I bought my first house one year ago. My sump pump broke last week; it kept running regardless the float. I believe the old pump was Zoeller M53, so I bought a Zoeller M57 to replace it.
When I installed the new one, it kept running every 10 seconds, while my old one ran every 30 minutes. So I adjusted the height, made it higher with bricks. Now the pump can run only if I move the float myself, and it removes most of the water, but immediately new water will come in and fill the sump again. The water level is right beneath the black French drain (I hope I name it correctly), and not high enough to trigger the float.But when I look into the water, there is another black pipe under it, and it is entirely under the water.
How come I have two French drains vertically? Where should I keep my water level? If it is the lower one, the pump will keep running.
- Independent float switches are a thing, if the old pump is "stuck on" with its built-in float. You'd plug the old pump into the switch and the switch into the wall.Ecnerwal– Ecnerwal2025-11-04 12:38:43 +00:00Commentedyesterday
- How tall is the stack of bricks? Normally you'd add one level of brick, (2"/50mm or so) and let it run for a while, then add another if it still seemed excessive. Since you've already run it up, you might need to buy a rubber coupling or two (aka Fernco, a brand name) to let you extend the pipe as you remove a layer of bricks to lower the pump (I take it thefloat itself isnot adjustable on the pump you now have.)Ecnerwal– Ecnerwal2025-11-04 15:08:51 +00:00Commentedyesterday
- 4It's sort of a side issue, but do you have a check valve on the outflow pipe? If you don't, you can end up with a fair amount of water running back into the well every time the pump shuts off. That, then, can lead to the pump running more than is necessary.JimmyJames– JimmyJames2025-11-04 22:13:05 +00:00Commentedyesterday
- Or having a check valve in place, but it having failed, so it's not doing the job...Ecnerwal– Ecnerwal2025-11-05 19:32:11 +00:00Commented7 hours ago
2 Answers2
Firstly, if you didn't let the pump run "every 10 seconds" for some hours, you don't know if it was merely removing the (can be considerable) water collected in the lower pipe and associated drainage rock or if it would always do that.
Anyway, if the basement is being kept dry at a particular float setting, it's enough. If not, you need to set it lower. You don't need a dry sump for a sump to work - it just needs to lower the water level under your house sufficiently that the basement doesn't leak.
It's not clear that you've established that yet, since you say the pump isn't coming onat all unless manually actuated, so you don't really know the basement leak situation at a water level that causes the pump to turn on from the incoming water at its present height/setting. If the water never gets that high and the basement doesn't leak, that might be fine. If more water comes in sometimes and the water level rises higher, you need to know if the basement is leaking at that point or not. You might plan to spend some time in the basement when it rains to see what happens.
- I like this suggestion. Once when my sump's float got lodged in the down position the drain field backed up so much that it poured at high volume for quite a few minutes after I kicked the pump on. It takes a while to catch up to normal flow.isherwood– isherwood2025-11-05 00:07:59 +00:00Commentedyesterday
The lower black pipe might be connected to another pit somewhere else in your basement or to some other method of collecting ground water.
Your pump waits til it's in 7 inches of water, then removes 4.5 inches (see documentation). I'm guessing that lower black pipe is connected to some large, copious amount of water that is 7 or 8 inches deep relative to the bottom of this pit. The most likely thing is the pipe itself ... if it's 4 inches in diameter, 3 inches above the bottom of the pit, and very long, it can hold a lot of water! By raising your pump you prevent it from removing that water.Don't raise the pump! Leave it on the floor of the pit and let it do its thing.
To determine if cycling every 10 seconds is right or wrong, look closely at the water levels when it starts and stops running and look to see if water is flowing back from the exit pipe.
Don't Raise Your Pump -- Part 2
It also looks like you have a secondary pump? The white pipe with grey float at the bottom of the photo? And typically those are powered by city water mains, not electric.
If that's correct, the overall design requires that the main pump run from H1 to H2 (in your case 3 inches to 7.5 inches -- see documentation), and the secondary pump runs from H3 to H4 ... and what is most essential is that H3 is above H2 by at least a couple of inches. The secondary pump must not turn on if the main pump is working and its float valve is at the top of its range, plus some comfortable padding. If you fail that test, you'll be pumping city water into your garden every time it rains.
You may want to bring an expert in to investigate the lower pipe, configure the two pumps correctly, and look at the check valve and other aspects of the secondary pump because there are some other dangers with how that works especially if they share an exit pipe, which isbad.
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