As I mentioned a few days ago in twitter, the outflow pipe of our sump pump froze.

I had gone down stairs to get something from the utility room and found that the sump pump was running … and didn’t stop.  The pump sounded OK, but no water was draining from the pit.  I turned the power to the pump off and triggered the backup pump … which ran but didn’t remove any water.   This meant that the pumps themselves weren’t the problem.  I went outside and discovered that the outflow pipe was frozen solid.  Clearly not a good situation.

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Considering the weather today, it seems to be a fine time to test the Aquanot backup sump pump.

It’s taking quite a while for the water level to go high enough in the pit. I’m a bit worried that the float on the pump is too high.

Problem here is that once the water goes over the input from the drain tiles, the flow slows down.

Of course, I suspect the fact that the ejector pit is taking on ground water isn’t helping this test. Yet another item to be added to the repair list. This one, however, is pretty pricy … As the utility room floor will have to be broken up in order to put a new pit liner in.

<time passes>

Well, the sump pump never did turn on. Rather frustrating. I did a bit more research and figured out that the float was not set right. It needs to have some play so it will turn the pump on and settle a bit before turning the pump off. Unfortunately, the primary pump interferes with the floats range of motion.

I’ll gave to call Permaseal about getting it reconfigured so it works properly.  Having a emergency backup sump pump doesn’t help if it doesn’t turn on in an emergency.