We just had a french drain system put in the house about 3 months ago.
We did this because water came up from the water table and through the
basement floor and flooded about 1/3 of the basement about 2 inches
thick...anyways, we only see water typucally during the srping thaw,
but as I write this MA is going through a heavy rain cycle, supposed to
last a couple days....anyways, the french drain is working great (here
is a video of my setup working, http://www.nickduda.com/fdrain.wmv ).
The pit fills up in about 30-40 seconds, and the pump send the water
out in about 10 seconds...I got a powerful pump fromt he install
company. I decided to not go with a battery backup solution at the time
of install, it was like 500 bucks more.

Since the french drain was put in, I've fully finsihed the basement off
with a new set of stairs and carpet. The more i sit here tonight i
worry what i would do if i lost power... i mean the pump has been
working for last 5 hours....on for 10 seconds, off for 40
seconds....repeats cycle. What should I do? Generator? Battery back? If
so is this somethign i can do or should I pay someone to do it. Because
my system runs so nice now, and we dont have any water issues unless a
HEAVY HEAVY rain or the spring thaw i'm not to worries about my pump
failing (i continue to test it even when its not in use)....but i worry
about a power failure, granted we barely get them.

Thoughts?