Thank you in advance for reading. I've had a rough time the past few months as my sump pump used to be connected to a sanitary line leaving my house but had to be rerouted when I had a plumbing issue occur and it needed to be brought up to code. I'll do my best to describe the new route (picture included). It goes up 7' to a 90 degree angle where it's tied to the floor joists. It travels approximately 35' then takes a 90 degree turn up and to the right. After a foot, it levels out and exits the house after a 45 degree connection. This new line has caused numerous problems.
First, the plumber routed it to a discharge line outside that ends with a bubbler that floods my yard and sidewalk.
Second, my pump runs constantly (every 2-4 minutes now that spring is here and up to every 45 seconds when it's raining).
Third, it is incredibly noisy. I replaced the check valve to a Zoeller quiet valve two months ago and it can only open about half way when the pump runs. I'm assuming it's because the line is so long and it basically has over 35' of water sitting on top of it. Every time it goes off it struggles to open and vibrates so loud that the floor actually rumbles upstairs. Also, it makes the classic banging sound (water hammer) every time the pump stops. As I mentioned, the valve is only two months old and it's already doing this. Finally, the line goes under my kid's bedrooms, so it's constantly splashing loudly. This is incredibly noticeable in the bedroom where the discharge line goes up and turns right to exit the house.
Luckily, because of the flooding in the yard, the city has approved for me to have the line tied to the dual storm / sanitary line that runs along my street. I'm hoping that will take care of some of the frequency issues because the water won't be recycling as much from my yard and back down to my basement. I am going to have that project done soon, but I had a few other thoughts on how I could reduce the frequency and noise. Please let me know if these are good ideas or not.
1. Raising the Pump: I was going to put some blocks down in the base of my pit (it's about 3' deep right now). I was hoping to raise the pump so that the float would go off when it was about an inch above the bottom of my drains. This way the drains would have to fill up about an inch before triggering the pump. I thought this would cut down the amount of times it would run each day.
2. Pitch: In order to relieve the check valve, should I pitch the line slightly so that all 35' of water doesn't come crashing back down on the valve? (The water would remain in the horizontal run) Or would that make things worse when the pump goes off and the new water smashes into the old water waiting in the pitched 35' run? I also thought about running the vertical run up into the floor joist on a 45 degree angle and then bringing it back down to another 45 degree angle before the long run. Again, this would prevent all of that water weight from coming back onto the check valve.
3. Second Check Valve: I also thought about placing a second check valve at the beginning of the horizontal run for the same reason -- to stop the water from coming back down on to the check valve on the vertical run. Or is this not a typical solution?
4. Hanging the Pipe: Currently, the plumber used J-hooks to strap the PVC to the joists. Should I used the hanging straps instead so the pipe is not touching the floor joists? Would this reduce the vibrations and noise?
I'm sorry about the long description. I hate to complain, but our new set up is awful and the noise is so ridiculous that something needs to be done. Any thoughts on my ideas would help. Thank you so much.
First, the plumber routed it to a discharge line outside that ends with a bubbler that floods my yard and sidewalk.
Second, my pump runs constantly (every 2-4 minutes now that spring is here and up to every 45 seconds when it's raining).
Third, it is incredibly noisy. I replaced the check valve to a Zoeller quiet valve two months ago and it can only open about half way when the pump runs. I'm assuming it's because the line is so long and it basically has over 35' of water sitting on top of it. Every time it goes off it struggles to open and vibrates so loud that the floor actually rumbles upstairs. Also, it makes the classic banging sound (water hammer) every time the pump stops. As I mentioned, the valve is only two months old and it's already doing this. Finally, the line goes under my kid's bedrooms, so it's constantly splashing loudly. This is incredibly noticeable in the bedroom where the discharge line goes up and turns right to exit the house.
Luckily, because of the flooding in the yard, the city has approved for me to have the line tied to the dual storm / sanitary line that runs along my street. I'm hoping that will take care of some of the frequency issues because the water won't be recycling as much from my yard and back down to my basement. I am going to have that project done soon, but I had a few other thoughts on how I could reduce the frequency and noise. Please let me know if these are good ideas or not.
1. Raising the Pump: I was going to put some blocks down in the base of my pit (it's about 3' deep right now). I was hoping to raise the pump so that the float would go off when it was about an inch above the bottom of my drains. This way the drains would have to fill up about an inch before triggering the pump. I thought this would cut down the amount of times it would run each day.
2. Pitch: In order to relieve the check valve, should I pitch the line slightly so that all 35' of water doesn't come crashing back down on the valve? (The water would remain in the horizontal run) Or would that make things worse when the pump goes off and the new water smashes into the old water waiting in the pitched 35' run? I also thought about running the vertical run up into the floor joist on a 45 degree angle and then bringing it back down to another 45 degree angle before the long run. Again, this would prevent all of that water weight from coming back onto the check valve.
3. Second Check Valve: I also thought about placing a second check valve at the beginning of the horizontal run for the same reason -- to stop the water from coming back down on to the check valve on the vertical run. Or is this not a typical solution?
4. Hanging the Pipe: Currently, the plumber used J-hooks to strap the PVC to the joists. Should I used the hanging straps instead so the pipe is not touching the floor joists? Would this reduce the vibrations and noise?
I'm sorry about the long description. I hate to complain, but our new set up is awful and the noise is so ridiculous that something needs to be done. Any thoughts on my ideas would help. Thank you so much.
