cjdock

I live in Goodrich, MI. The water table is very high in my area. I have 2 sump pumps in my basement. The house is a rectangle and around 900 square feet. The sump pumps are in the far opposite corners from each other. So, one is in the front right corner of the house and the other is in the left rear corner of the house. The front sump pump is the one that runs 98 percent of the time. It is like all the ground water enters that corner of the house. I back filled all around the house, I installed gutters and extended the down spouts away from the house. The front yard is about a half arce in size and is where the water pools after a steady rain. The pool can get large in size, covering almost half of the size of the half acre. It doesn't come up to the house though, it gets as close as 15 feet away from the front corner. After raining steady for 5-6 hours the front sump pump will start running. It cycles off and on for various times, depending on the amount of rain we have. It will continue for a day or more after the rain stops as well so I'm pretty sure its a water table issue versus a run off problem.
I would really like to "load balance" between the two sump pumps if possible or channel the water away from the house towards the back of the house if possible. The problem is that the backyard is hardly any lower than the front or sides so natural draining would be hard to do.
Do you think since the front corner is where the water pools is why that sump pump does almost all the work? I know that seems obvious but it just seems excessive since the over all area around my lot is pretty close to level.
Attached is a pic after a long steady rain. This is the front right corner of the house. The front sump pump probably ran for 4 days after that rain.

Would it help to dig out outside along that side of the house and look at the wall or is it just a high water table and nothing much would really help.
As long as the pumps run my basement stays dry but after a rain like the pic shows, the front pump cycles once every 15 seconds or so. I put a 1 hp rigid sump pump with some fancy electronic measuing device that tells it when to cycle. It usually goes into "flood mode" during the heavy water times. Each pump has dual outputs, one that pumps towards the front of the house to some big city drain and the other pumps to the back of the house just above ground level. I just did the dual output because the city drain is under water during bad rains and then my pumps have no where to drain.

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itsreallyconc

we ONLY use zoeller pumps - m33 model,,, i'd expect your diagnosis is correct - the front pump's getting the wtr which your pic appears to show as recycling since i'd bet that lake's draining back into your bsmt... ck my w-site for illustrations.

adding backfill & downspouts're all good ideas but won't resolve the issue by themselves,,, its a false wtr table that's the problem,,, you need to run a gravity discharge to the nearest avail storm sewer IF POSSIBLE !

Bondo

Ayuh,... Regrading the yard to get rid of that Lake is where you've got to Start....

cjdock

I thought about putting a hill going across the front yard to keep the water near the front towards the road. Thanks for the replies folks.