yeesh yes very close call! Nice catch! +1 for Sean's idea of a thermal protected pump if that pump wasn't. Just doing a random search the depot has numerous thermal protected sump pumps.
Last time I had a pump fail. I ended up with 1" of water over my carpet in the basement. Of course I detected it at 10:00 PM and wasn't able to do anything except call the "clean up" guys out. That cost me a pretty penny. I now have moisture detectors on the floor and a spare pump in the garage. Why don't you invent something that emails people to tell them their pump is having an issue. You're a smart guy, should only take a weekend or so :-D
You are one lucky person, that could easily have been a disaster (don't even think about the chemicals). Someone was smiling down on you & you caught it in time. Do they sell pumps with thermal cutout switches....or perhaps you could you rig up an external sensor. Check fire alarms, think about moving chemicals somewhere else, maybe install some fire retardant materials over the studwork. Have a nice Christmas anyway. I've heard of underfloor heating but that was ridiculous!
Did you ever figure out what exactly happened to it? It’s a little crazy that it never drew enough current to trip the breaker but still put off that much heat. Also fortunately this is probably not relevant but many homeowners policies exclude losses due to sump pump failure so may be a good time to check whether you’re covered for that if you haven’t already.
Nope, just unplugged and left it alone. It's the one that came with the house so we will replace it with a new quality pump. Definitely weird that it never tripped. I think it probably didn't short but stayed engaged without the rotor moving. Thanks for the heads up about the insurance I'll have to look into that!
??? Do you have it on a separate breaker rated to the pump motor ? You have lot of inspecting to do so this never happens again Looks like your float switch got stuck and the unit never shut down and probably no thermal switch to over ride power.
They are pretty common where I live. Ground water can sometimes come up above the level of the basement floor so you have to pump it out. This pump *should* turn on and off automatically as the water level changes.
