Sump Pump Running Every 8 Minutes?

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davebo
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Sump Pump Running Every 8 Minutes?

Post by davebo »

Ok, I will fully admit that I'm kind of a novice when it comes to most homeowner stuff. I lived in a new construction for 8 years and never really dealt with much when it came to replacing things in the house.

So I knew with all the rain that I should probably get my sump pump checked out so I called a guy out. He asked me how often my sump pump ran per hour and I had no idea. At my old house, I couldn't really hear the sump pump so I assumed it was the same here. Plus, I couldn't see where the water exited the house so I figured it was coming out under our deck and then just buried into the ground. It turns out that it's going into the sewer system, which was probably legal at some point but not anymore.

Anyways, so when he installed the sump pump he said that the water level on the pit was really high. And after the new pump went in, it started pumping water out every 6-8 minutes. I thought this would continue for the first day or so, but now we are 2 days with it installed and it still pumps out water ever 8 minutes. Does this seem excessive?

We did have rain on Saturday and maybe a little last night, but nothing consistent. Is it possible that it's just playing catchup?

Since the sump pump is right below my kitchen sink, once it started going off I could definitely hear it loud and clearly. And now that I heard it, I'm almost positive that it has not been running for a long long time. The only thing I don't get is why my basement didn't flood if the sump pump wasn't running? Were the pipes just totally filled and now it's all getting drained out?

Dave
Tigermoose
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Re: Sump Pump Running Every 8 Minutes?

Post by Tigermoose »

Perhaps your sump pump is shooting the water out of your house into some soil that sits in such a way that the water just then drains back into your basement and thus causing the pump to continually run? Also, your gutter down spouts might be emptying the water right into soil that is just draining into your basement.

My fix for this sort of thing was to install an in-ground drainage system with PVC pipes. One of those connected to my sump pump "outlet" and the other input points were my gutter down spouts. The water drains via these pipes to pop-ups away from the house so that the water does not seep back into the basement.

Another possibility is that your house sits at the end of a ground decline, so that the water just drains into your basement from uphill. To fix this, you can install a French Drain to intercept the flow and carry it away from the house.
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danwhite77
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Re: Sump Pump Running Every 8 Minutes?

Post by danwhite77 »

I agree with Tigermoose's guess. I had the same issue, my house had a sump pump that fed into the sewer. That's definitely not code, but people do it (for multiple reasons, I'm sure) because if you're in a cold climate you can be certain the line won't freeze at any time. What you should do is determine where your sump pump is pumping the water. With our new pump, I had them install a forty foot long 4" PVC pipe that carries the water all the way out to beside the street where the water is dumped into a natural incline that drains away from the house. Make sure your sump pump is sending the water somewhere other than back onto itself. Also make certain that all of your gutters are draining at least a few feet away from the house.
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davebo
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Re: Sump Pump Running Every 8 Minutes?

Post by davebo »

Tigermoose wrote:Perhaps your sump pump is shooting the water out of your house into some soil that sits in such a way that the water just then drains back into your basement and thus causing the pump to continually run? Also, your gutter down spouts might be emptying the water right into soil that is just draining into your basement.

My fix for this sort of thing was to install an in-ground drainage system with PVC pipes. One of those connected to my sump pump "outlet" and the other input points were my gutter down spouts. The water drains via these pipes to pop-ups away from the house so that the water does not seep back into the basement.

Another possibility is that your house sits at the end of a ground decline, so that the water just drains into your basement from uphill. To fix this, you can install a French Drain to intercept the flow and carry it away from the house.
I haven't done a good job of directing the downspouts away from my house, so that'll be my first order of business. After it stops raining, isn't it kinda strange that the sump pump would run that frequently?
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SpringMan
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Re: Sump Pump Running Every 8 Minutes?

Post by SpringMan »

Tigermoose wrote:Perhaps your sump pump is shooting the water out of your house into some soil that sits in such a way that the water just then drains back into your basement and thus causing the pump to continually run? Also, your gutter down spouts might be emptying the water right into soil that is just draining into your basement.
The OP said his sump pump is connected directly to the sewer drain which eliminates the theory proposed in your first sentence. Your are right on about gutter down spouts though. Down spout extensions would be worth a try. There are times where my sump pump runs as often as every 7 minutes but in the dry season it runs as little as every couple of hours.
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OAG
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Re: Sump Pump Running Every 8 Minutes?

