A neighbor's sumppump is running almost all the time, discharging t he water into the street (as most of them do here), and some people are reasonably worried that in freezing weather, the less ice in the road the better.
I assume her float level is too low, but one webpage claimed it shold be
2 or 3" above the bottom. He said if it were too high, if there were a surge, the pump might not have time enough to rest between cycles. This seems like arithmetic nonsense to me. That except for maybe the first cycle, and probably not even that, the cycles will be the same regardless of float level.
I say the water table outside varies and if it's necessary to set the float level to 1 or 2 inches below the basement floor, so that it doesn't run all the time, that's good enough.
What say you? (Those who always say, "I never understood math" should think twice before replying. :-) )
Why would adjusting the float level change the amount of water that eventually ends up in the street? The basic rule for motors is to start them no more than necessary.
1 or 2 inches below the _bottom_ of the basement floor ? .... or the _top_ of the basement floor ? Would you want the perimeter tiles to be full or half full or drained ? when the sump pump has finished pumping out the pit .. ? As usual, the description lacks a lot of significant details so everyone is left to assume this & that & the other. Some submersible sump pumps have a float that slides up & down on a fixed shaft and they can't be adjusted for on - off levels in the pit nor for on duration. Other submersibles have a float on a tether which can be adjusted for on - off levels and for on duration - by changing the tether point and the length of float lead. The non-submersible sump pumps usually have a way to set the on - off - by little "stops" on the float rod. If your neighbour's sump situation has changed recently - they should want to know the cause - downspouts clogged or damaged ? run-off blockage ? a neighbour's changes to his drainage / run-off / downspouts ? John T.
The top of the basement floor. I don't know how thick the floor is.
If the sump turn-on level is only 2" below the floor, it will be 1 or 2 inches above the 4" corrugated plastic pipes that feed the sump. and if water is still coming in so that the level has gone even higher than 2" and turned the pump on, the perimeter pipes will continue pouring water in until the water level is again almost at floor level, 2" below. Until the water table goes down outside. Nothing I can do about that.
That's a good point. She might have a submersible pump. When new, the houses had a motor above the sump, but they must all have been replaced by now. My motor was still good but it had a metal pipe and it rusted out at the water level. The almost-exact replacement pump has a plastic pipe. It might have worn out. I'm on my second or third pump.
The easiest way to replace one is with one that is the same size and shape, although I should have gone from 1/4HP to 1/3HP.
That would be a problem. Doesn't seem like a good design.
I considered adding a second battery-operated pump for power failures. An effort to install, but then they started selling combo pumps, AC and battery on one platform.
Because the lower you have the level set, the more water will be pumped out. Let's say that with the pump totally off, the water rises to 4" below the floor. If I have the float set so that the pump does not come on, then zero water is being pumped. If I set it to a lower level to where the pump just comes on, it will pump some water, then quickly shut off. If I instead set it all the way to the bottom, it will pump a lot of water and more water will immediately start flowing in from adjacent areas until the pump goes on again. You're going to be moving more water the lower you pump it.
IDK if an inch or two is sufficient, but it probably doesn't have to be very deep either. If it was me, I would back it off over time and monitor what happens all around the basement, including during periods of heavy rain. But I would not get involved with someone else's basement. Any place else the water can go? Typically in the street it stays in the gutter, runs to a storm drain and doesn't create a hazard.
That's what I did, and that's what I was going to recommend to my n'bor when I go into more detail. (though she seemed pretty smart and would probably figure it out for herself). My question was more about the strange thing the webpage (whose address I don't have) said. Later I saw where he recommending changing the pump every 2 years, and that's ridiculous. If I were Elan Musk, I'd take away his blue check mark.
For me it took several steps and 20 or 25 years to get so close to floor level, but even if the water table has changed, I don't see any reason to lower the level now.
No. Of the 20 houses on this side of the street, 4 are "end of group" and I think pump the water to the side, 1 or 2 more are not close to the street and pump the water into the front yard, and at least 14 pump it into the street, through a hole in the curb.
(BTW, the houses to the left of me have a tiny hill leading to their 1st floor front door, but in the back, their basements are at grade. One and probably all of them have no sump pump at all. If I were building a house like that myself, from scratch, I would have still wanted a sump pump, But I haven't heard any complaints about wet basements.)
We don't have gutters. The whole street with on-street head-in parking is one wide but shallow V with a flat middle so the water goes just beyond where cars park and then it turns to the side and heads for the storm drain, which leads to the stream. Even if it froze, people drive closer to the middle, even if there is an oncoming car. Nevertheless, it should be adjusted because right now there is a 200 foot long 6' wide wet patch that will indeed freeze and people walk there to use their car's trunk and someone will slip, and, to save electricity, make the pump last longer, and so the noise won't bother people who live there.
Hubops -- thank you -- you reminded me that there are also submersible pumps. I forgot that when talking to her on the phone. It was easier to just replace the pump with an identical one** , so I only thought about the same pump the house came with. (I sure hope no one bought a pump that can't be adjusted. For this purpose, that would be just foolishness.) But I will talk to her again.
**I should have gone from 1/4HP to 1/3HP but didn't think of that in time.
She gave me her phone number when she called, but I didn't bother to write it down, thinking it would be in caller-id. The call before hers was and the call after hers was, but there wasn't even an entry for her call. I checked twice. How can that be? Even when people hide their phone number, doesn't the call itself, though not the number, still show up on caller id?
(She's probably 65, but every time I hear a woman with a nice voice, I imagine she's 30, good looking, and yet somehow with no beaus, and in this case, nearby. We shall see.)
My neighbor called back, so either she's going to adjust it herself (she mentioned youtube) or I'll go over. But she works a lot and hasn't gotten back to me with a time (and it's bothering one of the neighbors far more than it's bothering her.)
So now I'm looking on youtube and most of the hits are, I think about submerisible, and it seems they cannot be adjusted for a high level in the sump. Only a 6 inch range. Even the the prefab sumps are well over a foot deep. That's terrible if you have a water table that is higher than their highest setting. The pump will run constantly for no good purpose. Use extra electricity, wear out early.
Is there any big advantage of submersible in places where a pedestal pump will also work. -- You can't use a pedestal pump to drain a swimming pool for example, and I figure submersibles were invented for places where the pump has to be under water.
Aren't they more expensive because of the effort it takes to make them waterproof, and it seems they might well leak water inside sometimees and break because of that?
My submersible well pump is about 30 years old ; my submersible "septic" pump - which pumps laundry water and water softener brine and furnace condensate is also about 30 years old. < just now in need of replacement >
They both are quite busy over those 30 years - - not sitting idle for very long - so I would have to say no. ps : our well supplies 2 homes. John T.
When my sump pump failed last year < Christmas Day ! of course >
I called my neighbour who is in the business and he installed a new pump that didn't have its own float switch - but rather a separate piggy-back float switch :
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The idea being that the built-in float switch will fail before the pump is anywhere near end-of-life. I didn't argue - just said a big Thanks ! Merry Christmas ! John T.
That for sure. The first year I owned this house, I had 3 friends come visit from NYC for July 4** weekned In the space of 30 hours, the AC broke, the water stopped, and then all the electricity failed. They were very impresssed.
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