat you've got problems with
your sewer line, that can benegotiated potentially depending
upon your contract and the agentthat you have.

SPEAKER_02 (11:28):
Yep.
Forewarned is forearmed.
Yep.
And then if you're not selling,it's just nice to know there's
nothing going off your yourwater line before it becomes a
bigger issue.

SPEAKER_01 (11:37):
Well, maintenance inspections are really
important, and we should talkabout those sometime.

SPEAKER_02 (11:41):
We are starting to do a lot more maintenance
inspections.
Yes, we are.
Yes, we can definitely do thaton another uh another episode.
But I think that's it for theday.
Everybody take care.
Um, get your house ready forwinter if you haven't done not
done that already.

SPEAKER_01 (11:54):
All right, bye, everyone.

SPEAKER_02 (11:55):
Bye bye.