Post by OAG »

Do you have any Anti-Backflow connections that may have gone bad? Water is pumped out by Sump Pump but immediately returns to the pit when the pump shuts down. I have two on my system but the second one is for the battery back up pump which is separate from the main sump pump. Depending on the length upwards of the pipe to exit the basement (or in your case enter the main sewer line) they can hold a lot of water and the result can be just as you describe.
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DigitalJanitor
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Re: Sump Pump Running Every 8 Minutes?

Post by DigitalJanitor »

Do you have a check valve on the outlet of the sump pump? This would serve to keep water from flowing back down the outlet pipe once the pump stops. It's possible that the check valve is stuck open with a piece of grit in the seal, or is defective, or is just absent. A defective check valve, plus seepage from the surrounding ground, might explain the frequent cycling. I can't explain why you never had a problem with the old pump.

Also, if the outlet pipe has a bad check valve, and is connected to the sewer, and if gravity can allow the sewage to flow back into the sump pump outlet, then you might be getting sewage pooling in the sump pit. I would think this would be obvious, though.
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ResearchMed
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Re: Sump Pump Running Every 8 Minutes?

Post by ResearchMed »

Is it possible that that little "float" (or other mechanism) that triggers the sump pump to start (giving a "water level too high" message, so to speak) is set too low, and you are sort of pumping out of the local water table? Or at least a water table height when season isn't especially dry?

Our water table is quite high (and we aren't the lowest home around, so I have no idea how water tables really "work").
When the home next door was built, the hole filled up every night, and they kept having to pump it out each morning. (No surprise, those owners have a nightmarish basement water problem! Their basement level is much lower than ours, which makes sense.

Anyway, we replaced an ancient sump pump with a dual pump for "backup".
Shortly thereafter, we had something similar happen, but it KEPT pumping.

Installer comes back, and .... finds an old rotting high-top tennis shoe wedged in there, keeping the float too low.
(Guess one of the 4 boys in a family two owners before us... had some fun tossing things in there? Now we keep an eye out more often, lest some toys float up somehow...)

We have a plexiglass top over the sump hole, and there is almost always water visible.
Previous owners report the same.
So we have to be careful we are NOT trying to pump out an endless supply of water.

Our system also pumps into sewer. Grandfathered in decades ago.

RM
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walnut
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Re: Sump Pump Running Every 8 Minutes?

Post by walnut »

I had a situation where the amount of water draining back from the discharge line after the pump shut off raised the water level in the sump enough to start the pump again. Fixed by adjusting the float to start the pump at a higher water level.
It seemed like a good idea at the time.
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Re: Sump Pump Running Every 8 Minutes?

Post by 123 »

Depending on your immediate geography/geology it can take a long time for a sump pump to catch-up after rain. I once lived in a condo complex that was located at the base of a 200 foot hill. The lower underground parking level, where I parked, had a large French drain with a sump pump. We generally got very little rain and the sump pump was quiet most of the year. But when a significant period of rain occurred the sump pump would start running and could often run for a couple of weeks.
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cheese_breath
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Re: Sump Pump Running Every 8 Minutes?

Post by cheese_breath »

davebo wrote:The only thing I don't get is why my basement didn't flood if the sump pump wasn't running? Were the pipes just totally filled and now it's all getting drained out?

Dave
The pipes might not have been totally filled. There's a slight incline in the pipes so they will drain into the pit. It's possible there might have been a little space left at the other end. That's the best possibility. However, if I'm correct the pipes aren't joined together by cement or anything kind of sealing compound. It's possible the pressure may have been forcing excess water out between the joints. If this goes on for a long time it could produce cracks in you basement floor if the earth cannot absorb the excess water as fast as it drains out.
Last edited by cheese_breath on Mon Oct 06, 2014 3:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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dolphinsaremammals
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Re: Sump Pump Running Every 8 Minutes?

Post by dolphinsaremammals »

I have two sump pumps in my below ground level crawl space area, which is a stand up area for access to AC and etc.

A lot of sand/dirt gets in there from outside, so the effete normal sump pump clogs up pretty regularly. Finally I got an industrial strength one my brother recommended as a backup. It sits a few inches higher than Mr. Not Working. I used to go down and clean out the pit for the little one, then I said the heck with it, I am too old to keep going up and down that ladder, so the big guy does all the work.

I can really hear the big one run. There's a delay after rain starts before the standup area gets enough water in it for the pump to run. Then it runs as often as every eight minutes or so. It will keep running after the rain stops, as the ground keeps releasing water into the standup area.

