On 21 Mar 2007 12:32:40 -0700, wrote:

OK, I think something is wrong with the way my sump drains and I'm
looking for confirmation and ideas on how to fix it.

So my pump is mounted at the bottom of the well, with the float
triggering before the waterline gets up to the pipes from which the
drain tiles drain into the well. (all seems correct there so far).
My problem is that, as soon as the pump triggers and drains the well,
I see maybe 50% of that amount of water drain immediately back thru
the tiles (NOT back down the ejection pipe). This is not normal, is
it?

My first assumption is that the drainage pipe is broken and maybe most
of the water is leaking back into the foundation. But how would it
make it so quickly from the pipe back into the drain tiles and into
the well? I'm talking maybe a second or so delay between the ejection
starting and the water flowing back in the well thru the drainage
pipes. It doesn't make sense to me, so I must be missing something.

I've been trying to figure out why only a second or two after I drink
some water, I have to pee. Doesn't it hsve to go into the blood
stream and then the kidneys and bladder first?

Actually I'm not positive what is happening at your house, but I think
the same principle applies. If your sump is filling, there's water in
the dirt. More water falls on top and pushes the water at the bottom
of the dirt out, into the sump.

It's sort of like the speed of electricity, which is the speed of
light. (or the speed of light through copper, whatever that means)

I used to ask myself, are there electrons racing through the wire at
the speed of light? Seemed hard to believe. But what it is is the
impulse. If you apply a voltage at one end of the wire, the voltage
reaches the other end at the speed of light. But none of the
electrons move more than a teeny bit. But while one is moving, they
all are.

Or imagine a bunch of marbles, in a channel so they don't move out of
a straight line. Say the channel is a mile long, and it's full of
marbles, and they are all touching the ones next to them. If you push
the marble at one end, the marble at the other end, a mile away, moves
immediately, or almost so. EVen though each marble isn't moving very
fast or very far.

At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I know everyone's first suggestion would be - check the drainage to
ensure the pipe is intact. I'd LOVE to, trust me. Problem is that
its under my deck, which is too low to be accesable. Peeking under
there, I can see the pipe come out of the house and to into a 5 or 6"
diameter pipe going vertically into the ground about 2 feet from the
house. My assumption is that it goes to a drain tile or some farther
place in the yard from there, but I have no way to confirm this.

So my questions are - what is likely causing the water to rush back in
so quickly thru the tiles, is that unusual / a concern, and how should

If it gets too bad, I guess your sump pump won't work at all, even
though it will seem to be working.

I go about fixing it if required?

Any input would be appreciated. This thing is making me super
nervous, though we've yet to have a flood in the year we've lived in
this 28 year-old house.

This may nevef happen to you,but my pipe isn't leaking and it happened
to me. I lived here for 22 years, and one time it rained so much that
the sump overflowed, even the pump was going full blast. Even though
part way into it I was there watching, there was almost nothing I
could do. I didn't have a way to pump any more water. I couldn't
stop it with my hands. I just noted that it had almost stopped
raining, and it couldn't keep going too long after that.

(I could have plugged in the wet-dry vac and start vacuuming, but I
get lethargic in this kind of crisis. And the water had stopped
advancing, so I figured that everything that would get wet, had gotten
wet already.)

Jeff