EXT wrote:

It sounds like the pump is doing what it is supposed to do, remove
water above its level, which keeps the foundation dry.

Actually it's to prevent rain water from going right under the garage door
which is at the end of a driveway pitched towards the garage. Whether it
was always that way or the garage has settled over the years (old house) I
don't know. But given enough heavy rain the garage is in danger of becoming
an aquarium. There is a grated drain right across the driveway to catch the
water and send it to the enclosed pump which sits a pit. The pit is a
concrete box so the pump doesn't have to drain ground water from the clay
soil for days after a rain. I dug a trench beside the driveway pitched away
from the garage and turned it into a French drain, the rain spirits merely
found that amusing.

If you have
that much water coming through the "pinhole", you must have very high
ground water. It is better to remove it than have it sit that close
to the house/garage.

The whole neighborhood has poor drainage due to the soil, sump pumps
everywhere, so merely moving water further from the garage accomplishes
little. When it rains really hard or for several days in a row there is
standing water everywhere. All people can do is pump it to the gutter so it
heads to the street drains. Not an ideal solution but it beats needing a
rubber raft to get out to the garage.

Most sump pits have openings in the sides/bottom to allow water to
enter. I doubt that you can stop the flow, certainly not with
something painted on the inside.

It's a *really* tiny hole, roofing cement might do it. But as I said, this
isn't to protect the foundation but rather to keep water right out of the
building.

"DGDevin" wrote in message
...
There is a small concrete pit right outside our garage containing a
sump pump that keeps our garage dry in the winter. There is a
pinhole leak in one corner, the tiny stream of water that comes in
this hole after a heavy rain eventually fills the pit which in
theory is supposed to stay dry while the drain channel in the
driveway feeds the pump which is enclosed in it's own plastic
container. The problem is that long after it stops raining this
leak results in the sump pump trying to drain all the ground water
above the level of the leak. I'm looking for recommendations of
products to apply to the concrete in that corner which will seal the
leak, I've heard of paint-on products. Or do I have to bite bullet
and slap some hydraulic concrete all up that corner to have a
realistic chance of sealing the leak?