Adding second Sump Pit

15 years ago

Hi,

We have a rather small 700 sq ft. basement in our house that gets a lot of rain seepage when we get heavy rains. I've been working to improve the grading around the house and will continue on that project this summer. However, whenever we get about an inch of rain, our one sump pump is hammered with water. In the past, we had the water get to the point where the single sump pump couldn't keep up and the water rose out of the sump pit. Since then we've replaced the sump pump with a better pump and it now keeps up, but it is still cycling every 5 seconds or so in really heavy rains.

My question is, do you think it would be beneficial to install another sump pit on the other side of the basement? The seepage seems to be pretty uniform throughout the basement (there is no one spot that gets it worse than others). This would just be a pit without any french drains or anything leading to it. I could dig the pit and install everything myself, so my thinking is, for about $400 I could get this installed and maybe save myself some headaches. Is it worth the effort or is this just a case of doing something just to do it?

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Comments (4)

bear76
15 years ago
You could make your current one bigger and add a second pump. I don't see any reason why you could not add one in another location. Also, check your grading around the house and make sure the pump discharge is at least ten feet from the house.
homebound
15 years ago
Wow, that's an awful lot of water. Aside from a second pump I would make sure 1) the gutters empty several feet away 2) sump discharges several feet away 3) no clogged gutters 4) grade away from house, including away from window wells. 5) make sure there's a check valve in the discharge line.
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schreibdave
15 years ago
That is a scary quantity of water. Rather than digging a second pit, I like the idea of adding the second pump to the first pit. You might also want to make your second pump a battery or water powered backup.
bear76
15 years ago
What pump do you have in there right now? You could upgrade. The zoeller m53 is what we use for regular duty and a m267 for heavy duty applications. I work for a plumbing company, not zoeller, so don't tag this as spam. The 267 we use for large sewage pits so it should have that capacity you need, with a 2" discharge.