We'll see how that pans out. Erika and I stayed at my parents house over the holidays and we had some interesting weather to say the least. First, it was super cold and snowy when we arrived. Then it warmed up and started raining. Anyone who has a basement in the Chicago area knows what that means...flooding.
So the family is sitting in the dining room listening to the sump pump kick on and off when suddenly it starts making a funny noise (funny uh-oh, not funny ha-ha). So Dad trots down to the crawl space only to find the pump won't shut off when the water level is low. We messed with it for a few minutes and determined that it also wouldn't shut off when the water level is high any longer, either...unless you jar the float in some manner (we used a screwdriver). The pump would work if you simply moved the float past it's natural resting position by putting more upward or downward force on it than normal. All that was needed was a gentle lift or push with a finger.
Bear in mind, this is all figured out over 30 minutes while it continues to rain buckets and everyone else in Chicago is finding out the hard way their pump has failed. It'll be a while before the plumber arrives and neither of us feel like crouching in a crawl space poking the sump pump every minute or so to turn it on or off. Most importantly, it worked well enough to get us out of the crawl space for the three hour wait for the plumber to arrive.
The solution? Go buy a toilet bowl float and zip tie it to the sump pump float. The added weight will pull down on the float with greater than normal force and the added buoyancy will lift the float with greater than normal force.
Total cost? a few bucks for float, zip ties and a huge deck screw to plug the float hole.
Pictures to come soon.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
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