Over the last several years (first significant occurrence with during a hurricane in August 2020) the window wells for the small half windows in my basement have been filling up with very heavy rain or several days of moderate rain. Now that I know about it, I've been keeping an eye on it and bucketing water out of the wells to keep it from coming into the basement. If it reaches the window it will start to come in.
Currently I have an outdoor fountain pump in each window well. They're 300GPH and auto off with low water level, so they're kind of acting like a sump pump. They're quite impressive for their size and were only $50 at Lowe's. They worked great the other week when we got a good 3 inches of rain. We'll see how they did when I get home from work today because it rained pretty good yesterday and it's been raining all day, so I anticipate they had to work today, I don't think they did yesterday.
I know the drainage system in the wells are shot, can't begin to imagine what it would cost to fix "properly." While I like what I have, I want to build something more reliable and something that will work when the power is out. Been looking into sump pumps with battery backup. Would need to run an exterior outlet to the area (fortunately only about 12ft from the panel) and plumb a nice looking drainage system for the pumps.
Couple choices that I'm seeing are the all in one sump pump with emergency as one unit or using a UPS type setup. CyberPower does market a UPS for sump pumps now. The catch to that side would be building a box to house the electronics with some ventilation and such to keep temps from going crazy. I could stick with what I have and go with the UPS option on these little pumps (only draw 1/2A) but I know I'm using them outside their intended purpose. I'd like something more built for the purpose when it comes to protecting my house.
Anyone have to do this? Additional thoughts to consider?
Currently I have an outdoor fountain pump in each window well. They're 300GPH and auto off with low water level, so they're kind of acting like a sump pump. They're quite impressive for their size and were only $50 at Lowe's. They worked great the other week when we got a good 3 inches of rain. We'll see how they did when I get home from work today because it rained pretty good yesterday and it's been raining all day, so I anticipate they had to work today, I don't think they did yesterday.
I know the drainage system in the wells are shot, can't begin to imagine what it would cost to fix "properly." While I like what I have, I want to build something more reliable and something that will work when the power is out. Been looking into sump pumps with battery backup. Would need to run an exterior outlet to the area (fortunately only about 12ft from the panel) and plumb a nice looking drainage system for the pumps.
Couple choices that I'm seeing are the all in one sump pump with emergency as one unit or using a UPS type setup. CyberPower does market a UPS for sump pumps now. The catch to that side would be building a box to house the electronics with some ventilation and such to keep temps from going crazy. I could stick with what I have and go with the UPS option on these little pumps (only draw 1/2A) but I know I'm using them outside their intended purpose. I'd like something more built for the purpose when it comes to protecting my house.
Anyone have to do this? Additional thoughts to consider?