never ever put boxes or papers directly on the basement floor, even with a small amount of water they will wick it up and get ruined, use a pallet, 2x4s, even plastic containers, anything to keep it off the basement floor!
Found that out the hard way 5 springs ago. Found a pallet that was trimmed neat as you please so it only had two runners instead of 3 and tucked it in my shed under the bench for some boxes there.
This goes.for anywhere. I lost a bunch of stuff in my storage unit due to hurricane flooding, but sadly there was only an 6 inches of water in there. Some cinder blocks would have made the difference
It's likely one of them failed long ago and no one bothered to check. Then, the other one failed with no backup. The backup failed likely due to lack of use, thus rusted in place.
And a real sump pit tank, not a shallow make shift diy green tote. Basement will always be damp with water level just under the foor. Also the piping/path to the exit should be majorly shortened, as that will reek havic on any pump.
@@PSB-900 I have a 35 year old 3-D Maglite that I put in an LED upgrade about 7 years ago, still working great. Much brighter and a lot better battery life.
I keep telling my kids that houses need maintenance, especially the plumbing and drains. You have to be proactive. Thank you for the excellent content, I first started watching to listen to your accent (born/bred Worcester but in Canada last 20yrs).
Main pump died and no one noticed. Eventually backup pump died or it rusted solid over time from never being activated. Always active - exercise standby pumps.
Nice to see some old fashioned plumbing. At work my 2 pumps are connected to a device timer type thing. Every 30 days it switches one pump to be main and other one back up. So in a years time they are somewhat used 50% each. Thanks Steven!
@@roseymalino9855 No that is where the "Somewhat" comes into play. One pump is not continuously carrying the load while other pump sits and does nothing all year.
Great idea / work around, to drill that little hole in the Pipework to allow the Pump to have water on start up and into the future, clearly doing away with a possibility of Airlock and by so lack of PRIME...Great Upload...
Gotta love sump pumps my parents basement would flood from time to time until we had a plumber replace tile out in the yard the knuckle head who installed the tile didn't lay down sand first and the tile cracked and wasn't working properly. I worked nights 12 hour shifts 5p.m. to 5a.m and had to help my dad pump all the water out of the basement got no sleep and had to work the next night it sucked. Thankfully my house is a 120 years old no sump pump needed and it never floods live on top of a hill so the water drains away from my house.
Reinstalling with a system prone to the same failures suggests the owners won't change their failed systems of testing these pumps (if there ever was one). Would have been a good time to fit a monitoring system/alarm, but the incandescent lamp in your torch says it all.
If the backup pump is submerged in water and never used, won't it sieze and probably fail before the primary? Should the backup be placed above the primary float to keep it out of the water?
Zoeller still makes a great pump,its too bad theor switches suck! We had so many switch failures,that we stopped using them! We literally had hundreds,of not thousands of them!
Most likely the backup pump never worked because it sat under water for a long time and it seized up from rust. It’s important to exercise standby pumps from time to time to prevent this.
Since they are both at different heights. My theory is the original deeper one had failed know one knew it and then the backup failed causing the flood. No one ever periodically checked on them to make sure they were working. What they should have had was a water powered backup. If they were on city water. This would never had happened. Steve great job
Have had good luck with Little Giant brand sump pump... never failed, I change out with new one about every 7 years even if still working, then keep one as backup..... maybe I should put 2 in the hole like in this video
Spent 50 enjoyable years as an electrician. Wired up a few medical centers for general contractors without any problems but the approximately combined dozen dentists & doctors that I did work for were the biggest lying POS to get paid from. Would not ask for a deposit even if I had to purchase 3 to 800 dollars in material but to!d them that I wanted to get paid in full promptly. Last dentist that I did work for took 6 months to pay me. Liar said he never received a bill so told him that he should talk to his office manager because after I dropped off the third bill after 5 months had her initial a copy of the hand delivered bill .Last few years before I retired I had more work then I could handle and refused to ever do any more work for these scum bags but did promise them that I would be out promptly and never show up or answer their phone calls. Have ran power for this style of pumps. Would always run two circuits if neither had a battery back up. Placed one pump on one side of the panel and second breaker on other side that way in the event house only lost halve of the,120/ 240 volt service one pump would still have power.
Wow, what a friggin dungeon, dark and full of crap. I would not want to have any dental work done there especially the organization of that basement just turns me off.
This does not look like a proper sump crock either. It looks like someone took a recycle bin box and threw it in there. A proper crock is about 3 feet deep and round. This is only about half that deep. It has a significant lip on it too which it should not have or it will not drain all the water from the floor.
Likely had one one pump fail sometime ago and didnt know it...then the other one stopped working...flood. People dont test their sump pumps on a regular basis. This most likely wouldn't have happened. Two pumps dont go out at the exact same time unless hooked into the same electrical outlet and lost power for whatever reason.
Where it's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew. Where the dangers are many and the pleasures are few. Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines. It's dark as a dungeon at the dentist's gold mine.
The switches on those Zoeller pumps SUCK! The pumps are great but the switches are unreliable and break often. I’ve got 3 Zoellers at work that are only a couple years old with bad switches. I bought 5 spare switches to fix them but I’d never put one in my basement because I don’t trust the cheap plastic switch inside the cover.
Here is the problem with 2 pumps one higher than the other one. Since the higher one doesn't run it will seize up. Then when the lower pump quits the upper pump that should take over cant because its sized. Seen this many many times. Also if it does take over you dont know that the higer pump is the only working pump. Then if that one did manage to take over it dies and you are flooded. The best thing is a dual pump set up with both pumps at the same level. They alternate every other cycle. If for example pump 2 does not run when it should and the water level rises your control will now command the other pump on so both should be energized. The system will then pump you down and alert you something isnt right. Then if they both fail you have a third level that triggers an alarm. The control is not hard to build yourself and is not all that expensive.
My 2 pumps are on separate circuits, pits joined by connecting pipe, one slightly deeper. Heat tracing on exit pipe, inside a 4 inch corrugated line, 120 feet to ditch. After one failure a decade back, now has a Generac backup. Many neighbors have had floods. 🇨🇦
A water alarm should have been installed. Should be put in so it goes off when the water is higher than the lower pump, but lower than the high pump. This would tell you the first one is failing and the backup is being used. Then you would fix the lower pump before the backup gives out.
What a mess! With all that trash floating around, the pump can easily suck up a piece of plastic (or a mouse 😵) and jam the impeller. Happened to me with the tail end of a tie wrap. - Happy New Year everyone!
I once wired a house that had so much water in the ground I had to put 1 on both rear corners of the house and 1 in the same areas outside of the house. One was constantly running so much had to run direct to the storm drain ot the street
Sucks for the guy. We've got a guy (I met him once in his ice house-nice guy) on the lake, his ice house goes down through the ice, a bit further everyday (warm winter). sucks for him. Neighbor on road says it's 20 feet there. I thought more like 8'. Yeah right, Yeeha! I put in a Zoelher 1/3 hp septic tank pump in, via your videos.
