OK, we have been in this house for 18 months and I just replaced the sump pump for the third time$$$$

It has a small "storm cellar"(worthless) and when they dug it, they struck an artesian well, so the sump fills at the rate of about 7 gallons every 10 minutes or so, meaning the pump runs about every 20 minutes...
the water is very acidic and has a high sediment load.
I have been using the pumps rated for sediment and trash, but they keep burning out! last night I went down there to get a can of paint( i use it for storage) and stepped into about 3 feet of water( very cold water too).
another $100 for a new pump( impeller was stuck) and it took almost 25 minutes to pump the room out... i am guessing there must have been 3-4000 gallons of water in there..
If and when we ever go to sell this place, this is gonna be a real problem, so i am trying to figure out how to stop the water..
It is coming in around the lip of the sump pan,where they set it into the floor, and I have tried the hydraulic cement and epoxy to no avail.....the pressure just pushes it out..
any ideas???????

 

I cant believe they actually built on it after they hit a spring head.
either way the only option would be alot of digging and piping to get it to flow away from the house, and at best the water is still going to come up where it wants to. Good luck on that one.

 

first you need to find out why the water is coming in. is your lot on well, or city water? what is the grade like, are you in a hole? or top of a ridge?
once in the ground, gravel or clay? I guess the final thing is where is the water coming from, and why is it finding its way in. Im assuming your foundation has no drain tile. that being the case you need somewhere for that water to go.

1. why so much water? if its ground water your stuck with it, if its a broken main or well inlet, a repair might be needed.
2. once you determine that, now you need someplace else for it to go. depending on your lot size, and other factors, i would use drain tile, or french drains to divert into a holding tank. you can get a cement one or even plastic depending on code. once in the tank, you set it so the overflow diverts into the storm sewer, assuming you have sewer.

my guess is somthing is off, for a pump to have to run that constantly, i think youve an issue. nobody would build in a hole that is filling as fast as they can pump out.

 

I don't know how to solve your primary sump pump problem but my boss had an issue with his sump pump not keeping up under heavy load situations and during electrical outages so he installed a backup system that runs off of your home water pressure...

Basepump

These obviously aren't for use as a primary pump but could be a good backup...

 

For the sump pumps I usually use a sock made from a lady's stocking The nylon acts as a screen.
You can try to do either an epoxy injection into the concrete around the part where the water enters and pray that the water will carry the epoxy to make it seal.... or you can start digging- catch the well and pipe it to somewhere else. (According to your local laws and codes etc)

AlpineRAM

 

I was thinking about some form of an agricultural roller pump, many are made for a corrosive environment. I admit though I haven't searched around for one though, so I have no idea on the cost.

 

Buy a better brand of pump. I have a customer that was putting a sump pump into a goldfish pond about every 8 months. We tried a Hydromatic and got about 14 months. That pump was covered by the warrenty. The next one went about a year. Tried the warrenty again but was told that the 2 years were up. Went to the Liberty brand. I think they are a 3 year warrenty on EACH pump. We have not bought another one in years. They have lasted over 2 years each. Usually a seal starts to leak allowing water into the housing and then tripping the ground fault recpticle. Set the pump on some well placed bricks to allow the crud to settle away from the impeller. Make sure you use a GOOD check valve or half of what you pump out will drain back into the pit only to have to push it out again.

 

Have you tried a haskel air driven pump?

Granted, you need an air compressor that can run all the time.

 

If the rate of flow is constant, would some sort of shallow well/jet pump rigged on a timer work to keep it pumped out? Those should be built to a heavier duty cycle I'd think.

 

I lived in a house that had a crawl space and I replaced the pump about every 3 years. My thoughts were to put some type of soft metal in the water next to the pump and hope that the water would attack the metal rather than the pump. I never tried it but maybe someone who has a chemistry background could chime in.

 

I'll have to post some photos of what I am dealing with.... the storm cellar is at teh end of an "ell" added onto the house, which is on a crawlspace...it is about 8X8 foot square, and the "sump" was added in later from the looks of it. It looks like they cut the floor and dropped a shallow sump pan in it and then tryed to seal teh edges with no success. The "sump is only 10 inches deep and about 20 inches round. Outside the walls above teh storm cellar is a concrete patio on both sides, so digging along the walls would mean tearing out a 30X42 foot concrete slab that I know from planting along the edges is 3 1/2 thick..I had to replace the discharge pipe last year and hd to tunnel about 4 foot under it( Glad USN Safety wasnt there to take pictures of THAT!) I have dug up enough of the water main from teh well to know it is not a broken pipe , bu tis ground water.
The soil is clay and silt and it is the silt washing in with the water that is killing the pumps. I have tryed a setting the pump on a block, apears not to have helped...The only time it has NOT filled seeped water is last year when we got into the 3'd month of the drought......and then it only quit for a day or two...
I am on well water and this sump is "uphill" about 30 foot from our well.....we are on the hilltop.....
I am getting ready to say "blankety-blank it" and just use the storm cellar as a cistern....... actually I AM gonna reroute teh drain so that the water is going into the water well...no sense in wasting the water adn its the same water taht is in teh well anyways...
just frustrated with not being able to stop this....

 

I maintain some submersible pumps in underground garages and I have also built a system for our back yard, which will flood into our bedroom when it rains.
I built the sensors and sequencer for the primary and secondary pump.

I use either Zoeller, Little Giant or Paco pumps and I also install a Duplex control panel so you will always have a backup pump if the other fails.
You can also have them alternate to the other pump every time it starts up.

I use a lot of 2”, 4” and 6” discharge pumps.

http://www.zoeller.com/zcopump/zcohome.htm
http://www.lgpc.com/index.aspx
http://www.paco-pumps.com/HomePages/PacoHome.asp


Also make sure it is sized properly because once the pump gets overwhelmed it cannot catch up.

If there is any trash in the wastewater I will always use a sewage ejector pump with an open volute that will pass a big rock without jamming.

You need to set the float so the basin fills up enough so the pump can remove the trash from underneath itself

I have stupid people in apartment buildings who change their oil and then dump it down the grate so the first time it rains there is a big load of oily water pumped out onto the highway at street level.

Now if I can catch the kids who jam corn cobs into the discharge pipe.

Jim

 

You may even try using an effluent pump. Barnes makes some of these as does Zoeller and a few others. They were originally made to be submersed in a septic tank but they should work in this situation if you are getting silt and other debris in the pumps. They are built to pump up to 3/4" solids so they should pump anything that gets in the sump pan in this situation. I dont know if there is a Fergusons plumbing supply in your area but I know they carry these types of pumps. Other plumbing supply houses should be able to get them also. Some of the Barnes pumps are designed so that they can even run dry without damaging them. Depending on which one you get you may have to add a float level switch but that should not be too hard.

David

 

I honestly think just getting a better pump is a patch, however it may be more cost effective. I think the solution is to stop the water infiltration.

downside, its going to be alot more expensive to excavate around the walls to properly put in a drainage board and membrane.

If nothing else, go with a self priming trash pump. there loud as hell, but it will dry you out fast.