Sump Pump is Done!

I took Friday off as a vacation day, so I had a nice 3-day weekend to work in the basement getting the sump pump plumbed in and wired. The system went together pretty well, although a few of the items were challenging since I was doing everything solo. The first thing I saw when getting back into the project was the 14" of water in the basin, resulting from the 1.5" of rain we had on Tues/Wed of last week. This means that the water table was only 12-16" below the basement floor. Seeing this only reinforced the need we have for this system. If we get drenching rains this Spring like we had in the past, this system will pay for itself the first day it kicks on.

The plumbing is all PVC, with the piping running through the ledger board and meeting up with the downspout drain we had installed when the footing drains were also done. Here's what the system looks like (inside & outside):

I was initially planning to run the piping straight out the wall, but that would have include digging a new ditch through the trees to the right, which didn't thrill me. Jason (the friend who helped dig the hole) suggested tying into the downspout drain since the PVC piping is already in place and runs to daylight out by the street. This solution took a bit more plumbing work, but it was well worth it. All it took was re-directing the downspout a bit around the other side of the wall (shown in third photo). I was also planning ahead a bit with this since the downspout would likely be in the way on the sunroom addition Beth has her eye on...(more on that later. Hopefully, much later).