[Lottery]

This is a long story...and no, it's not about a problem with the sump pump. The house was built with the basement below the water table, so the sump pump has to work continuously to keep the water out. The house sits on a low spot in the area where the houses behind it (for blocks and blocks) are all higher. The houses on either side of us are split levels, so they don't have basements that go as deep as ours. The house directly across the street has just a crawl space. So this is unique issue for the area, and I have nobody to ask "how does this work for you".

The sump pumps out about 5 gallons of water every 3.5 minutes. Yeah. Over 2,000 gallons a day, every day, all year. We have a pretty good system, with a backup and alarm and all that, and this thing has never flooded in the roughly 6 years we've lived here. Never even had a close call. I don't think the previous owners did, either.

When we bought the place (first time homeowners), we never gave much thought to the problem we are currently having, because it wasn't a problem: where the sump pump water goes when it leaves the house. It had to go somewhere, because it was obviously running all the time and doing it's job. But we never saw it. We figured there was some underground pipe that carried it away to the storm drain. But several months ago the pump that came with the place started making an awful noise. It was still pumping, but it was on it's way out. I wished I had paid more attention to what was actually happening in the pit, like was the water level rising more than it should? Or what the old pipe configuration looked like. But I didn't, so I don't know.

The old pump was replaced. After that is when the water started showing up. At the front of our property, flooding the sidewalk. I didn't even know it was from our house because water had never been there before, despite the pump always running. i thought some new development somewhere behind and above us was channeling rainwater.

But then I started wondering, and was messing with the sump pump output pipes on the outside of the house. For some reason the house has one output PVC pipe that branches immediately into 2 PVC pipes, each with a valve. I could never figure out what they were for when we moved it, because no matter if the valves were open or not, nothing ever changed (I never closed both). But now I found that if I closed one and opened the other, the sump pump would go to one or another spot on the front sidewalk. Basically, the builders ran two pipes to the same sidewalk, about 15 feet apart where they dump out. No clue why.

Because of the lay of my property, this water has nowhere else to go. The sidewalk where it dumps is the lowest part of the property by far. Drywalls won't work here because of clay. I've had a lot of people look at it, contractors and landscapers and such, and nobody knows what to do.

I even had the city engineer come out and he offered three solutions: I could get a new line trenched through my yard, under the sidewalk, then through my neighbor's yard and under their driveway, and connect it directly into the storm sewer. I was actually afraid he was going to make me do this, but as soon as he said it he kind of backed off because he realized how big of an undertaking it would be. His other "solution" was to "just live with it"-his words-in regards to the always wet sidewalk. That, too, surprised me. By the way, he would not allow me to run a line under the sidewalk so it would skip the sidewalk and dump into the street. I asked.

The third solution he suggested is why I'm here and I need help: get the sump pump back to however it was before I had this problem. The old sump pump seemed to run every minute or so. I have no clue as to it's output, nor do I recall how high the float was set, but it almost certainly wasn't set as high as it is now (the old pump was smaller than the current one, and the current one sits on a small stand so it's even higher). The current pump flushes water through about every 3.5 minutes. It seems to me that there was some configuration with the old pump in which it wasn't actually getting water away from, or even out of, the house at all. I've wondered if maybe the old one didn't have a check valve (the new does). So maybe the water was pumping up, but then going right back down, keeping the water cycling endlessly instead of carrying it away. I don't know if that's even feasible, but it's all I can think of.

I've had one sump pump tech here and asked him about this and he didn't have a clue. But it did happen (continuous pumping with no visible output), so there must be an explanation. I could fix this sidewalk dumping issue if I could get things back to how it was. Pumping in an endless cycle doesn't really bother me because the pump runs continuously anyway. If I can pump the same water over and over in sort of a holding pattern to keep the basement and the sidewalk dry (as must have been the case?), then I don't see how that's different than pumping the water away because the water table is always going to be there.

