Redundant Sump Pump Systems

[SlyFerret]

Hi everyone,
The electricity in our area has been unreliable lately, and after an extended power outage during heavy rain, we lost a room full of carpet in the lower level of our house. Luckily it was ONLY the carpet and not drywall too!

This event got me thinking about sump pump systems, and what I think I would like to install. I'm looking at a few systems on-line. They're quite expensive, but about comparable to the cost of replacing carpet. I'm curious if anyone here has any experience with any systems like this.

Here is what I'm looking for:

1) Entire system works on AC or Battery backup
2) Redundant pumps
3) Control box monitors the operation and health of both pumps (including float switches)
4) Control box monitors status of power sources (AC and battery level)
5) Control box can connect to wired or wireless network to send alerts (no phone line)
6) Control box sounds audible alert as well as sends email and/or text message via network

One of the systems that I've found so far is this: (broken link removed to https://www.nexpump.com/content/Ai_Dual.shtml)

Any input or thoughts?

-SF

 

[bbone]

I installed this to put my mind at ease, needed it 3 times and it worked
runs off water pressure, no good for well though

(broken link removed to https://www.libertypumps.com/Products/Category/SubCategory/Product/?p=76&s=23&c=14)

 

[mithesaint]

I installed the basement watchdog system from Lowes after I had a mini flood in the basement this spring. Wasn't power related though, I only had a primary pump, and it failed overnight during a time of heavy snowmelt. The backup would have saved my keister.

It does all of what you're asking, except for the part about being networked and sending texts. So far, so good.

http://www.lowes.com/pd_120110-8486...&currentURL=?Ntt=basement+watchdog&facetInfo=

 

[SlyFerret]

Thanks for the input so far!

bbone: that water powered unit is interesting. I've never heard of anything like that before.

Mithesaint: I was looking at those watchdog units too. They're much less expensive than the other system that I linked to above. On most of the less expensive systems that I've seen, the backup pump is 12v only. Is that the case with the Watchdog? My concern is that if the primary fails, I'd be relying on the battery/charging system, and a smaller pump, in addition to having no way of being alerted that the main pump had died.

-SF

 

[SlyFerret]

I just took at the Basement Watchdog site. The alarms that the Watchdog unit supports are better than I thought at first.

Saw this at the bottom of the page:
http://www.basementwatchdog.com/Basement_Watchdog_Combination_Systems.php
"AN ALARM WILL SOUND, INDICATING THESE POTENTIAL PROBLEMS • Battery needs water • Battery is old and needs to be replaced • Battery is discharged or defective • Cable is loose or terminals are corroded • Power, fuse or circuit breaker has failed • Pump has been activated; check the main pump for failure"

-SF

 

[jharkin]

I had originally thought about piecing together my own uninterruptible system with a DC pump (most of them are re purposed boat bilge pumps) a big deep cycle battery and a smart charge controller. I ended up not doing that because all but the most expensive high end DC systems have nowhere near the capacity of good inexpensive AC sump pump, and having 2 pumps (ac main, dc backup) not only gives you power outage protection but also protection from a pump failure.


I ended up installing the basement watchdog Big Dog acting as backup to a Zoeller 1/3hp cast iron submersible primary pump.

http://www.sumppumpsdirect.com/Basement-Watchdog-BWD12120C-Sump-Pump/p1853.html

The Watchdog is not bad. the pump draws 20amps (about 1/4-1/3hp) which on paper should almost match the zoeller but in reality its a bit weaker. In anything up to a storm that would have the AC pump running continuous it will protect us in a blackout a minimum of 6-8hours running continuous or a day or two part time (it has a group 31 deep cycle battery which is around 120-150Ah). Even if it cant handle the load alone it will slow down the water and give me time to get the generator online. Its also there to kick in and help if the primary gets overwhelmed and/or give me time to change out the primary if it fails.

