wrote in message
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Our basement flooded with about 1" of water in the unfinished area
(concrete) and most of the carpeted area wet. This was after a lot of
rain and melting snow in the last few days in Detroit. Turned out the
breaker on the sump pump outlet had tripped and caused it to stop
pumping. I want to know some reasons why the breaker tripped so I can
prevent this from happening again. Is it just because the pump was
running a lot due to large volume of water, is it due to a failing
pump, could there possibly be a short, or what else can trip a
breaker? I did notice some pebbles getting stuck in the pump's inlet
area. Don't know if they can get sucked into the pump and cause the
motor to draw too much current or is there some sort of screen which
keeps large debris out?? The pump and switch are both functioning with
the breaker reseted.

The pump is about 8 years old Hydromatic with a diaphragm switch
(piggyback electrical plug style). The switch broke in December so I
replaced it with a float style from Lowes (also piggyback electrical
plug style). I would imagine the float switch is pretty simple and not
much can go wrong with it. Any suggestions would be appreciated.


I had a customer once who had a circuit breaker repeatedly trip several
minutes after resetting it. It shut off some lights in her basement. I saw
her sump pump plugged into an outlet and unplugged it. That solved the
problem. She had the pump replaced and it has been fine since.

In addition to the reasons that you suggested, the breaker could have
tripped because of a loose connection at the breaker. The breaker may have
weakened with age. Maybe the circuit isn't big enough for the size pump
that you have. Is the pump on a dedicated circuit?