"toller" wrote in message
...
We are currently having extremely heavy rains along with melting snow; so
there are flood warnings. Just for the heck of it I checked my sump and
found there was water in it. I pulled the float up, but nothing happened.
Hmmm.

The house, and pump, are 22 years old; I bought it 12 years ago. Right
after I bought it I tested the pump. It turned on by running water into
the sump with a garden hose, but it didn't pump. I found it was the kind
that needs a small hole drilled in the pipe to let it start. I drilled
the hole, and it pumped fine. Apparently it hadn't been operational for
10 years, but didn't matter.

So, tonight I was surprised to find water in the sump because I had never
seen any there before. I was even more surprised to find the pump did not
work. because it had 12 years ago.

Two questions...
1) As I recall (assuming I can recall from 12 years ago) I turned the pump
on by running water in with a hose. Tonight I simply pulled up on the
float, as I wasn't about to put water in the sump. Would that matter? I
am thinking, without knowing much about pumps, that maybe water pressure
turns it on, but the float turns it off: becasue when I pull up on the
float, it doesn't seem to trip a switch that i can see.
2) Is it likely the pump broke by not being used in 12 (or 22) years?
3) If is is broken, is a fix possible; or is is a replace. Shame, it is
brass 1/2hp. Not that I need a 1/2hp,but that is what the builder put in.
Hopefully I don't need anythign; this weekend mgiht be the acid test. (I
am on a hill with a walkout basement. Apparently the water is content to
flow around the house on its way down the hill.)

If it's the type that has a "piggy-back" plug for the float, try pluging in
the second plug to see if it's just the float that's bad.