slant on basement floor

[micky]

My new next door neighbor, after my old one married a very competent guy (who is by himself redoing their bathroom from the walls up) , noticed that the basement sink, which overflows when the stream overflows enough, is on the other side of the room from the sump pump. AND that the floor doesn't slope towards the sump pump.

He made it sound like a normal/good cement basement floor would have sloped a bit from the sink to the sump. So that overflow water ran to the sump instead of spreading out. Is that true?

Or do they just make them flat all the time?

[Art Todesco]

Most every basement I've seen slants towards a floor drain. In some cases the floor drain goes to the city sewer system, which can be a bad thing if the city sewers tend to back up during heavy rains. Some floor drains go to the sump pit. In my previous house, 5 years ago, the drain was to the city sewers and if we lost power, the lift station, about a block away, would stop pumping and the sewers of the lower lying lots would back up. I had a plug in mine because of that. But, I noticed that they recently installed a huge backup generator by the lift station. The public works director always told me that it would require a huge pump to start the 100HP motors, but I guess they decided to do it. Now, in my present home, the floor is perfectly level and there is no sump. But I am half way up a small mountain. If somehow water were to get on the basement floor, the door works good for drainage, as half of the basement is at ground level.

[David L. Martel]

Micky,

If the sump was planned when the floor was poured then the floor should slant towards the pump. If the sump was added then the floor would have been leveled.

Dave M.

[micky]

Every below-ground basement in Baltimore County or maybe Maryland has to have a sump and sump pump since before this house was built. The sump was planned. I'm sure it was allowed for, by putting the black plastic sump "barrel" in place before the floor was poured.

So my neighbor was right. I thought he was knowledgable It's good to know for sure, for when he tells me I should do something.

The "barrel" comes with a plastic or rubber lip that sticks almost a half inch above the floot. I put a few holes in it so that I could sweep the water into the sump, but that didn't work well. Soon after, I stopped trying to clean up floods (they ar e never more than 1/4") , and I just let them dry out by themselves. It's much easier.

Thanks, and thanks Art.

[Daring Dufas: Hypocrite TeaBil]

Maybe the sink was added after ..

[micky]

No, it's a laundry sink, meant to have a washing machine next to it. Every townhouse here has one.

Thanks to everyone for their replies.

[trader_4]

I've lived in several homes with sump pumps and many more. Around here, NJ suburbs, the floors don't pitch toward them. One obvious problem is that basement floors typically are large and you couldn't rely on one sump pit in a corner working to take water from the floor a long ways from it. It would have to have a big height difference from one end of the basement to the other. People frequently want to finish basements, not have a slanted floor, it would make the concrete job harder too. Even new construction here that I've seen, no pitch of the floor towards the sump. House I'm living in now, water heater sprang a leak and it didn't head to the perimeter drain which was just a few feet away.

If it's a floor drain, centered in a floor to take water away from the surface, then I agree the floor should be pitched.