 

[hkstroud]

The current pump flushes water through about every 3.5 minutes. It seems to me that there was some configuration with the old pump in which it wasn't actually getting water away from, or even out of, the house at all. I've wondered if maybe the old one didn't have a check valve (the new does). So maybe the water was pumping up, but then going right back down, keeping the water cycling endlessly instead of carrying it away.

Certianly sounds like a possibility

 

[AllanJ]

How far is the sidwalk from your house?

Do you know precisely where the sump pump output pipe is routed? .

The output pipe could be cracked underground letting the water out where the water can seep back to your house.

A long underground output pipe is problematical because if the the check valve fails or is held ajar by debris, a lot of water will fall back into the pit after each pump cycle.

If you replace the sump pump output with a traditional output straight up and then out the foundation slightly above surface level, will the water flow away from the house at least ten feet?

If you rebuild the pit from an 18 inch diameter plastic basin lined pit to a larger rectangular brick or concrete pit with at least 18 inches depth below where the drain pipes dump in then practically any output pipe arrangement that does not end in a pool all of which will drain back into your basement will work without a check valve.

Put it simply, you have a lousy lot. There is no quick and cheap solution.

 

[lenaitch]

I may have missed something in all of the words, but are you saying that discharge water appeared after the pump was replaced? Perhaps the old pump/no check value was just moving water around.
It might be helpful to see if the the burst of discharge water appears a second or two after the pump comes on. It would be pretty much impossible to measure the output, but you might have a leak in the discharge line, or not.
I would think making sure your float is adjusted properly is a good first step. You want to try to completely drain a full sump pit. Excessive starting/stopping will age the pump prematurely.



As AllenJ said, you have a lot that you have to live with. No drywell will handle 2000/gpd unless you are on pure sand. I'm not surprised your consultant didn't recommend a connection across your neighbour's property - that would require lawyers and an easement, permits, etc. Trenching under the sidewalk would likely be costly even it if was approved. It's municipal property. My municipality will no longer allow foundations below groundwater level, and several homes have two pumps.

 

[3onthetree]

I am trying to make sense of this, but am missing something.

How could the old sump not have discharged any water? Lets say the water table was right under the slab and stayed there. So the pump below that will run, and if it ran continuously, there would have to be a separate pipe that actually looped down back into the pit. It couldn't have been just the head falling back down in a single discharge, because the pump would have had to stop to allow that to happen. And you'd really hear the splashing back into the pit with a loop. And if the water table never rose above the slab, why would someone do this?

If the water table were to rise above the slab, then the old pump had to be discharging water somewhere, or you would've had a flooded basement.

Now you say the new pump sits even higher than the old one, and is only now discharging water. I think you need to evaluate the piping, especially with the valves, as it had to route somewhere. As an example I am doing a set up with my piping, with a valve diverter, to choose between 2 routes, dump to an underground pipe or on to grade.

You do not want the pump to run continuously.
A drywell should not even enter the lexicon at 2000ga per day.

You do, at any cost, want to take advantage of the city allowing you to connect directly to the storm sewer, for livabilty, liability, and resale value. I have only seen this allowed when the output is so great that they do not want any standing water on grade. This scenario happened in my neighborhood, a house's discharge was routed through the existing easement to a nearby catch basin, all underground with a Ditch Witch. No paperwork or anything required.

 

[Jackofall1]

Is there no storm drain for the street in front of your home?

Why would you raise the replacement pump? The lower the pump the better as it relates to maximizing water removal from the sump.

Never allow the water to build in the sump above the drain tile dumping into the sump.

Add some food coloring to the sump as a test, this will help identify the piping you are talking about.

 

[Lottery]

The sidewalk is roughly 75' from the back corner of the house, where the sump output pipe is. If I let the water pour right out, it would probably flow about 10 feet away from the foundation. It's pretty flat there. But a few feet in front of the house the ground rolls downhill, say for 25', to the sidewalk.

