I live on the first floor of a condo and the sump pump is in my unit. Its a standard pump without a battery backup. Im thinking a battery would be a good idea as it would save my basement but at the same time I think this is building infrastructure that the board should pay for. Isnt it in their interests too? If it floods, the flooding can mess up all sorts of stuff like wiring, foundation, etc and other shared resources. Am I being reasonable?
I think that’s a reasonable idea, but I suggest that you read your condo docs. Are you the only first-floor unit or are there others? If your sump pump protects the building as a whole then hopefully the condo docs already say something about who is responsible for maintaining the sump pump.
Within you unit? You are responsible. Hey, it’s in their best interest that you have shut-off valves on your toilet and sink, in case of trouble, but they are not likely to be responsible for them either.
You are not talking about fixing something that is broken – you are talking about an upgrade to a working piece of equipment. So I can tell you with about a 99% certainty the you can’t unilaterally decide to do this and make the condo association pay for it.
The proper way to do such things is to bring them up at an owners meeting and have people vote on it.
And if this is a pump for a whole multi-unit building, you may need the association approval to do it even if you are personally willing to cover the entire cost.
>The proper way to do such things is to bring them up at an owners meeting and have people vote on it.
Yes, thats the plan. My question is whether this is reasonable in the world of condos.
It’s not unreasonable. However, there’s no assurance that the owners will be reasonable. My sister sold her condo and moved when she saw the owners refuse to replace a roof on one of the condo buildings, on the brilliant logic that it wasn’t the roof over THEIR heads. No one who voted against it was able to make the leap that eventually every roof replacement would be voted down, because only a minority of owners lived under any given roof.