Installing A Sump Pump – Part 2

Friday I was able to break through the second concrete slab and dig out the hole. It was tough breaking through concrete while alreay in a hole, there isn’t much room to swing a hammer. It was even tougher digging down the 22 inches we needed to get to due to all the rain making the hole mud. Mud is not fun to dig unless you are a kid with a Tonka truck messing up your good clothes.

It rained all weekend and we didn’t purchase the basin until today, so there was nothing we were able to do all weekend except watch the water level rise in the hole. Tonight my father purchased the basin, cover, and rocks to refill the hole. By the time I got home from work he had the basin fitted in the hole and was starting to fill it with the rocks. I helped fill in the hole and then we mixed some concrete patch to finish it off. We used Sakrete Fast Setting Cement Patcher for this job, sets in only 20 minutes. Smoothed it over and looks like we drilled a nice smooth hole in the ground.

Unfortunately the sump pump was previously used and the label is corroded so I don’t have a manufacturer or model number to look up and tell you about. I do know that we tested it and it can empty a 5 gallon pail of water in roughly 2-3 seconds. The sump pump does have a check valve to stop the water from flowing back into the hole when the pump turns off. It also has a float so it will automatically turn on and off. It isn’t a manual on/off model like a smaller one we also have.

Now we just wait for the cement patch to fully harden and figure out where and how we are going to run the drain pipe. We have a few ideas and started to think it over today. Not sure exactly when we will start on that part of the project.