Sump pumps for townhouses

[micky]

Sump pumps for townhouses

That woman is coming back from her Thankgiving trip to her family, and she's expecting me to give her good adivce.

I have an end of group townhouse that is twice as long as it is wide. Water can seep into the basement on 3 sides. Yet my sumppump is good enough (except once a little bit in 39 years.)

Her house is in the middle, with neighbors' abutting her house on both sides. How do they handle the back of such houses? The sumppump is in the front. Do they have a French drain in the back too, connected to the pump in the front? That seems unlikely. How would they do it? A pipe back to front under the floor of the basement and then back up to drain into the sump?

Yet the must do something to keep water from seeping in? My French drain goes around 3 sides of the house. There is one pipe comeing in from the side and the rear, and another coming in from the front.

I've wondered about this once in a while for years.

[micky]

A very good sump pump thread. Not so much because it deals with a townhouse but for other reasons, esp. the first answer.

This guy is a little slow, but his situation is a lot like mine. Except, do many residential sumps really have holes in the bottom. That seems like a formula for running the pump 24/7?

And except: "If your pump has been unplugged for a year, and you have had heavy ra>Sump pumps for townhouses

[danny burstein]

In [e-mail] micky [e-mail] writes: [lots snipped]

Yes, many do. But.. you can set the pump to operate in the range of, say, 6 inches to two feet above bottom of sump pit.

A very big EYUP. Moved into my fiance's (and soon.. wife's) house. She had been there a decade. Never a problem.

She called at me from the basement one day and yelled up the stairs there was water coming thorough the cracks in the concrete floor.

I went to the covered sump pit and lifted the lid. THere was _no_ pump in it.

In other words, 15 or so years with no problem...

I ran out to the local supply warehouse, picked up a pump and enough hose to run out the basement window, and hooked it up. Missed disaster by *that* much..

[Su Nombre]

Get one with a chinesium motor housing.

[micky]

That's hilarious.

OTOH, maybe just the sump was a start and the first owner thought he'd upgrade later.

No wonder she likes you.