Saturday, July 24, 2021

Bail! Bail! Man The Pumps!

But sadly there were no pumps to be manned so we had to get the water out manually.

We happened to get a rain storm in earlier this week that took out power in ours and a lot of other neighborhoods.

The storm was intense and as you may have guessed, that meant water rushing into the sump pump pit. With the power out the sump pump decided to take the night off.

That left Leah and I bailing it out for more than three hours until it finally stopped coming in.

That was not pleasant, especially when it looked like it might overflow as were were not keeping up with it.  We filled two different 5 gallon buckets and I would carry the full one to the drain and then come back for the other once Leah had filled it up.  Over 60 buckets - 300 gallons - was dumped out of that pit which is a helluva lot.  I really got a workout in as a result. My aching everything.

I've now ordered a Raybend Primary Sump Pump Backup Power System and while waiting for it to arrive, I've purchased the appropriate Deep-Cycle battery so it will be ready when it gets here.  This should hopefully stop future bailouts from needing to occur.

6 comments:

Beans said...

Yep. You are in the same situation as a boat owner who doesn't have a back-up battery hooked up to his bilge pump.

Always wondered about sump-pump people who don't have a back-up power sources, and now I know.

Ever consider a whole-house genset or a backup genset to cover your refrigerator/freezer?

B said...

I counsel folks who have a sump pump:
If you need a sump pump, you need a spare.
And means to power that spare, be it batteries if it is a DC pump or a generator if it is AC.
(I have both).

a primary ac powered pump, a spare for that, a DC powered pump (12v) and also a generator for the ac pumps. (and, in a pinch, and inverter that can run the pump off the car battery)
(I and Murphy are well acquainted so I plan for him to try to screw me)

again: If you have a need for a sump pump, you need a spare and also a means to power it.

Glypto Dropem said...

We recently got pounded with inches of rain over a short period of time. Residents I have spoken to that have lived here for decades say they have never seen anything like it. In fact, measured water levels in the streams and rivers have only been documented higher during the 1938 hurricane. We pumped out basements that have never had so much as a drop of water with several inches. Multiple state and local roads washed out too, that DOT was fixing over this weekend. Everyone should be prepared for such events.

Old NFO said...

Yep, spares plus power of 'some' type is critical.

Aaron said...

Beans: Yep interestingly enough, battery back ups for sump pumps don't seem to be a thing around here and definitely not standard equipment. This is now fixed in this house at least. We did consider a while house system but amazingly when we called two the two main shops here that do that, both failed to follow up to do a quote and now with our time horizon for this house it may not make economic sense to add it now. Generally we don;t lose power very often in this neighborhood, unlike our prior one where it was a regular occurrence and we had a plug-in generator system.

B: Yep, I'll likely look into getting a spare as well once I have this system setup.

Glypto Dropem: It has been rather rainy as of late with a ton of water coming down which doesn't help things much. Some highways in Detroit are constantly being flooded out due to inadequate or broken pumping stations.

Old NFO; Definitely!

John in Philly said...

I don't recall the brand name, but somewhere out there is a water turbine powered sump pump that runs off of the house water supply.
Obviously not for use if you have well water.