tjc50
New Member
Lived in this house for 2.5 years and taking care of small fixes/updates one at a time. When we bought this place the existing old sump pump took a dump so I replaced it with a zoeller n53 hydrocheck electronic float switch and an aquanot 5x5 battery backup. Now previous owner had the float switch to kick on around 3-5" below the bottom of the 4" slab floor. This position normally would sit about .5-1" above the 4" perimeter tile or footer tile. When I replwced everything I set the switch to come on right below the perimeter tile inlet. Witht the new setup my pump activates every 30-60 minutes depending on weather and water table. Sometimes it will pump every 10 minutes but usually every 45 minutes. We have a high water table and clay soil. I recently dug a trench and plumbed my pump discharge to my pond which I used 4" pvc sloped about 1" per 2-3 ft for a 20 ft run into my pond outfront. Now I started researching on wether or not to allow the perimeter footer drain to remain submerged or not to. When I set the float switch to kick on like the previous owner had it (above drain tile 3-5" below bottom of slab floor) the pump will only run about once or twice a day. I think when the ground dries up soon it will hardly pump at all. The problem is the footer tile will remain full of water. We have never had water in the basement except when a power outage happened. So whats the opinion here allow footer tile to remain full and hardly activate the pump? Or pump before it reaches the inlet and pump it every 10-60 minutes 24/7. I reqlly dont like the pump being on in short 10-20 second bursts all of the time. It's nice to see it pump a solid minute only a couple times of day while it empties the pit plus the tile. One other issue is the zoeller pumps my pit and tile to fast and the pump shuts off while the rest of the tile is draininf into the pit and immedietly fills it back up. It would be nice to slow the pump down and have it fully empty the drainage tile to slow the overall fill rate. I was actually thinking of installing a ball valve to slow the pumping rate down on the primary pump to do this. I know it will add some stress to the pump itself . Hopefully this wall of madness comes out somewhat clear and I apologize for being all over the place thanks