The only thing I dont love about it is the charger.. its just a dumb bulk charger so I top off and equalize the batter 2-3 times a year with a NOCO genius.

. . .


. . .


Before you choose anything you need to guesstimate how much flow rate you need. We used to have a 1/3hp pedestal that flows about 1500gph and it got overwhelmed in Spring 2010 when we had like 10inches of rain in a weekend and we literally had waterfalls coming down the basement walls. The Zoeller 1/3hp takes that on like a champ at i think 2500gph and is dead quiet to boot. A 1/2hp sump will get you up to 4000gph.

The system you linked at 8000gph is massive! - thats the equivalent of a 1,000 sq ft basement filling with a foot of water in an hour. To really achieve that flow it has to be close to a full honest horsepower of pump. On 12v DC you are talking like 60-70amps when its running. To get more than a couple hours of run time on something like that you are going to need a huge battery bank. The group31 battery in my system would only run a pump like that for an hour, maybe two tops.

 

[SlyFerret]

Thanks guys, appreciate the posts so far. Great info.

I'm starting to lean towards the bigger watchdog unit. The one I linked to earlier is probably way overkill.

-SF

 

[woodgeek]

I went for the Basement Watchdog 'Special'. Its too expensive for what it is, and as Jeremy would explain, the built in float charger is dumb, and electrolyzes a lot of water..so I have to top off the battery with distilled H2O every 7-8 mos. It reminds me with a beeping alarm.

Not the fanciest system, but is has been a great source of comfort through about 3 major outages (I put the primary on a genny, so multi-day runtime is not really a concern....just in case I am not home, on vacation, or until I get the genny set up).

You can make yourself **crazy** thinking about this stuff. In the end it is simply a backup, and that has value, but backup on backup, every contingency, forget about it.

 

[SlyFerret]

You can make yourself **crazy** thinking about this stuff. In the end it is simply a backup, and that has value, but backup on backup, every contingency, forget about it.

At work I manage the operations of a cloud service behind a mobile app. In that world, it's all about high availability, automatic failover and recovery, and wrapping monitors and alerts around the entire system to meet uptime commitments. Not to mention disaster recovery planning just in case the earth opens up and swallows an entire coast of the US.

Maybe I'm overthinking my sump pump.

-SF

 

[BrotherBart]

In that world, it's all about high availability, automatic failover and recovery, and wrapping monitors and alerts around the entire system to meet uptime commitments.

Chuckled the other day reading an interview with a guy I used to work with. He is now the head of infrastructure for a major financial company. He said "We build to be up 24/7/forever."

Loved that line.

 

[woodgeek]

Maybe I'm overthinking my sump pump.

-SF

I figure my finished basement would flood 5x per year without the primary. I like the green Zoellers, and Zoeller brand check valves.

I figure I will lose power during a significant flooding event maybe once every couple years. Its happened 3 times since I put the backup in 2.5 years ago, not at all for the 5 years before that.

I figure if I keep the battery working (and the system monitors battery water level and 'health') then my flood probability doesn't go to 'never', but goes down to less than 1 per 10 or 20 years. I can live with that.

I am prob on the hook for a new storage battery (overpriced from watchdog) every few years, with the cost and hassle of recycling. Oh well.

FYI: Walmart recycles lead-acid batteries fro free if you bought them there (save your receipt) or a nominal charge if you didn't.

 

[ironpony]

personally I have seen many battery back ups failed or dead. maint seems high also, battery replacement. if you have city water and can use a water driven pump, it seems the most reliable/least maint to me.

 

[jharkin]

I went for the Basement Watchdog 'Special'. Its too expensive for what it is, and as Jeremy would explain, the built in float charger is dumb, and electrolyzes a lot of water..so I have to top off the battery with distilled H2O every 7-8 mos. It reminds me with a beeping alarm.

