I have a modest amount of standing water in the sub-floor of my humble
abode, which I would like to get rid of before I go crawling about,
endeavouring to find where it has got in. Having wasted lots of time
with Google, I've not really found any simple, inexpensive, pumps that
would do the job, so does anyone have any clever ideas ?

The water is maybe 1" deep at its worst, and as far as I can tell, most
submersible pumps will struggle to get down to half that before cutting
out. I found a "puddle-sucker" on one or two sites, which will go down
to a few mm, but at a price. (£100+)

I expect I will end up using my Vax wet'n'dry cleaner, carefully ;-)
It won't care about a bit of grit or the odd small stone, as long as I
avoid letting it overflow...

Once the floor is dry, I thought I might scatter some tell-tale powder
around in order to track the water origin (assuming it's not coming up,
which seems unlikely). Again, any advice much appreciated.

TIA.

--
"I'm easy to please as long as I get my way."