Cole’s Corner #4: WHY IS MY SUMP PUMP BEEPING?

Welcome back to Cole’s Corner! In this week’s episode, Cole talks sump pumps: how they work, which ones we carry in stock, and common issues you might run into! If you have any plumbing questions that you would like us to answer on next week’s video, leave a comment below! Subscribe to our channel for more episodes! Visit us online at : https://www.championplumbing.net/ Music: www.bensound.com Intro slate by Archer Film Co #plumbinglife #colescorner #sumppump #plumbing #sumppumpquestions #plumbersofyoutube #howto #plumbing101 #eaganmn #eagan #plumbingshop #howtoplumbing #championplumbing #plumbingproblems #plumbingissues #plumbingsolutions #plumbingwin

Watch our Video and You’ll Learn:

  • You Will Know Why Your Sump Pump Beeps..
  • How To Diagnose If Your Water Sump Pump Is Running Well.

Listen To The Audio

 

Enjoy this transcript below!

Cole: Hello everyone. Welcome back to Cole’s Corner, episode four. We’re going to talk about sump pumps. What are they, where are they located in your house, what do they do. Perfect time to check your sump pump or to get a new one.

Most homes have a basket level with their floor in their basement in the corner and there’s drain tile going around the perimeter of your foundation. Water, when it’s raining, or if you got a gutter with a downspout that’s off, all that water’s going to collect right at the foundation and it’s either going to just soak into the ground or it can get through your foundation, gets caught in the drain tile, travels into a basket, and then these sump pumps are in the basket. When the water gets to a certain level, there’s a float switch that kicks on, pumps the water up through this pipe, out to the outside of the house. Check valve, so when the pump shuts off, it stops right here. That way the sump pump itself doesn’t have to work as hard to kick back on when it needs to.

There’s a couple of variations that we sell. So here’s that one right there, that’s a Wolverine brass one, three years on labor, three years on the part itself. So that’s good. We have a good, better and best option. The better one is this one right here, more of a cast-iron pump. It has a dual flow. If one float fails, the other one will kick on. This is a three-year warranty with five years of parts. The other beauty of this pump too, up here, there’s a little nine-volt battery in here. If there’s an issue with something, if the water’s higher than the switch itself, or it’s not working, it’ll actually beep and alarm you, which is kind of a nice feature to have. Also, you can hook up a wifi module to this sump pump, right here. It’s just the extra kit that hooks on, hooks up to your smartphone, it will alert you if there’s any issues going on in your home when you’re not around. So that’s kind of a nice feature, hooks right up to your internet.

We’ll move on here to the best. This sump pump is the pump, like these two, it also has another one hooked onto it that’s a battery backup. Power goes out in a big storm, your sump pump’s not going to work, so it alerts the smaller pump that’s hooked up to a marine battery, and that allows that one to run. That one can go about 24 hours before the battery dies. So hopefully you get power on by then. If not, if you got another battery, you can bring it down there and hook it up. This one also has a lot more tests. You can hook the wifi module up to this one too, hit the test button to test it, to make sure everything’s operating. This also alarms you when the power goes out so you do know that you got an issue going on.

Along with this one, the main sump pump has two floats for switches on the pump. And it also has two for the battery backup. And there also is a high alarm one too that will kick off if none of them want to work at that time. This is three year on labor, five years on parts. These are the three that we like to use and are really good with them. We got them set up and ready to go to any home.

So prices on a few of these, the good one. You’re going to be right around the $500 range. Better, right around $800 range. And then for the battery backup system, which includes the battery, you’re going to be about $1,500. To get you a real good price on it we need to assess the situation at your home to determine what needs to be done there. For a new install, basically we have to run, if you don’t have the discharge pipe going outside, depends on the distance and how far we got to go, but anywhere from four to $800. But once that’s done, when you replace the sump pump, you don’t have to redo the whole discharge that you already have.

Some issues that we run across. Some of them, the float switches deteriorated right off of it. What’s nice with the better and the best, these fault switches can be replaced without doing the sump pump. If you go with just the good model, this one here, the float’s hooked with it, it’s all one piece. So, that’s kind of another nice feature. If you have a flexible hose hooked out on your discharge outside of your house, and it gets to be about fall time, that could freeze up. And then when this kicks on and wants to take these clamps or this rubber and crack it because it has nowhere for the water to go. So springtime, if you want the water to shoot further, put the drain hose on. Remember in the fall, you got to take that hose off. That’s probably where I get most of my calls on something like that.

Some of them have sensors and beepers on them, it could just be a low battery. The deluxe controller could have a failure. So if you have a model that we have, we can just replace that. Any of your sump pumps, if they have alarm or something that’s beeping or something, it’s best to at least have us come out, at least look at it. I mean, if it’s a little battery, we’ll put a battery in for you. It’s just good to know, if you call us and we say, “Oh, you can shut that switch off, it’s just a low battery light.” Like that one. And then it’s not something more serious where you’re getting water in your basement, then we’ve got a bigger issue.

So, best just give us a call. Usually, we can get there pretty quick and at least take a look at the situation. If you need a new one, we can definitely help you out or we can possibly repair yours. If there’s just a certain check bell that’s leaking, or I’ve seen some corrugated pipe going outside, that’s very flexible that’s, you shouldn’t have that, it should be solid PVC pipe, cellular core or solid core.

Other than that, thanks for watching. Also remember, skilled labor isn’t cheap, cheap labor isn’t skilled.

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We work Monday through Friday: 7:00 AM – 5:00 PM and Saturday: 7:00 AM – 12:00 PM. After hours emergency service is available. You can find us at 3670 Dodd Road in Eagan, MN 55123 during our open hours. You can also call us at (651) 365-1340 or email us.