After living next to some nice elderly women I finally got around to checking out their basement water situation. I know the foolishness I had to go through with my basement but I suppose I burried my head in the sand with hopefulness that my neighbors, whose homes were built by the same builder, did not have the same problems. I was wrong.
Well I am not ranting about the builder now, but the plumbers that came to 'fix' her problem. The builder installed 2 sump pumps. 1 electric, 1 water backup. 2 separate exhaust pipes. The kind plumbers saw fit to not only remove the water backup, but discard the parts somewhere so I cant even reconstruct it. They also cut the 2nd exhaust pipe off. I assume it was the next plumber that decided she needed a backup, so instead of using the 2nd exhause pipe, he put a Y on and installed a 2nd ELECTRIC pump into the pit. So there are 2 electric pumps in the pit wyed to the same exhaust pipe. But wait, theres more!! The pumps have float-arm type switches. There is not enough room in the pit for 2 electric pumps let alone with 2 float arm switches. So one pump stays on continuously.
The original pump they removed was a heavy duty sewage pump. We have LOTS of water flow so that would have been nice. But when they saw it covered with mud, instead of cleaning it, like our pumps require every 8 months, they declared it 'broken' and removed it, and installed a new smaller pump. At least they did not discard it. Probably because they were too lazy to carry it up the stairs...
It just pisses me off to see folks taken advantage of like this. In any event, I have had enough plumbers in my house that I will be able to give her the number to some good ones that can snake those drains out. And one that can also get a new water backup installed. Seems like some just do whatever they can get away with. ho hum.