Our old sump pump had a sound. A click when the float lifted, a hum that got a little rougher every month, a gurgle as the pit drained and then a thunk when the check valve slammed shut. During the rains last April I heard that sequence every few minutes for days. Lying in bed, you start counting them.
It was a 1/3-horsepower pump from 2009, seventeen years old this spring, with no backup of any kind. It still worked. That was the point. I didn't want to replace it on the night it stopped, in a thunderstorm, with the pit filling.
Why now
The spring thaw is coming, and last April showed us how hard this pit works when the snow melts and the rain starts. The downspout extensions and regrading from last May helped, but the pit still sits in the northeast corner by the back door, at the low end of the lot.
When we switched insurers last July we added $10,000 of water backup coverage, which as I understand our policy would cover damage from something like a failed sump pump, minus our $2,500 deductible. Insurance is for the bad night. I'd rather not have the bad night. In work terms, a seventeen-year-old pump with no backup is a single supplier and zero safety stock, and I'd never sign off on that at my desk.
Gary, when I told him the plan: "Good. Water always wins. You just get to pick which day."
What we bought
- Zoeller M53 primary pump: $239
- Basement Watchdog battery backup system: $289
- AGM battery for the backup: $185
- New check valve: $24
- Battery-powered water alarm: $15
About $752, mostly from the house fund, with savings covering the part the fund didn't. The Zoeller is cast iron, heavier and simpler than the plastic pump it replaced, and it has a good reputation among people who have opinions about sump pumps, which in West Michigan is most people. The Watchdog runs off the battery when the power is out or the main pump fails, and its controller beeps when something's wrong. The AGM battery cost more than a regular one but doesn't need its water topped up, and I knew I would never remember to check.
The install, with Gary
We did it Saturday afternoon, March 14th, the same morning Tessa and I filed our taxes, so it was a long day at the kitchen table followed by a long afternoon on my knees in the basement corner.
Unplug, bail the pit down with a bucket, cut the old PVC discharge above the old check valve and lift out seventeen years of pump. It smelled like the bottom of a pond. Then the new Zoeller went in on a couple of bricks to keep it off the gravel, with the new check valve above it, and the Watchdog pump went in beside it, teed into the discharge with its own check valve and set to switch on a few inches above where the main pump does.
My mistake was the relief hole. The Zoeller instructions say to drill a small hole in the discharge pipe between the pump and the check valve, down inside the pit, so trapped air can escape. I'd read that, decided it sounded optional and moved on. The first time we filled the pit, the pump ran and moved almost no water. Air lock. Gary didn't say a word. He just pointed at the instruction sheet lying on the floor. Pump out, hole drilled, pump back in, and it worked perfectly.
On Sunday we finished the electrical part, which for me means plugging things in: the main pump into its outlet, the Watchdog controller into another, the battery in its case on the floor beside the pit and the water alarm on the floor next to it.
Testing the backup
This was the part I cared about most. We filled the pit with buckets from the laundry sink and unplugged the main pump. The water rose past the main float, nothing happened, and then the Watchdog kicked on with a noise like a small boat motor and emptied the pit in about twenty seconds. The controller beeped to report that it had run on battery. Then I plugged the main pump back in and cycled it a few times to make sure the two float switches stayed clear of each other.
We tested the water alarm with a wet finger. It is extremely loud. Tessa heard it from upstairs with the bedroom door shut, which is exactly the point.
The old pump is in a bucket in the garage as an emergency spare. Gary says I'll never use it. He also says that's what spares are for.
