Sump pump installation, replacement and repair
Middlesex Waterproofing installs new sump pits, replaces worn pumps, repairs the ones worth saving and adds battery backup.
A sump pump is the last line between groundwater and your floor. The night it fails is usually the night it was needed most.
Signs a pump is on its way out
Pumps rarely quit without warning. Listen to it during the next storm. A pump that hums but moves no water, runs in short bursts every minute, or keeps running after the pit is empty is telling you something.
Look in the pit too. Rust, a float that sticks against the basin, or water standing higher than it used to all mean it is time for a check.
What we listen and look for
- Humming, no flow
- Jammed impeller or a failed motor
- Short cycling
- Switch set too tight, or a check valve letting water fall back
- Never shuts off
- Stuck float, or more water than the pump can move
- Never turns on
- Dead switch, tripped circuit or a burned-out motor
Repair or replace: how we decide
Some visits end with a new switch or check valve and nothing else. If the motor is sound and the problem is a part, a repair makes sense. If the pump is old, has burned out once already, or cannot keep up with what the pit collects, replacing it is the better spend.
We also look past the pump: the basin, the check valve, the discharge pipe and the outlet it plugs into. A new pump on a cracked basin or a clogged line will not last.
Digging a new pit in an existing slab
Plenty of older basements never had a pit. We pick the spot where water collects or where interior drain tile will meet, cut the slab, dig below the floor and set a lined basin in stone. The pump, check valve and discharge pipe go in, and the floor is patched around a sealed lid.
A sealed lid keeps debris out of the pit and damp air in it.
A new pit
- Location
- The low corner, or where the drain tile ends
- Basin
- Perforated liner set in washed stone
- Pump
- Submersible, sized to the water it will see
- Lid
- Sealed, with openings for pipe and cord
Battery backup for storm nights
A plug-in pump is only as reliable as the power. A battery backup pump sits in the same pit, a little higher, and takes over when the main pump loses power or cannot keep up. An alarm tells you it has been working.
HUD counts Middlesex among the counties most impacted by Ida, and the state's recovery reports say it damaged already deteriorating sewage and stormwater networks. When the system outside is overwhelmed, the pump in your basement has to carry the load.
Backup setup
- Second pump
- Mounted above the main pump in the same pit
- Battery
- Sealed, in a case beside the pit, on a charger
- Alarm
- Sounds when the backup runs or the battery is low
Where the discharge line goes
The water has to leave for good. We run the discharge out of the house and end it where the ground slopes away, so it does not soak back down to the wall and cycle through the pump again. We do not tie it into a floor drain or laundry sink: groundwater does not belong in the house sewer.
Lines that run outside can freeze in a cold snap, so we keep the outside run short and sloped to drain. If a job needs a permit, we pull it.
Pumps in nearby towns
Home base is Sayreville, where the National Weather Service lists Victory Plaza, at Route 9 and Route 35, among the places tidal flooding begins. In Metuchen, borough officials said many homeowners were pumping water and sewage out of their basements after Ida. In Hazlet, police answered more than 50 calls for help in one night of that storm.