slownsteady
Well-Known Member
Jmr: with your new-found knowledge of sump pumps, you should check in on this thread and share some of your info: http://www.houserepairtalk.com/showthread.php?t=20077
Jmr: with your new-found knowledge of sump pumps, you should check in on this thread and share some of your info: http://www.houserepairtalk.com/showthread.php?t=20077
I have a feeling you can throw a wheelbarrow full of dirt on the spot where that puddle forms and that little problem would be gone.
I am not sure we covered the question , was there at one time a septic system here. Is there a possibility that there is still a drain field that is feeding water back to the house thru the old sewer pipe?
I see you have good news on the furnace. I would look at hanging it maybe right over one of the block wall so when you are finished with filling the hole with new sump you might end up with nice clean area for someone to get to, to change filters and service the unit.
Okay, so I know for sure that I'm going to try for an external on-demand gas water heater. That gets the water heater out of the hole completely and also a new water heater, because that one down there won't last its quoted lifespan. You'll see why with the photo I took yesterday morning when I went down to look for the model on the furnace. Trying to get to the back side of the furnace, I sank into about 3 to 4 inches of mud. The water heater isn't covered in mud, but is essentially sitting on a mud/water combo. Definitely not good for it. Doesn't matter now anyway, of course.
The furnace is going to be hanged from the floor joists. I like that option better than on top of the crawlspace dirt, even if it was elevated on something like cement blocks. In the near future, I'll be checking on both of those to make sure that they are a done deal. Whatever needs to be done to make both of those happen, I'm going to do it.
My planning is now regarding what to do with the hole, which will be completely empty after those two are moved. The higher it is filled, the less water should need to be pumped out. I still need to measure the exact depth on both ends (it seems like the sump end isn't as tall or something on the back end...probably just the illusion that the washed-down dirt on the other end makes). I'd like to keep a little distance from the top of the bricks just to have a low point in the basement. We've never had any water in the actual crawlspace area, but if a freak storm every did happen that caused that, it would go into the hole and not everywhere else. That's going to be a heck of a lot of gravel. What, probably around 5 to 7 cubic meters or something like that? That's obviously going to be in the several tons of gravel estimate, I would imagine. Getting that down there should be pretty interesting. I thought about building some kind of steep wooden slide going from outside of the basement door and slanting all the way down to the sump end of the hole. Once in the basement later, I can move it over as it builds up.
A positive point is that even with a sump installed, the floor would technically be raised by about 1.5' (down to the bottom of the 18" sump basin). That's 1.5' less of a pumping head and gives another 5 gallons extra per minute even on a 1/2HP pump, so I likely wouldn't need a 3/4HP pump. Change the pipe to 2" PVC. Throw a couple of 1/2HP pumps in there with silent check valves (one as a backup that may never get used, but I'd rather have it there in case of a main pump failure) and the final thing will be battery backup. Without the 3/4HP pump being necessary after the floor is raised, the dual pumps could actually be entirely powered by the battery backup in the case that both were ever needed and the power was mysteriously out. I don't ever see that happening, but it would make me feel better.
My new questions would be:
Would dimple board along the inside of the wall still be necessary if I filled the entire hole just about to the top of the bricks with 3/4" crushed gravel? If dimple board wouldn't be needed, should I drill holes in the base of the wall or leave it as-is? The sump basin will be put into the top of the gravel when I have filled it about halfway, and then I would just fill around it. Trying to do it later would cause the gravel to keep collapsing in on itself and I'd never get the basin in. The basin would likely extend about halfway down to the floor. I would put in a basin that is wider and not as deep, but the smallest depth that they come in seems to be about 18". The hole is about 3' to the top of the bricks, so it would still need to do some pumping if the water did rise that high.
Of course, those are cinderblocks that make up the wall. They have two holes in the top of each one of them and of course go all the way down to the floor. Spiders, dirt, whatever, goes down into them. Should I go around and fill all of them with crushed gravel and smooth over the top of them with cement to seal them off? Or would that do more harm than good? Just want to make everything be a little neater and as closed-off to open water as possible.
The way the current basement door situation is, the water just runs under the basement door and along the sloped-down path until it reaches the cinderblocks. It goes flush at the top of the blocks. I presume that part of the water that runs in goes into the cinderblocks and the rest of it runs in between the holes and down the inside of the wall. So I will definitely have to figure out a way to permanently stop that from the outside.
Once everything is installed, I'm still planning on skimming over everything with the 2.5" or more of cement all across the top of the gravel. The basin would be sealed around the top edges and that would kind of hold it in place in the gravel, as well.
Probably the only thing that I'm (likely unreasonably) wondering about now is...if I fill this whole thing in, will I cause a water problem elsewhere due to pressure building up? Theoretically, the water should flow through that 3/4" gravel like it isn't there, right? So if the basin that I install is wrapped in netting (to keep out debris) and sits halfway down into the gravel with plenty of holes in the basin, it should still be able to pump out if water did come up to that point. The gravel should be fine for still allowing proper drainage and not causing pressure to build up behind the walls, right? I mean, I want it to pump less, which is why I'm raising the floor. But I also don't want it building up and spilling out elsewhere and flowing into the closed sump from above if that that makes sense. Like over the wall or something. That's kind of what scares me about having a closed sump with a proper lid and such on it, too.
Once the furnace and tank a moved you could let it flood once and see where the high water level.
I'm planning to use the gravel so that I can cement the top of it when I am done and seal the basin in so that it won't have a chance to move around much in the gravel. I doubt that it would anyway, but I'd like to have that cement barrier between. ...
I am sure you would want access to the pump and maybe the pit in general, so I'm hoping you don't mean to cement it all in. The gravel isn't going to move, so put that worry aside. BTW, makes sure you get the recommended type of gravel for drainage; there are many grades and some may pack too tight to be helpful.
If you fill the trench up to ground level, you can cover your whole crawlspace with plastic sheeting, which is recommended anyway, so your gravel bed will still be protected from debris.
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