A single summer storm can turn an unfinished basement into a ruinously expensive insurance claim. The cheap seat on your flood-defense team is a fist-sized device called a float switch. When rain seeps into the sump pit, the switch rides the rising water like a tiny plastic buoy. At the set level it tips, a micro-reed contact closes, and the pump roars to life, shooting the hazard out through the discharge line. No smartphone, no subscription—just physics on guard around the clock.
Yet the same simplicity makes the float switch the weakest link. A pump that “walks” across the pit can pin the tethered ball against the wall; decades of on-off cycles fatigue the internal spring; and a single power outage leaves the cellar defenseless. The fix is cheap preventive discipline: clip the cord so the float can swing freely, add a piggy-back dual-switch for redundancy, and plug the circuit into a small UPS so the logic survives blackouts.
Install takes a coffee break, costs less than a take-out dinner, and buys the priceless sound of silence when thunder rolls. In other words, a float switch is the only household employee that never sleeps, never asks for a raise, and keeps your memories dry.