Posted on 01/10/2022 6:58:15 PM PST by Mean Daddy
Looks like the Chit Chat option is gone. Recently had a sump pump installed after the pit filled with water after a heavy downpour. While I think the pump usage will be low, I'm concerned with being without power during a rainstorm (took several hours to fill pit). With a finished basement, I'd rather invest in some preventative measures.
Looked into whole house generators but you're looking at around $10-20k for the luxury of it kicking in when the power goes out.
Looked into maybe having a transfer switch installed and getting a portable generator but if I'm not home to hook it up and start it, it does me no good.
Looking into getting an inverter with a couple car/marine batteries to convert DC to AC. Looks to be the best of both worlds. Probably enough energy in the batteries to last a couple days assuming my pump run infrequently and a solution for under $1,000 for the inverter plus two batteries.
What other options should I be considering or I haven't thought about? Best thing about Freepers is a lot of us have to deal with similar questions or issues.
Get one of the boat pumps that looks like a bicycle pump, and attach a hose that will reach outside from the lowest area of the basement (where water would gather in the event power fails and the sump pump doesn’t work).
I use a shop vacuum, but it requires electricity.
I ended up going with the marine battery option as well as a secondary sump pump (in case one of them failed). I never had aa problem with that basement flooding again.
I had this setup but with one marine battery and a trickle charger. The only difference is I had a DC pump so didn't need the inverter, just a transformer for the AC.
It worked great.
Lots of battery backup sump pump systems at Home Depot. Most of them include a new pump. I don’t know how powerful your current one is. You could get a complete 1/2 HP system for under $500 easily.
https://www.homedepot.com/b/Plumbing-Water-Pumps-Sump-Pump-Backup-Batteries/N-5yc1vZbqp7
I put in a battery powered backup sump pump that also issues an alert if triggered. Commercially available and good insurance.
My backup sump pump is water powered. It connects to the house water line. It uses about 1 gallon of water to pump 2 gallons from the crock. No backup battery to worry about with long power outages.
If you have city water and not a pump you could look into Water Powered Backup Sump Pump.
The battery backup plan is good, but you need to think about if you are away for an extended period and the batteries go dead. Maybe there’s a low probability of this happening, but it isn’t zero.
Could you have spare batteries on a trickle charger and on an A/B switch, then train a friendly neighbor to throw the switch?
We just put in a whole-house generator with an automatic transfer switch and some load shed modules. We don’t have a basement, so the flooding problem doesn’t exist. But I don’t want the house to freeze up if we are away for a few weeks in the winter. I also don’t want everything going dark and cold when we have family in for the Thanksgiving to Christmas period. It was expensive, but our area gets extended outages (7 - 10 days) every few years, always in the winter. I expect those will stop now that we’ve invested in the backup system!
Get a few marine/truck batteries, a charger, and a DC sump pump. Install the pump so it’s float is a little higher than your AC pump’s float. It will only come on if the A.C. fails.
A 12V backup system is worthwhile in case of pump failure though the battery won’t last long nor will the pump be high volume in case of big rain.
A smallish generator will keep your 120V pump system running for quite a while and you can rotate the power to other systems like fridge, TV’s or window A/C units if the rains let up.
Don’t run it indoors!
Pretty simple, not expensive. Don't know how long it lasts.
Why go AC/DC? This isn’t an Ivy League swimming pool. Just hook a car battery up to a nice 500gph bilge pump on a float switch (RULE makes a very reliable assortment - be sure to buy the separate float switch, not the integrated every-three-minutes kind,) and you’re good to go. Keep that battery charged with a little maintainer/trickle charger. The whole setup can sit right on a two-by-four, weighed down by the battery. As Kenny Bunk would say, Bob’s your uncle, Fanny’s your aunt.
Check the water pump options at Lehman’s: https://www.lehmans.com/category/shallow-well-pumps
Or off-grid electric well pumps at places like https://www.rpssolarpumps.com/
I’m sure one of them will have something that suits your situation.
around $5000.00 would solve your problem forever:
8 - 6 volt 240 AH Batteries from Costco, $100 each
8-12 24 volt Solar Panels USED $100 each Craigs List
1 Magnum MS4024PAE 240 Volt 40 Amp Grid Tie Inverter, $2500
1 MPPT Solar Charge Controller $200 on Ebay
some wiring,connectors,boxes,... $300
the prices I listed are from a while back, with Brandon in charge probably add 25%, but not only will this run your pump whenever you need it, it will keep a Full Size fridge and a full size freezer and lights on FOREVER!!
This is my Well Setup and it has worked flawlessly for 10 years
I was aiming for a cheap fix (about $25), and don’t expect much solar power when we have events that knock out the power grid.
Funny, this was My cheap Fix, about $100K plus to get power to my well
Because we have a lot of homes in the northeast heated with oil, people have described generators that connect directly to your tank (which would last much longer than the gas-powered ones; no standing on line with gas cans when you have hundreds of gallons of oil in the tank).
Never looked into them because the area is so dense they can’t leave the power out for very long, and I have plenty of people in other areas we could stay with if needed.
My house sits at the bottom of a hill and I think it’s on a spring as well so my pumps are very active. I had my plumber install pumps with the AC charged battery back ups. I learned my lesson when we had a real nasty storm that knocked out the power for about twelve hours. We bailed just short of 500 gallons of water out of our two pits in that time frame. We kept track of the number of 5 gallon buckets that we dumped in the shower drain. That was a Friday night and the pumps were installed the following Tuesday.
That was the night that Offutt AFB got hit by a tornado that did about $30 million in damage to two of the E-4 planes that are based there. The base is about 13 miles straight east of my house. My neighbors and I were standing outside having a beer and saw this nasty looking greenish black cloud come blowing fast over the neighborhood and it was rotating fast. My neighbor said “looks like Bellevue (where Offutt is located) is going to get hit”. And it sure enough did.
My MIL has that setup. You just need to swap out the battery every half a dozen years or so. I’ve done it a couple times over there.
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