Sump pit in basement

[Jimmy-Bob]

For some reason, the builder of my house put the sump pit that drains the weeping tile around the outside of my house in my basement. I have heard of this before and many of the houses around here have it that way. It doesn't make any sense to me that you take the water from around the house that you don['t want getting into your basement, bring it into the basement, then pump it outside when they could have just sloped the weeping tile towards a low spot on the property. I've been having all sorts of problems with the pit overflowing because of power failure and a sticky float switch (one you can't replace without dismantling the pump) so I put in a battery powered backup pump. During excessively heavy rains when the electric pump failed, the backup pump was unable to keep up with the flow and my basement gets soaked. I now have a second electric pump and am about to install an emergency generator.

Can anyone tell me the logic behind putting the sump pit in the basement where it's bound to be a problem sooner or later? No one I've asked knew why. The best answer I could get was "it's in the code".

[DanG]

no, it is not in the code.

It would be much better to run the French drain to daylight, but it is impossible most of the time. If your house is high enough or has a low enough spot to send the water that is lower than your basement floor, that is certainly what should have been done, but it would be quite unusual in a subdivision setting. Water can be sent to an exterior sump, but that will be problematic as well. Relying on a dry well can work, but only in certain soil conditions and would not be cost efficient , predictable, or satisfactory gamble for a builder.

Your best solution is to direct as much water away from the perimeter of your house as possible. The perimeter drain is only supposed to deal with small amounts of water and high subsurface water. It sounds like you have flower beds or downspouts or surface drainage dumping against the house. Pumps need to be sized to the amount of gallons and height of lift. You will lose electric to the pump if you lose electric to the house as you know and may require a backup generator in emergency situations. ______________________________ Keep the whole world singing . . . . DanG (remove the sevens) [e-mail]

[Old Fangled]

"Jimmy-Bob" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Building codes don't usually allow you to run weeping tile output into the sanitary drain system, only into the storm drainage. This is to prevent sanitary sewage from overflowing during a big rainstorm.

[Steve Barker]

Where would you suggest it be? Any basement that's not a walk out with the possibility of a daylighted drain system should have a sump system.

[Dennis]

As others have answered, it is not permitted by code any more. (Years ago it was common practice in some communities, as was dumping the sump drainage into the sanitary sewer. But this has been outlawed for many decades.) My builder dumped the sump (washer & water softener) into the building drain, but I'm on a septic system so the county didn't care. (No, it doesn't cause any problems.)

Now to fix your problem. If it were me, I would buy a test plug, stick it into the pipe coming in from the exterior and seal the drain into the sump. If your not failure with what a test plug is, it's is a sort of rubber plug that once inserted into the pipe, is expanded with a wrench to close the pipe (normally used for testing DWV systems for final inspection.) Their inexpensive and offers an instant fix for the problem. Here an example of what one type looks like:

(there are many flavors of these things, whatever you can get locally at the best price).

Then (as suggested) use downspout extensions to get the rain water away from the house. The best product (although ugly) is inexpensive 3" DWV. Cheap and will last the life of the house. Stay away from the vinyl type that extend by pulling one section out from another. Stuff is crap and lasts only two years before twisting itself inside out. The plastic corrugated type is good, comes in colors (green and brown, maybe others ) if that matters. There are many ways to go here, the important part is to get as much rain out away from the house as possible. Six foot is good, ten foot is better.

[marson]

I would say the first thing is to direct water away from your house as best you can by fixing landscaping, improving downspouts, etc. If your sump pump is still getting a work out, then plugging the hole leading from the outside is a very bad idea, as the water will then have nowhere to go and will certainly find its way in.

Where I live, building codes require a internal and an external drain tile, connected every six feet by crossover pipes. This is to provide a redundant path to the sump pit in the event of a plugged drain tile. If that is the case in your house, putting a test plug into the line coming into the sump pit isn't going to have an effect.

Assuming you can't daylight your drain tiles, your sump pump belongs in your basement. Sure, you could install an external one if you want, but you are every bit as dependent on it as if it was inside, and it's a lot easier to keep it operating when it's inside.