Anyone put two sump pumps in one basin?

[xzcVAbc5]

If you have the room an additional pump wouldn't hurt. A battery setup in addition is nice. The weep hole is to relieve head pressure on the line so on startup the pump is not trying to push a full column of water

Why does everyone install a check valve on the pump if the water is just going to leak back in the hole?

 

[MossRoad]

Why does everyone install a check valve on the pump if the water is just going to leak back in the hole?

Two reasons I can think of.
1. So the pump doesn't lose its prime.
2. If you have two pumps on the same discharge, one pump will push water through the pump that isn't running if it doesn't have a check valve.

 

[MossRoad]

If you buy junk, you get junk and it sounds like you bought junk and therefor your opinion of a total waste of money. If you purchase the right system for the application, it will work as intended. I'm sure your NASCAR pit stop system of flexible couplings and multiple drop-in pumps works for you, but what happens if you're not home or not awake? Obviously, you don't understand the purpose of a battery back-up sump pump. Battery back-ups are temporary solutions to temporary problems. They are not meant for long-term use, the deep cycle batteries last for 12-36 hours depending on cycle times. Standby generators are great, as long as you're home or awake when the power goes out to turn them on. Stand alone, automatic generator systems are even better as long as you can afford the upfront costs. Most people aren't home, standing over their sump pumps with a spare pump and a wrench in hand waiting for them to fail. Unfortunately, I've had more experience than I care to admit with sump pumps, battery back-ups, and basement water problems. I've had ZERO failures with a battery back-up system since installed. Just my humble opinions...

Mark

No need to be so angry over a discussion.

 

[ultrarunner]

I like redundancy... have a lot of it at the Hospital and if it were up to me alone... we would have more.

Pumps at different levels are failsafes... adding emergency power and you could be good for days or weeks.

That said... I bought a home where if the sump failed... the basement flooded badly... just didn't like being vulnerable.

Home was on a hill so if I could get to it... I did have lower elevation to make it a gravity system...

Actually trenched a deep trench... well it was deep at one end and daylight 30' away that permanently took care of the problem... cost more than buying a few pumps... it was more for peace of mind.

 

[MossRoad]

My sister got divorced and immediately bought a different, smaller house that she loved the aesthetics of.... however, she didn't go over the details before signing and later found it had three sump pumps. One runs pretty much off/on/off/on every 5 minutes 24/7. Pump #2 goes off/on about every 1/2 hour. Pump #3 was battery backup for power failures, but was only tied into pump #1 pit. So in power failure, it can't keep up in pit #1 and after about 2-3 hours, pump #2 pit overflows. The kicker is the neighborhood is sloped towards her yard and the way her yard is graded, the house is basically a dam, keeping the neighborhood from draining past it to lower ground behind her. When it rains, her front yard is a foot deep pond complete with ducks and geese. And the sump pumps drain directly back into the front yard! So all it is really doing is pumping the ground water out from her foundation and back into the pond where its coming from. She wasn't allowed to tie the pumps into the city sewers. We suggested she direct the pumps out the back of her house into a rock garden. That worked and the water now comes into her front yard, down her basement walls to the drain tiles, into the sump pits, out the sump pits and on its way out the back to continue down hill. YIKES! But her pumps no longer run continuously and her yard dries up within a day of heavy rains VS an almost permanent pond. The ducks and geese have moved on.

When she gets some money, we suggested she have 4" pipe put in a trench that goes from the low spot in the front yard, around the house and into the rock garden so most of the surface water won't soak in like it does now and just travels around her house like it should.

Drainage is a big deal. No one anticipates the 100 year rains, the debris jam or raccoon nest in the drainage pipes, etc... Gotta keep up on the routine maintenance, too.

 

[MossRoad]

I like redundancy... ....

A pair and a spare!

 

[brown40]

At work we had two pits and both were set up with two pumps for redundancy and checked & cleaned monthly. We also kept a spare to go into place when a pump failed. The weep hole is to prevent the pump from getting airbound above the impeller and unable to push the head above the check valve (can't pump air with a sump). We had backup generator power to them, but continuous power supply is needed, as well as redundancy and maintenance to ensure the pump failure doesn't occur or get discovered at the inopportune time. GFCI is an issue that pops up--no pun intended--you don't want the pump to quit, but all are within arms reach of their power sources, so... I installed them anyway, and didn't have problems. They too were on the checklist (GFCI's).

 

[BRB Hand]

Im not sure if anyone has mentioned it but with 2 pumps its a good idea to have each on a seperate circuit in the event the primary pump fails and trips a breaker.

 

[kc5dlo]

I would like to add a tip. Having a backup pump is a good idea. Setting the float switch on the second pump a little higher than the first is a good idea. The most important thing I can add is set up an alarm to go off when the second pump comes on. Just having 2 pumps gives a false sense of security. If the first pump fails and the second pump does it's job, You would never know there was a problem till the second pump fails too.

 

[mark02tj]

I don't have a sump pump, but I have seen "backup pumps" that run off the city water system if you're on city water. Rather than trying to explain it, here's a link to a company that makes them and another link to a video for another company's system.