I don't know precisely where the output pipe #1 (where I have it routed now) flows, but there is only a narrow possibility because of the shape of the lot (it is framed by a short retaining wall that goes up, and the house). I know where it starts and generally where it ends (the ground is soaked at the bottom of the hill, as the end of the pipe is underground but I haven't dug in yet to physically see it...my guess is it ends roughly 5 feet in front of the sidewalk, based on the water-logged soil. Output pipe #2 is easier but I don't channel the water there because it is further up the sidewalk and would just get more grass and sidewalk wet on it's way toward the street. That pipe goes directly along the house, connects with the corrugated pipe that is connected to my front downspout, and then takes a straight path directly to the sidewalk. I can actually see the top edge of that pipe at the edge of the sidewalk.

It's very likely one or both of these are cracked, though I don't see how cracks would account for the loss of 5 gallons of water before the end of the pipe at the sidewalk. And if even if it did happen that way under the old pump, why wouldn't it be doing the same thing now, when no change was made to the pipes outside? I don't know. I agree it's a lousy lot.

 

[Lottery]

To answer some of the other questions and give more info...I disconnected the PVC right at the start of the output pipe outside, before it dips underground, and it filled a 5 gallon bucket. That's how I know it is 5 gallons.

In the pit, there is a pipe with water coming from the drain tile set up like any sump pit has (The configuration of the pit itself looks normal). That pipe is continuously trickling water in.

I had the pump raised about 2 inches on advice from the sump pump tech to see if it would reduce the amount of water/cycles of water being taken out. The tech said that was possible, though I don't know if he really believed that. And it didn't work that way, anyway (and he didn't charge for this, so it wasn't a scam). All it really resulted in so far is that the float now gets triggered about 2 inches higher, which is still at least a foot or so from the very top of the pit. And it's still below the pipe from the drain tile.

I know the water with the old pump had to go somewhere. That's what is so weird about this. One other possibility I wondered is if the old pump took out smaller amounts of water at shorter intervals, then the water seeped out in cracks in the output pipe before ever getting to the sidewalk at the end. But it would still be roughly the same amount of water as is discharged now, and I think the soil at the cracks would get waterlogged enough that the water would've reached the sidewalk, anyway. But I don't know.

There is no storm sewer entry in front of my house. We have a curb, and the storm sewer grate is between my neighbor's property and the property next to theirs.

If I added dye to the sump pit, would the dye show up somehow to show where there are leaks in the underground pipe? I don't see any water other than the output at the sidewalk, so I doubt it would help me find anything I don't already know. But maybe I'm underestimating what a dye test could tell me.

 

[Alismith]

Many households have sump pumps and this piece of equipment takes care of the water drainage and keeps a basement safe and dry. However, each pump requires maintenance and regular clean-ups, as my own experience show. Just like any other technology it might occasionally fail. If you notice that your sump pump doesn’t turn on and off as it should, makes strange noises, or is older than 10 years, it needs repair and sometimes replacement. Reach out to licensed basement waterproofers on the phone, explain your situation, and they’ll come up with the best solution.

 

[AllanJ]

You will not be able to let the pump do longer less frequent cycles unless the start float and stop float are adjustable independently.

For starters, the pump should start when the fat pipes dumping into the pit are 1/2 to 2/3 submerged.\

When it starts, the pump should keep going until the pit is nearly empty.

You may need to fine tune it if you get flooding of the far side of the basement floor, like have the pump start at a lower level.

If on one pump cycle the check valve failed to close all the way, then the water in the outlet pipe will fall back into the pit and there will be a delay after the pump starts again until you see water come out outside at the far end of the outlet pipe.

Then on the next cycle, if the checdk valve did close all the way then there will be no delay after the pump starts again when water comes out at the far end.

Woodchucks may break plastic pipes in their way when they dig their burrows. Then sump pump water will drain into the burrow and possibly come back to the foundation and in any event cause unpredictable results seen at the output end when the pump starts.