Old sump pump hole

[Wpellis]

My basement is one third dirt. I recently put in a battery backup sump pump but had to dig a new hole. Do I fill in the old hole?

[trader_4]

Not much to go on. Why the new hole? Typically a sump pump pit isn't just a hole. There are drain pipes laid around the perimeter of the foundation that lead to it, so it can collect water across the basement, not just in one localized spot.

[Wpellis]

I had to put in a new hole because the original hole was very small and wouldn't hold the sump pump and the battery backup sump.

[Grampy]

Question still is are there any pipes or drains that feed into the old hole ? How did water fill the old sump ?

[Wpellis]

It's just a hole in the floor but closer to the dirt part so fills quickly. We put the new hole closer to the other side of the house so the water going out wouldn't come back against the house but drain down an incline. It works beautifully but for the water overflowing from the old hole. Should I fill it or just try to cut a groove thru the cement to drain it?

[hubops]

Trench the old hole into the new hole across the cellar floor ... I've seen it done in a very old house once for the outlet drainage - grade "improvements" outside made the location of the old sump hole very difficult . John T.

[Clare Snyder]

I woudn't own a house that "needed" a sump pump. New code here requires all new houses be equipped with one whether required or not. This house sits high, in sand. Drainage is fefinitely not a problem. My first houde was the same - high and dry -frainage was never a problem. A few years ago I found my "dream house". Bungalow - Double garage - with full basement under the garage - even had an "access port" that if I didn't know any beter I would have called a "service pit" - and the garage was high enough I could have installed a hoist. Walk down access to the basement (would have been a perfect "shop") but the house was built into the side of a hill and it was set about 3 feet too low into the lot. The basement floor was about 2 feet lower than the storm drain on the street and the sump / drainage system was less than adequately designed. The water table was between 6 inches above the basement floor and 6 inches below the floor depending on the season so the floors were always damp, at best and the sump pump ran about 23 3/4 hours a day from Feb to Nov. Rel;uctantly I walked away from it - even at $300,000. (That was just before the prices started to go nuts - likely $875,000 or more today)

[Ralph Mowery]

There are lots of homes built where they should not be. Then they flood out and people cry about it. My first home was near the top of a hill and did not have a basement so did not have to worry about water.

I bought another house years later. At the back of the property about

100 feet from the house is a stream that is normally about 2 feet wide and has less than a foot of water in it. Then it is flat for about 30 feet and starts up hill to the house. The house is about 15 or 20 feet above the stream so I do not worry about the water getting up that high and thought the stream would flood the first 20 or so feet so did not let that be a deal killer. Sure enough it has flooded that 20 feet about 3 or 4 times each year. It usually goes down in a few hours after the rain stops.

Sometimes the code is written with things that many do not need, but just a blanket code.

[Dan Espen]

I'm very near the top of a hill, but still used to get seepage into the basement. I had to have a french drain put in. Then about 10 years ago the underground streams must have changed course. Now I see no more than an inch of water at the bottom of the sump pump hole and the pump almost never runs.

Clay soil.

The message is, it's hard to be sure you're going to be dry.

[Jim Joyce]

I witnessed a somewhat similar situation when I lived in Montana. A coworker bought a house that was ideal for him, except that the basement regularly flooded. Faced with a situation where he could dig a drainage system and/or add a sump pump, he took a different approach. He simply had the house lifted about 4-5 feet. He brought the foundation up, set the house back down, and raised the basement floor, then he landscaped to make it look like it had always been that way. Before, part of the yard sloped toward the house, but after, it all sloped away.

[micky]

This doesn't really help the OP.

Very much like my situation, except it's 10 feet wide with less than a foot of water.

Yes, 30 feet.

Only about 10 feet for me.

I didn't even think about the problem. From the day I looked at it until the first time it flooded! I do have a basement. I get less than an inch in the basement, but without several boxes that sit on the floor, it would be over an inch. They soak up a lot. Once they've been wet, they probalby can't be moved without falling apart, so I don't move them.

For me, it's about 1 time a year.

I would think I could predict when it would flood by how much it has rained and how much it rains, but it doesn't seem to to work that way.

Still, our situations are very similar.

My neighbors with basements that are not below grade (because the front of the house is on a hill but not the back, don't have sump pumps.

But mine doesn't flood because the sump pump is not good. That's only happened once in 37 years.

It's because the stream overflows the manhole of the sewer that was laid parallel to the stream. They should have made it higher. And it backs up through the laundry sink. It took me a few times to learn how to plug the sink so the water backing up would not unplug it.

Of the 100 houses in my n'hood, 4 of us face this issue, and every time I get a new neighbor in those 4, I warn them. But they usually don't take it seriously until the first flood.

I love living next to the stream, despite this problem.

There is an island in it that I tried to name after myself in google maps, but they wanted supporting information. Drat.

[micky]

Yes, exactly.

Yes, exacatly, or connect with a trench like Bob F says.

[Vic Smith]

Good move. My house has a full basement foundation so I couldn't do that. I was here ten years before the basement first flooded with about a foot of water. A couple times since then it's flooded with up to 6". About 6 years ago I put in 2 1HP sump pumps, connected to a 3" header with reducing els. Haven't had water in the basement since but a few instances where the water pouring into the sump almost overcame the 2 pumps.

[b0b]

Fill it with the dirt you took out of the other hole.