It interesting, yours is just a float charger that floats the battery too high and boils off water, and mine is a supposedly "smart" bulk charger that doesnt float at all and thus never fully charges and equalizes the battery. WTF cant their engineers just design a decent 3 stage charger... or even buy one off shelf

personally I have seen many battery back ups failed or dead. maint seems high also, battery replacement. if you have city water and can use a water driven pump, it seems the most reliable/least maint to me.

I looked at those water powered pumps and decided against them for 3 reasons:

#1 - For every gallon they pump they use a half gallon of city water. Thats means if Im pumping out 2000 gph, Id be using 1000pgh. I'm on tiered water rates and that would cost me upwards of $10 an hour to run it. If the outage lasted over 12 hours it would push my 3 month usage into the 3rd tier and now Id be over $20 an hour to run it. And it goes up from there. A long power outage could get really expensive really fast.

#2 - All that water it uses get flushed out the same discharge as the sump water. So your piping needs to be sized that much larger to handle the flow and it has to go somewhere. Im lucky that a prior owner of our house got municipal approval to run an underground line and tie into the storm sewer - but most locales wont allow that so a lot of people just run a pipe through the foundation wall to dump on the side lawn. Now you have an extra thousand gallons an hour dumping and soaking into your yard (and maybe soak right back into the basement ) or running off onto the street.

#3 - I may be on "city" water, but the source is a central town well. In a mass outage I have no idea if they use generators to keep the pumps online or just run off whats stored in the water tower. In other words the town water could run out also..

 

[woodgeek]

It interesting, yours is just a float charger that floats the battery too high and boils off water, and mine is a supposedly "smart" bulk charger that doesnt float at all and thus never fully charges and equalizes the battery. WTF cant their engineers just design a decent 3 stage charger... or even buy one off shelf

I too am not impressed by the batter engineers at Watchdog.

A question for the battery expert....aside from the 1.5X per year watering chore, I figure my problem is harmless. Keeping a lead-acid at 100% SOC is prob optimal for longevity, correct? The water electrolysis won't eat the plates in anyway, right?

Also...it will stay equalized, no?

 

[jharkin]

I too am not impressed by the batter engineers at Watchdog.

A question for the battery expert....aside from the 1.5X per year watering chore, I figure my problem is harmless. Keeping a lead-acid at 100% SOC is prob optimal for longevity, correct? The water electrolysis won't eat the plates in anyway, right?

Also...it will stay equalized, no?

Yes. So long as its not running hot all the time and you keep the water level topped off with distilled water (never let the lead plates get exposed to air), your mild overcharge should actually be better than mine that never fully charges. the big killer other than heat is sulfation of the plates and that happens when the battery is left discharged.

And as far as I know, yes you should be well equalized.

see:
http://jgdarden.com/batteryfaq/carfaq12.htm

I think both our units have traditional flooded wet batteries with fill caps, this is the proper charging algorithm. I suspect your charger just floats the battery at the absorption charge voltage of 14.5, and I think mine is trying to be smart and when it drops to 12.5v or so it kicks on a 20A bulk charge and shuts off when the voltage rises to 14ish. It never goes into float mode so the cells dont fully equalize and always stop round 90% full.

For more detail: http://jgdarden.com/batteryfaq/carfaq9.htm

 

[Highbeam]

Seriously, did you guys just build your homes in a hole? Can't you just daylight a pipe so that the water flows by gravity? I would kick the arse of a homebuilder that found a flat piece of wet ground and decided to dig a big hole in it and put a house in the hole. Why not build on top of the ground? Or at least backfill the footing excavation so that there is no way for groundwater to ever surface beneath the home?

I had a crawlspace full of water when I bought my current home. I dug under the footing and ran a pipe downhill to daylight so that any water that might get in there can run out whether or not I am home or if there is power.

Worrying about this is like a curse.

 

[jharkin]

I would kick the arse of a homebuilder that found a flat piece of wet ground and decided to dig a big hole in it and put a house in the hole.

