"1. Jan 18, 12:45 pm
About three weeks ago we noticed our sump pump in the basement started
running every three minutes. We ignored it for two weeks (not very
handy or pretty much clueless about home ownership). Then we notived
water in our foundation wall in the sump pump room and finally called
rofessionals (water proofing company, plumbers). They found that the
drainage pipe (plastic 1.5 inch) that comes out of the house and the
sump pump was broken right near the foundation and there was standing
water. By putting a 5 inch 20 foot hose we diverted the water away
from the house. The pipe goes underground after it comes out of the
house but we cannot tell how far it goes underground and if it is
connected to anything else. There was an area further down in our
backyard that was soaking wet 5 days ago but it seems to have dried
now. We had the city engineer and the water department to come over
and look at it and pretty much everybody agrees that the sump pump was
just draining into the yard underground without connecting to the storm

sewer (which runs through our backyard as well).
Even though it has been almost a week since we diverted the sump pump
water away from the house our pump still runs every 10 minutes. It has

rained once in the past week and we are at a lower level than our
neighbors. We have lived in this house for four years now and never
noticed the sump pump woorking this frequently. I have talke dto
several plumbers and they are telling me to wait for the ground to thaw

(we live in Chicago) and dig the back yard and install 6 inch pipes 3
feet underground as far away from the house as possible. What I am
worrided about i sthe sump pump just dying due to the frequency it is
working at in the meantime. Does anyone have good advice on how to get

the water further away from the house (other than digging the
backyard). We have gone through our options at Menards and Home Depot
and could not find anything that works. "


If you have the water discharging from a hose that takes it 20ft from
the house and the yard isn't graded backwards toward the house, then
that should be far enough. If you want to go farther, just get a
longer hose. Don't worry about the pump
burning out from running every ten mins, that is what it is made to do.
And you don't need a 5 inch pipe, just a 1.5 or 2" line is fine. Make
sure the sump pump line has a check valve, otherwise some of the water
left in the pipe is gonna run back into the sump hole, making the pump
cycle more.

I would not follow the advice to run a discharge pipe 3 feet
underground as far as possible. The question is, to where? If you
start out 3 ft down, you have to go deeper from there. What does that
leave for an option of where to take the water? Most cases, it means
using a dry well, which IMO, is not a very practical solution.

In your case, if you can drain it into the storm drain, that would be
ideal. If not, I'd try to have it exit the house near ground level and
run it 20 ft to a lower spot where it can drain on the surface. As
long as it slopes continuously downward, the piece of pipe throught the
foundation wall slopes down slightly, and the water doesn't pool in the
yard, freezing will not be a problem.

I would also install a second pump set to trigger at a slightly higher
water level. If you have city water, you could consider getting one of
the backup pumps that works off city water, which will function if your
power goes out. Or there are battery backup solutions that will give
you coverage for intermediate length power outages.