On Sun, 21 Mar 2010 17:45:50 -0400, willshak
wrote:

mm wrote the following:
On Sun, 21 Mar 2010 17:12:42 -0400, "h"
wrote:


"dean" wrote in message
...

Hello all,

Is it better to set the drain of a whole-house water filter (which
does its backwash every 3 days or so) to empty into a sump, or to
bypass it? What I'm asking is whether its good to keep a sump pump
exercised


Someone said these two aren't the same thing. ??


I did. I have a whole house filter but not a sump pump.
A whole house filter filters (strains) the domestic water coming into
the house due to a high ground water table.
In the OPs case the filter cleans it self and has to dump the dirty
water somewhere to be pumped out of the house, i.e. the sump pump.

Thanks. That explains it.

I appreciate your second one too. Thanks a lot.


- otherwise it might not be used more than a few times a

year and could just dry up and stop working when its needed.

The sump pump has a diaphragm pressure switch, rather than a float, if
that makes a difference.


I don't know if they "need" to be exercised, but in my
stacked-stone-foundation-dirt-floor-basement it gets used every time it
rains. Even in the winter it goes on whenever the temperature hits 33
degrees or the sun melts the frozen crust of ice around the edge of the
house. Maybe it's the use it gets, I don't know, but it's the same cheapo
float sump pump that I bought when I first moved into the house 25 years
ago.


My sump pump wore out after 15 years, but only because the metal pipe
rusted out at the water line. Everythign else worked. The new one has
a plastic pipe.