When Hurricane Sandy struck the East Coast, Julie Craig of Lucas Ltd. — a plumbing company located in Newtown, Pa. — was getting calls by the dozens from homeowners concerned that their basements might flood and asking if the company could send someone out to test their sump pumps.

Sump pumps are often left out of sight — and subsequently stay out of mind, until they fail. Their operation, though, is imperative to keeping basements and crawlspaces dry. They work by pumping ground water from heavy rains out of the sump pit located in the basement or crawlspace.

Left unchecked, an inoperable sump pump can lead to thousands of dollars in flood damage, so homeowners should test their sump pits regularly. The good news is they don't need a plumber to do it.

Craig didn't even try to go out to most of the homes when her phone started ringing off the hook.

"Instead of going out and wasting their time and money, we just told them it's real easy to check your sump pump to see if it works," she said. "There is a little float arm on the side of the pump. All you have to do is lift it up. If you hear the pump running, it's working. If the pump doesn't run, it's not working.

The test Craig describes takes a couple of seconds to do. It doesn't require the homeowner to fill up a bucket with water and drag it down to the basement or fill the pit up to see if it's running. Simply lifting the arm will check the operation of it. Even backup pumps can be tested that way, Craig said.

Electricity powers primary sump pumps, so it's important to have a backup system in place, in the event you lose power. Often, home insurance policies will cover water damage to a home if the pump suffers a mechanical failure, but they won't cover damage if an electrically powered pump stops working because of a power failure. Craig recommends adding a water-powered backup over a battery-powered backup, when possible.

"A water-driven backup is driven from the public water that comes into your house from your water company," Craig said. "It hooks up to the main water line coming into your house. The pressure of that water coming into the house is what powers the pump. So, as long as you're receiving public water from your water company, your backup pump will have power to it.

If you're on a well and not on public water, Craig said, the only option is a battery backup pump. That backup needs to be plugged into a charger and have constant charging of the battery.

"But, if your power is off for three days ...that battery only has so much life in it, and it will not keep your pump running indefinitely," she said.

It's important that the backup system have the capacity to pump out the necessary amount of water, as well, said Russell Graves with Pipe Dream Plumbing in Indianapolis.

"The big thing with backups is to make sure whatever backup system you use will pump the same amount of gallons as your standard pump," Graves said. "Some of them are substantially smaller, so they pump a lot less. Sometimes, they don't pump enough water or don't pump it out quick enough."

Sump pumps typically last about five to seven years before they need to be replaced, Graves and Craig said.

"A good one cost about $185," Craig said. "I've seen them last a long time, but if you get five years out of a pump, for $185, it's just worth it to replace it. If you do have a battery backup, that battery, whether it runs or not, must be replaced every two or three years. With water-powered backups, there is zero maintenance."

Homeowners should test their pump's operation every month or two. Then, if they feel the pump is not operating as it should, they should contact a qualified plumber to check it out and replace it if necessary. If the pump does fail during a storm, homeowners should exercise caution and never enter a flooded area without first ensuring the electricity to that area is completely shut off. Contact a licensed plumber or reputable water remediation specialist to help control the damage and prevent it from spreading.

"When the (weatherman) says it's going to rain, we get more preventative calls than we do calls about their basements being flooded because the sump pump didn't work," Craig said. "A lot of people are conscious of it and call ahead of time, but again, they don't really need a plumber. They just need to test it themselves."

Angie Hicks is the founder of Angie's List, the nation's most trusted resource for local consumer reviews on everything from home repair to health care. To find out more about Angie Hicks and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.