Sump pump backup recommendations?

July 9, 2013 7:57 AM

Yesterday's unprecedented rain event + power outage left a lot of folks in Toronto with flooded basements. We were home to bail out our sump but I'd like the piece of mind of knowing we have a reliable backup system. Amazon has a highly rated water powered unit called the Basepump RB 750, so I'm leaning towards that kind of system but would appreciate input from anyone here. The battery powered unit would be much easier to install but I'm wondering how reliable people have found them to be over time. Would it just be a matter of replacing the battery every 5 years or so, like in a car? .

If it matters, we're in an elevated part of the city, so the water I'm worried about would be the flash run-off from a dozen or so adjacent properties. The 80 year old drains were all replaced 10 years ago, with backflow preventer, interior/exterior weeping tile and sump

posted by bonobothegreat to Home & Garden (3 answers total)

We've had flooding issues related to storms, burst pipes, etc... you name it we've found novel ways to flood our basement.

Here's our solution

2 sumps pumps capable of pumping 60gpm. Yes 2. Because one time pump #1 failed. So pump 2 has a higher floater valve to kick in if necessary.

Whole house generator. A) It's just nice to have if the power goes out. B) sump pumps don't work without electricity.

Pump backup battery. It's expensive, but sometimes said generator mentioned above doesn't kick in. One time it didn't kick in and I had to go out and manually start it. In the 5-7 minutes that that took, my basement flooded.

Sounds like overkill? Not when you'll spend $15K restoring your basement... again... because if you try to use your homeowner's insurance one more time they'll cancel your policy.
posted by matty at 8:04 AM on July 9, 2013

I stumbled across this on KK's cooltools site, was considering getting one....especially since my neighbors above ground 10k gallon pool failed dramatically yesterday and flooded the neighborhood.
posted by iamabot at 8:16 AM on July 9, 2013

While you're at it, spend $10 and get a water alarm. I have this one. The sensor detaches so you can lower it into the sump basin. The switch on our pump started to fail intermittently but the pump worked just fine. The alarm let me know if the switch didn't get tripped before the basement flooded so I could run down and plug the pump straight in and fiddle with the switch while we waited for the new switch to ship.

Float switches are the thing most likely to fail on your pump and the alarm is cheap insurance.
posted by VTX at 9:33 AM on July 9, 2013