I don't have a sump pump -- my home is well above the water table several hundred feet below -- but I did some research when thinking about buying a home near the water table before. And some extra research now.

A sump pump is just like most other pieces of equipment with a float valve and pump, from your gas tank to swamp cooler to canal pump. From your description, it doesn't sound as if any part is failing. The nearby rivers are experiencing around the 10th highest crests in recorded history, largely as a result of mountain snowfall. Are you in or near the FEMA-designated flood plain? If you are required to carry flood insurance, you probably are.

If it weren't for the levees and the diversion of Bassett Creek (you know, the river that runs underneath downtown Minneapolis), large parts of your city would be under water right now...

I'd still schedule maintenance. The backup battery should be replaced every few years, and the pump should be maintained twice a year at a minimum.

In Utah, we often use swamp coolers to cool our homes because the climate is usually so dry. Same stuff, different application, but the same rules -- particularly twice-annual maintenance -- apply.

I'd haul any expensive electronics out of the basement as a precaution, though. Or at least get them up off the floor.

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Matthew P. Barnson