On Sep 27, 8:24 pm, Big_Jake wrote:
On Sep 27, 7:59 pm, wrote:

I'm about to finish my basement and wanted to test the sump pump, but
the cover is sealed with silicone caulk for radon mitigation (there's
a radon pipe coming out of the pit). So my question is that if the
pit is sealed, then if the basement flooded, how would the water get
into the pit for the sump-pump to activate? Would I need to manually
break the seal and open the lid? If I'm out of town when this
happens, am I just screwed? I thought maybe there was a gap between
walls and floor as had been suggested, but it's sealed with the same
caulk as the pit lid. Has anyone seen this before? Am I just missing
something? I've never had water in the basement, but want to be safe
rather than sorry. Thanks

The purpose of the sump pump isn't to pump water out of the basement
if it fills up with water. It's purpose is to collect water from the
drain tile and pump it out of the house. If you took the cover off,
you would see the drains running into the sump crock.

JK

in other words the sump fills with water from UNDER the floor so it
still works with the cover in place...

is the radon pipe you mentioned hooked to a ventilator. If the pipe
is pulling air in from the sump, then the seal is not very critical,
even if the seal is broken there will be a negaive pressure in the pit
due to the ventilator and it will pull air...

but you want to keep it resonably well sealed so that it pulls most of
the air from underneath the floor, but if it pulls a little through
the seal, its not a real problem..

You should manually run the sump pump for a few seconds every few
months so that the bearings do not seize up...

Mark