Coverage by ZIP Code

Routing by ZIP

We route to independent contractors who cover a given ZIP code. Coverage is not uniform — a state we cover well in one metro may have gaps elsewhere in it. If nobody covers yours we will tell you on the call rather than take your details and leave you waiting.

Why there is no page per town

Our sibling sites publish a page for each of several thousand towns, because each of them rests on a figure that is true, sourced and different in every town — the median build year, the heating fuel, the share of homes on mains gas.

No such figure exists for sump pumps, and we looked properly before giving up on it.

• Flood insurance data was the obvious candidate and it is the wrong variable. NFIP policy counts track flood zones and mortgage requirements, not groundwater in basements. A sump pump in Ohio has nothing to do with whether anyone nearby holds a policy.
• Foundation type is the right variable and it is not published locally. The Census Survey of Construction reports basement, slab and crawl space for new single-family houses at the level of four Census regions — and for new construction, when a repair market is the existing housing stock.

So we would have had to write thousands of pages whose only local content was the name of the town. Fifteen pages that are all substance is a better site than four thousand that are not, and we would rather publish the reasoning than the pages.

What stands in its place

The discharge rule, which is genuinely local and genuinely consequential — and which we tell you how to look up for your own address rather than guessing at. FEMA’s maintenance routine, which is national. And what fails, which is the same everywhere.

• Where it can discharge
• The annual service