On 10/04/2018 00:03, Johnny B Good wrote:
On Mon, 09 Apr 2018 20:49:34 +0100, newshound wrote:

On 09/04/2018 19:13, Johnny B Good wrote:
On Sunday afternoon, when looking in our basement for some (250mL)
15W-40 engine oil to prep up a 1K2W inverter genset I'd bought from our
local Lidl for 99 quid a couple of hours earlier, I discovered the coal
hole section had become somewhat flooded and threatening to flood the
main part of the basement.

snipped

[1] Although I'm rather loath to dig out my sump standpipe, if needs
must, I would but, of the bunch of potential 'submersible' pumps on
page 121 of the Toolstation catalogue, it worries me a little as to
what the description "Not suitable... for permanent installation."
implies about each and every one of these pumps. Do they mean, "Don't
chop the 13A plug off and wire into an FCU." or does it mean they're
simply not able to withstand being sat in a puddle of water
indefinitely in between pumping sessions?


A small 12 volt boat bilge pump would go down your existing 75 mm sump
pipe. I guess you could suspend it either above or below the "steady
state" water level. Then have it switched on by a suitable float switch.

That's a no, no afaiac simply on account of the need for a hefty 12v
power supply.

Hefty? A wall wart will give you 2 amps, which will drive one of the
small pumps. It's not as if you need a huge flow rate.



Also, there are plenty of cheap "damp" alarms on ebay, I've just bought
one to fit into a friend's condensate drain to give him early audible
warning of a frozen outlet.

I think I could homebrew my own float switch, possibly from W/M water
level sensors if not an actual float operating a microswitch. However,
I've since seen other references about "Not suitable for permanent
installation." where they clearly mean not suited for continuous
operation as pond pumps. Considering their most common sump pump usage,
that's a surprising way to describe their unsuitability for continuous
pond recirculation duty when you don't want to put prospective sump pump
purchasers off.

I noticed that Screwfix are selling a Titan submersible pump, complete
with the same ridiculous float switch dangling off the end of a mains
flex which requires the diameter of the sump to be double that of the
pump body itself simply to accommodate its range of movement. The
attraction in this case being its low price of 40 quid.

If I *have* to dig out my rather neat sump standpipe, then it might as
well be for this pump than for its more expensive but equally
pathetically designed automatic float switch operation models. I'm hoping
my experiment with W/M pump and wet 'n' dry vac succeeds. My Franken-
solution looks an ever more elegant option each time I search for a
suitably priced sump pump. A single W/M pump might not be sufficient but
given a free supply, suitable hose and jubilee clips, I'm sure I can
cascade enough of them to do the job. :-)

I have to confess the Franken-solution has a certain appeal to me too :-)