I cant speak for the others, but in my case that man happens to be about 180 years dead. And there is no way to know that the land had drainage issues back then.

The house did used to have an iron drain pipe that ran from the sump pit under the street to drain to daylight down slope of us across the street. The title has an easement on the neighbors land permitting that up until sometime after the 1950s when for some reason it was revoked, the pipe filled and they had to install en electric pump.

 

[woodgeek]

My 54 yo house is built onto a ledge blasted into the bedrock in the side of a hill. The front of my flooding level is above grade. But it came with a (non-daylight) french drain and pit when I got it (that had been installed improperly about 6 mos earlier, for resale).

I have thought about punching through my slab to daylight my french drain. Haven't done it yet though.

I also considered this a 'curse' especially after three carpet wetting floods from new but improperly installed pumps. Now that I've installed the pumps myself correctly, I don't even think about it but a couple times a year to water the batteries.

 

[mithesaint]

Seriously, did you guys just build your homes in a hole? Can't you just daylight a pipe so that the water flows by gravity? I would kick the arse of a homebuilder that found a flat piece of wet ground and decided to dig a big hole in it and put a house in the hole. Why not build on top of the ground? Or at least backfill the footing excavation so that there is no way for groundwater to ever surface beneath the home?

I had a crawlspace full of water when I bought my current home. I dug under the footing and ran a pipe downhill to daylight so that any water that might get in there can run out whether or not I am home or if there is power.

Worrying about this is like a curse.

House in hole? That's me. I didn't build it, for the record, but I guess I was dumb enough to buy it... I'm in the flatlands of NW OH, not too far from Lake Erie, and it's very wet and marshy here. The only hills in this area are related to rivers and streams, and that's a whole different flooding issue. The basement walls are backfilled, but it's wet here. Period.

Basements are still sorta important because of the threat of tornadoes, not to mention it is pretty handy to have a basement for storage and additional living space.

 

[SlyFerret]

I'm in northern central Ohio. It's pretty flat here too. The clay soil doesn't drain very well, and we have had a ton of rain lately.

The ground stays wet. Dig a post hole pretty much anywhere on my lot and it'll fill with water mighty fast.

-SF

 

[woodgeek]

the bottom of the primordial sea.

 

[Highbeam]

I would love a basement but I would rather earth berm a concrete walled, above grade, bottom, story than dig a hole in flat wet ground and have to run pumps "forever" to keep it dry.

I am an engineer and have this curse of always thinking that there is only one right way to do things. It baffles me when so many folks are suffering from what should be an obvious mistake.

 

[jharkin]

I would love a basement but I would rather earth berm a concrete walled, above grade, bottom, story than dig a hole in flat wet ground and have to run pumps "forever" to keep it dry.

The OP may have that problem... in my case I just had one flooding incident when we had record rains in the Spring of 2010 and upgrade my system to avoid a repeat. And there has not been a repeat.

I am an engineer and have this curse of always thinking that there is only one right way to do things. It baffles me when so many folks are suffering from what should be an obvious mistake.

"Mistake" depends on what the goal is. If you just want more living space, then yes digging underground is silly. But living space is not what basements where originally intended to be. Basements in old New England (for example) served two very important purposes

1- Building your foundation down below the frost line (around here that's 3-4 feet down) to give the building stability through the seasons
2- (Bonus) Year round cool storage as a root cellar for storing otherwise perishable foodstuffs. Before electricity this was critical.

In tornado prone regions of the country basements also provide life critical shelter in bad weather.


We have just turned a perfectly good idea upside down by having this insatiable need to finish basements and turn them into media rooms. Waste of perfectly good woodshop space IMHO

 

[SlyFerret]

I picked up the watchdog big combo the other night. Will probably get time to put it in this weekend.

Thanks for all the input, everyone!

-SF

 

[mithesaint]

the bottom of the primordial sea.

Pretty much. On the bright side I have some of the blackest clay you'll ever see...