wastedthelight
New Member
The basement in our new house floods a bit during heavy rain. It comes in mostly where the poured wall meets the floor, but also have cracks in the floor (stemming from the same place) leading to the center of the basement that water comes up through. We had a professional come out, his company specializes in dry basements and installing drain tile. I can't wrap my head around his observation. He said all we need is a stronger sump pump and move the trigger up more so the pit fills up higher, he suggested about 4-6 inches from the top of the pit. He said this will allow the pump to keep up, removing water from the drain tile before it fills up.
What I don't understand is if the pump kicks on at 1ft of water, what difference does it make if it's kicking on at 2.5ft of water? That means more water is in the pit, filling the drain pipe up completely and causing the water incoming to fight harder to get into the pit and causing water not to be removed as quickly which would push more water into the cracks, no? The pump is coming on and keeping the pit drained, even if it is constantly running, how does it "get rid of more water faster" if it's running less and filling up the pit? Also during non super rainy times, it would take forever for the pit to fill and drain the water, so the pit could have 2ft of water just sitting in there instead of the normal couple inches.
I was happy though that instead of saying I needed $7-10k drain tile it's just a sump pump setup issue though...but I just don't understand. We had a lot of flooding recently so these guys are super busy. The other professionals we have scheduled can't make it for another 1 month and 2 months...but we are on their list.
Notes:
- We have a sump pump (1/3hp, he recommends 1/2).
- Sump Pump switch triggers at about 1ft, when the water hits the bottom of the drain pipe
- Heavy rains its kicking on every 10-15 seconds
- Pit is about 3ft deep
- Bottom of drain pipe sits 1ft up from bottom, 2ft from top of pit
- He said we have drain tile on the outside of the house
- We also have a floor drain on the other end of the basement for whatever that info is worth.
What I don't understand is if the pump kicks on at 1ft of water, what difference does it make if it's kicking on at 2.5ft of water? That means more water is in the pit, filling the drain pipe up completely and causing the water incoming to fight harder to get into the pit and causing water not to be removed as quickly which would push more water into the cracks, no? The pump is coming on and keeping the pit drained, even if it is constantly running, how does it "get rid of more water faster" if it's running less and filling up the pit? Also during non super rainy times, it would take forever for the pit to fill and drain the water, so the pit could have 2ft of water just sitting in there instead of the normal couple inches.
I was happy though that instead of saying I needed $7-10k drain tile it's just a sump pump setup issue though...but I just don't understand. We had a lot of flooding recently so these guys are super busy. The other professionals we have scheduled can't make it for another 1 month and 2 months...but we are on their list.
Notes:
- We have a sump pump (1/3hp, he recommends 1/2).
- Sump Pump switch triggers at about 1ft, when the water hits the bottom of the drain pipe
- Heavy rains its kicking on every 10-15 seconds
- Pit is about 3ft deep
- Bottom of drain pipe sits 1ft up from bottom, 2ft from top of pit
- He said we have drain tile on the outside of the house
- We also have a floor drain on the other end of the basement for whatever that info is worth.