Back up Sump Pump Syatems

1 of 1 people found this post helpful

Post Reply | Watch this Post

I am looking to install a back up sump system to guard against flooding in the event of a power failure, and I'm looking for opinions on what system would be best for me. I am in new construction, with approx. 2,200 sq. ft. basement and a relatively shallow (3 ft or so) sump pit. Builder did not install a pump, so we flookded last March. I now have 2 pumps -- a primary and a back up -- both running on AC. No help in a power outage, but the back up has already paid for itself, when the builder's crummy pump failed afer only 3 months on the job. When it really rains, I'd estimate the GPM flow into the pit to be anywhere from 15 -20 GPM (we had approx. 2 in. of rain last Wednesday; with the ground already saturated, the pump ran from 1 p.m. Wed. to about noon Saturday and at one point (for about 20 hours on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day) the pump ran continuously). Obviously, the point here is if I were to experience a power outage during this time, my basement would start to flood within about 3 minutes. This appears to be a pretty substantial water problem, and my questions are: can the water-powered back up systems (I'm considering Basepump by Base, and The Guardian, by Saginaw) handle this heavy a GPM flow (especially with a head of about 12 ft.)? Is there some other, heavy-duty system out there that I should be considering? As far as discharge goes, the only place I have to discharge the water from the back up pump is into the same place (gutter down spout take away, that goes via 4" pipe to a storm drain) as the main pump, which I have heard is a bad idea. Any ideas that don't involve major excavation would be apprecated.