Basements flood two completely different ways, and most homeowners protect against only one of them.
- Groundwater — rain and snowmelt saturate the soil, pressure builds under your slab, and water comes up through the floor. The fix is a sump pump.
- Sewer backup — the municipal sewer overloads in a storm and sewage flows backwards into your basement drains. The fix is a backwater valve.
A sump pump does nothing against a sewer backup. A backwater valve does nothing against groundwater. A home with one protection and not the other is still exposed — which is why the governments fund both.
Two programs, two funders, one home
Here's the part almost nobody knows: the two measures are paid by different governments under different programs, so the rebates don't compete with each other:
- The City of Mississauga pays up to $7,500 for the sump pump package (pump up to $6,000, plus storm backwater valve, drain capping, downspouts and camera inspection).
- The Region of Peel separately pays 60% of your sanitary backwater valve invoice, up to $1,500 — a different pipe, a different program, a different cheque.
Why doing both at once is dramatically cheaper
Installing either device means the same expensive first steps: locating the laterals, camera-inspecting the drains, opening the basement floor, and restoring the concrete. Do them in one project and those costs are shared across both devices — the second device rides along for a fraction of its standalone price. Add the two rebate streams on top, and the combined project's net cost is far less than two separate jobs a year apart.
One project also means one set of paperwork: the City pre-approval and the Peel permit application move together, and there's a single install day to book time off for.
The order matters
Both programs require their approvals before installation — City pre-approval for the flooding-prevention measures, a building permit before the sanitary valve goes in. Bundling them only works when the paperwork is sequenced correctly from the start, which is exactly what we do for every combined project.
See how the upsell math works for your home on the Backwater Valve Rebate program page — or start with the flagship Sump Pump Rebate and add the valve from there.