The Handy Homeowner Girl

Finally, after all of the headaches I’ve had with crawl space flooding and my sump pumps, this past Wednesday was time to permanently install my sump pump.  For me, this was a two-person job, so I was lucky to have help from my parents.

The existing sump pump (the failed one of December storm fame) was sitting in its sump (which is basically a plastic basin that situates the pump at a lower level to help manage surface water).  The sump in my crawl space was to the left of the opening and very small and shallow (yes, I now know what it looks like and where it is!).  As a result, it didn’t handle the water seeping in from underground (particularly from my yard) until flooding was already an issue.  Plus, it was flush in some places and lower than the surrounding sand in other places, which didn’t keep sand and debris out of the sump and protect the pump.  All possible reasons for failure, along with the motor simply burning out.

Because the sump didn’t seem sufficient, and my dad suggested I’d want the pump in a more accessible place because of my general stress over flooding and sump pump failure, we decided to entirely replace the sump and to relocate it to just inside the crawl space (which, now that I’m thinking about it, will be awesome for whenever I need to get the heater serviced).  After choosing the spot to locate the sump, we put together a list of what we’d need – large plastic garbage can (to act as the sump, more on that later), 2-inch arbored hole saw drill bit for cutting holes, weed control fabric, something to tie the fabric to the garbage can, and a small-handled shovel.  This might all sound a bit strange, but all will be revealed. I should also mention at this point that This Old House has a great demo video and instructions for installing a sump pump in a basement, the professional way. We then headed to my local hardware store, which I love almost as much as my local Lowe’s. 

We decided to use a plastic garbage can instead of the typical sump basin because it would be a little larger, enabling me to have a large lip sitting above the sand, keeping it from pouring into the basin.  Most sump pumps are located in basements, where sand and debris aren’t an issue.  If you read up on sump pumps, one of the main recommendations is not to have them anywhere near sand.  Since I have to have my pump in a sandy crawl space (no one seems to want to do homeowner shows/tips on that little problem), we had to come up with a specialized solution.

We made sure that we could fit the garbage can into the crawl space entrance (which always seems tinier and more claustrophobic in my mind), marked off in the sand how large a hole we would have to dig and took turns digging out the sand.  We thought we’d be able to dig about three feet down and leave only a few inches of the garbage can above the ground, but true to stories I’ve heard from my neighbor, the water table starts about two feet down.  We dug to about that two feet and decided not to go any lower so that water wouldn’t constantly be filling the sump basin and running the pump.

We dug about two feet down to prepare the crawl space for the new sump basin

The next step was to drill holes in the side of the garbage can, which would allow the water to filter into the basin from underground and start the pump before any significant water seepage into the crawl space happened.  Using a drill with a two-inch arbored hole saw drill bit, my dad drilled a series of holes into the garbage can.  Picture Charlie Brown’s Halloween Costume in “It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown,” after he says “I had a little trouble with the scissors.”  He started the holes several inches from the bottom, so that just the slightest bit of water wouldn’t be seeping in and starting up the pump, so make sure if you’re creating your own sump basin, that it fits your needs!

Once the holes were finished, it was time to wrap the basin in something so that water would be able to seep through, without allowing any sand to trickle in.  We chose a weed control fabric, similar to this one at Lowe’s, and secured it to the sump basin with stretchy plastic green ties.

The ties themselves weren’t that important; we just needed something to hold the fabric to the sump basin until we could install it in the hole we had dug and seal it up with sand, which was our next step.

Once the sump basin was in and sealed up around the outside with sand, it was time to put in the sump pump itself.  We had already unplugged the other failed sump pump (ALWAYS unplug before attempting to install anything!) and we wanted to attach the working pump to the existing piping.  The pipes that were installed with the original pump had been cemented from the outside of the house, so we weren’t able to pull them over to attach to the current pump.  Also, they are connected to my gutters (which was one of the reasons I thought the pump was originally working – water was coming out, but it was from the gutters!). 

Although I had some additional pipes from the new sump pump, we quickly learned that one was 1 1/2″ while the other was  1 1/4″.  I didn’t have a connecting piece of pipe with the two sizes, so that necessitated another quick trip to the hardware store for that.  The pipes are connected to each other and the sump pump with clamps, which keep the pipes secure while water is gushing through them - not the sort of thing you can take a shortcut with unless you want water to be unknowingly sprayed throughout your crawl space!

The fresh sand underneath these pipes is covering up the old sump pit

The next step was to test the pump to see if it would work.  We’d actually tested the pump in the garbage can before putting any holes in it, because I was concerned that without a swift on-rushing of water, the float that manages the water level and tells the pump when to turn on was rising too slowly to get the pump working.  We used a garden hose to fill up the garbage can with the pump in it, and I learned that the pump works exactly the way it’s supposed to – it’s just my nervous-ness about flooding that would encourage me to start it up before it hit the correct level. 

We repeated this process with the installed sump pump, once it had been plugged in to the underground outlet (instead of running an extension cord to my outside GFI circuit, which is what I had been doing) and the pump again performed beautifully.  The only thing left was to seal up the crawl space again and wait for the first big storm to really test it out. 

When the December flood happened, the cinder blocks holding back the earth around my crawl space had started to migrate inward, making it difficult to properly cover the crawl space. Add to that the plastic piping and electric cord from the semi-installed sump pump, and I soon had feral cats making their home under my house.  Thanks to a cat repellant and the newly fixed crawl space entrace, I can now correctly seal it up again, cat-less.

Sunday brought the first big storm and I learned that the sump pump works perfectly against flooding, well before the crawl space had flooded beyond my comfort level.  Because of where the pipes come out of the crawl space, it sounds as though someone is shuffling my outside garbage cans around, but I’m happy to put up with strange noises if it means no flooding!

The other concern we had had when installing the pump is that too much water would regularly seep into the sump, when it wasn’t raining hard, and the pump would run its motor constantly.  Fortunately, this hasn’t been the case, but if that happens to you, you can get a cinder block to raise the pump up so that the water has to reach a higher level before the pump turns itself on.