Repair Dry Well in Stair Well

[kokopele53]

1952 house with dry well at the bottom of outside stairwell to (below grade)basement entrance. Stairwell is level with basement floor. Dry well has failed, rain water from gutters backs up into basement. Old sink basement drains to dry well. Sewer line runs across basement ceiling, not below grade. Plumber suggested installing sump pump in basement floor, connecting dry well pipe to sump pump - dry well water and sink water into sewer. I've read local code and doesn't allow ground water to be pumped into sewer. Plumber says it's ok since ground water is coming into basement. (currently most comes under basement door, which I want to stop).

Suggestions?

[bob haller]

if theres a lower area in yard, say near street, than the level of the basement entrance, you could dig a ditch and install a drain line to daylight. allow 1/4 inch drop per foot of line.

the rule of not draining storm water to a sanitary sewer is for a excellent reason.

in a heavy rain the sewer plant can get flooded

[DanG]

The sink use would/could be considered "gray" water and, as such, wouldn't be bad for the yard though against code in many places. I would still be more inclined to pipe the sump to curb or other downhill area dumping the rain water and the sink.

[hrhofmann]

Is the failure something new, or has it been this way forever, or at least a couple of years? If it is something new, you should be able to dig down in the dry well and find out what has suddenly gone wrong. Is there a gravel pit that has gradually become clogged, or is there a line from the dry well to somewhere else on the property? Fixing the problem rahther than just pumping the water out to the storm sewer or regular sewer would be the better solution.

[TomR]

For the basement sink, you could consider installing a pump that is made for that purpose and have the basement sink drain water pump into the existing sewer line. Here's one example:

For the drywell, the sump pump idea seems okay except that I always thought the sump pumps are not supposed to pump water run-off or basement flooding water into a sewer drain. Maybe you could have that pump the water from the drywell out onto the ground away from your house like most sump pumps do.

Maybe you're plumber is thinking that it's okay to fudge things a little and just claim that the water from your basement sink drains into the drywell and then is being pumped into the sewer line. Maybe that in itself is okay to do and the fact that some ground water also goes into the same place where the basement sink water goes is the "fudge things a little" factor.