You've pretty much answered all your own questions. The pump is receiving power and running when it shouldn't. Could also be a shorted wire, but the door switch works (interrupts the pump circuit) so that seems unlikely in this case. It's normal for a small amount of water to remain in the sump (no dishwasher or clothes washes drains 100%), that's not source of the problem. Repairing a 4-year-old unit that has light use is not unreasonable. SearsPartsDirect.com often has the best price but check other sources (search by the part number) for comparison.

Coming into this thread late, but with some experience. Unlike the Murphy's Law mentioned earlier, we were actually HOME when a copper pipe made a 1/8" hole and did $10K damage to our kitchen before we noticed it. This past Wednesday, we just finished the kitchen rehab, which damaged about 1/3 of the kitchen. We had to have the cabinets, drywall (including ceiling drywall) pulled out, and dried. Fortunately for us, Home Depot still carried our cabinets. Rather than relying on someone to rebuild the box portion of our cabinets and reuse the fronts, we just ordered new cabinets. Cost US personally about $1K more to do it that way, but the insurance wasn't cooperative in that degree. We were lucky -- the new cabinets matched, our favorite contractor was able to get them in without any damage to the existing granite counter tops, and the cabinets came in within the 4-6 weeks promised. I just posted in the Plumbing forum about what to shut off during a 32-day trip this summer. We just can't shut off the water to the whole place, because we would lose our yards -- Southern Californians depend on watering (even frugally) because it doesn't rain very much in the summer, if at all. So like others here, I'd want to shut off all the inside fixtures -- sinks, refrigerator water supply, washer/dryer (the easiest, really), toilets. But would love some advice on what order. I guess flushing them out after the water is off, is essential? Donna

chris8796: Yup, I think that is the route I'm going to have to take. (I'm just tired, that's all.) I've never done any plumbing because my dad never did any plumbing: he always figured the price of failure was too high to mess around with for that area of home improvement (and electricity, too). I don't doubt I can do this, though. It is just one more line item on my list of things to learn how to do because I can't find anyone to not rip me off. suburbanmd: Actually, we ponied up for the plumbers report for Washington Consumer Checkbook. I called the top fourteen on the list and only got two callbacks. One was the $580 quote (of the two quotes I got, it was indeed lower than the other by about $100), and the other never returned my follow-up call (I wasn't home when he first called me). And Angie's list is basically useless. I think we are small and plumbers either won't bother or they jack the price up high enough that it is "worth" their precious time. Fair enough but I'm sick of it, and at best, it is either rude or disingenuous. There is absolutely no way I think removing two stupid cut-off valves will take almost four hours by a licensed plumber (which is what the $580 implies, given what that company quoted as their time-and-materials per-hour rate). And yes, I do understand that when they give you a firm quote, they are supposed to be trying to factor in the "mystery" part where they don't actually know for sure what is inside your walls or what they might encounter. But we have no drywall and they can see everything.

Samantha, the rules for catering differ from place to place. Where I live, rather than having confusing different rules, they pretty much don't allow home kitchens for any kind of cooking/baking that will be sold to the public. Anything more than maybe a small time bake sale or bid-a-basket has to be done in a commercial kitchen. Wood is a great surface for prep. Proper cleaning in a commercial establishment is different from a home kitchen, however. At the end of the day, in a commercial kitchen, all of the surfaces are cleaned with heavy duty cleansers, and during the day, after each task, they're supposed to be cleaned as well. The daily cleaning is top down, with the upper surfaces cleaned, the counters, the lower shelves and surfaces, then the floor. How many times have you heard horror stories about commercial kitchens where that didn't happen? I've done some catering in a shared commercial kitchen where there was a cleaning crew. Too many times, we'd come in and have to clean before we could start cooking, to meet standards. It wasn't any worse than many residential kitchens--probably why the crew thought it was okay--but we wouldn't work in that environment. So... Your gov't safety office or health dept. is trying to set standards for home catering. They can say, "wood counters must be scrubbed in XYZ manner and thoroughly dried before food prep can take place". And you're drying your counter and totally miss where the kids have put their boots on the counter and brushed off the evidence. Plastic cutting boards can be disinfected in the dishwasher. Wood cutting boards can be scrubbed down in the sink and left to dry vertically, away from said boots. They do have to be hard dry to keep the bacteria from growing. Most people can tolerate a lot of contamination. That's the whole point of the body's immune system. You don't know, when you're catering, who is going to eat your food. There could be someone with a compromised immune system, the very old and very young, who are more sensitive, etc. It's hard enough accounting for unknown allergies, and making sure to point out and label things appropriately. Standard food labelling rules don't require an ingredient to be listed if it is only a trace amount. That's why the newest rules require listing of common ingredients or contaminants (from shared equipment) that may cause allergies, even if they're only in trace amounts (e.g., "contains: milk") Being extra vigilant with food safety, however, is a must. As a professional, you have to control that which is in your power. It's also a good idea to have different color/composition cutting boards for each kind of food: meat, poultry, vegetables/fruits, and baked goods all have different requirements for storage and cleaning. Using the different boards really helps prevent cross contamination. In theory, an installed wood top could be used just for vegetables, but there's still the issue of accidental contamination. Like, what if you put the grocery bag down on the island and the chicken leaks? Or the boots. Or whatever. There really is no situation where a multi-use surface, like a home kitchen counter, should be used for commercial prep. OTOH, in a normal, healthy family, accidental contamination of the cutting surface, a missed spot on the scrub down, a cutting board run quickly under warm water and detergent and not dried, etc., is probably no problem at all, and, in fact, might provide the challenge that an immune system needs to continue to be healthy. Residential catering can be done safely, but it does take a certain level of diligence. BTW, this is a reason why "personal chefs" are popular here. Unlike make and take catering, personal chefs bring ingredients into the hosts' home and prepare the food there. My understanding is that a meal cooked in the home is considered home cooking for most purposes, unless there is an egregious violation on the part of the chef.