Both sump pumps have hoses that drain into a big plastic (it probably is not exactly plastic but whatever) pipe that runs downhill from the basement through the foundation wall and exits well away from the house.

I never thought of it before, but the mentions of backflow made me realize that there probably is a little backflow unless one of those values are in place. Not much, however, as the two hoses run up 5-6 feet before they enter the plastic pipe, and its all downhill from there.

I'm at the low point of the street and so the street drains water for 4 or 5 house lengths in each direction into my yard. A couple of neighbors up the street drain their sump pumps into the street. Nice. I do have a swale in place, but it can only do so much.

You now know everything I know about sump pumps.

Have you looked to see if the pit actually has water in it when the sump pump is running? There was something wrong with the big one I have at some point and it kept turning itself off and on despite no water. The plumber poked around a bit and it's been okay since then. Possibly it was something like debris causing it.
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davebo
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Re: Sump Pump Running Every 8 Minutes?

Post by davebo »

ResearchMed wrote:Is it possible that that little "float" (or other mechanism) that triggers the sump pump to start (giving a "water level too high" message, so to speak) is set too low, and you are sort of pumping out of the local water table? Or at least a water table height when season isn't especially dry?

Our water table is quite high (and we aren't the lowest home around, so I have no idea how water tables really "work").
When the home next door was built, the hole filled up every night, and they kept having to pump it out each morning. (No surprise, those owners have a nightmarish basement water problem! Their basement level is much lower than ours, which makes sense.

Anyway, we replaced an ancient sump pump with a dual pump for "backup".
Shortly thereafter, we had something similar happen, but it KEPT pumping.

Installer comes back, and .... finds an old rotting high-top tennis shoe wedged in there, keeping the float too low.
(Guess one of the 4 boys in a family two owners before us... had some fun tossing things in there? Now we keep an eye out more often, lest some toys float up somehow...)

We have a plexiglass top over the sump hole, and there is almost always water visible.
Previous owners report the same.
So we have to be careful we are NOT trying to pump out an endless supply of water.

Our system also pumps into sewer. Grandfathered in decades ago.

RM

My pit is pretty small, which might be part of the problem. To my novice eye, it seemed small and the installer commented on it and said his at his house is probably 2x the size of mine, so that's probably part of it. The float doesn't seem too low...seems about right to me.

This guy was also digging up a fence post that was rotting in my yard and noticed there is a ton of water on that side of the yard. He said that literally that he didn’t have to put any water in the hole (with the cement) because there was so much water there already. He said just let the pump work and see if the time between pumps gets bigger over the next few weeks.

My house does sit low compared to my neighbors across the street. When you enter my driveway, you actually go down a little bit before it flattens out. My neighbors across the street you just drive flat into their driveway. I never really thought much about it because as you go further down the street, they are all at a lower point and you see water from the storms flowing down that way.

I wonder if the front of my house just gets a lot of water coming from the street that hits the house. In the backyard, maybe it all ends up working it’s way down the yard (it’s got a decent slope).

I asked the guy if there was anything else I should do and he said just let the pump work for awhile and see how it goes. He said the water in the back of the house will work itself out since it has a slope to work down.
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Re: Sump Pump Running Every 8 Minutes?

Post by dolphinsaremammals »

You don't have a leak in an underground water pipe, do you? You should be able to check that by watching the water meter. I forget the process, obviously something like when no water is in use, watch the special leak detector needle. You can still have a very slow leak that won't show up on that.
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davebo
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Re: Sump Pump Running Every 8 Minutes?

Post by davebo »

dolphinsaremammals wrote:You don't have a leak in an underground water pipe, do you? You should be able to check that by watching the water meter. I forget the process, obviously something like when no water is in use, watch the special leak detector needle. You can still have a very slow leak that won't show up on that.
I didn't really notice anything too unusual with my water bills, but I'll check that out when I get home and see if it moves at all over a 15 minute period with no water running inside.
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davebo
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Re: Sump Pump Running Every 8 Minutes?

Post by davebo »

Well looks like it's starting to spread out a bit and now pumping every 18 minutes. Maybe I just had a lot of accumulation or something around my house and it's clearing the water out.
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DaleMaley
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Re: Sump Pump Running Every 8 Minutes?

Post by DaleMaley »

Our water table level is relatively high in Central Illinois. When our house was one of the few in our small subdivision of 30 homes, my sump ran every 3 minutes in February through March time-frame. It ran much less frequently the rest of the year. I only got about 5 years per sump pump back then. I installed a water powered back-up sump because we do lose electrical power often, and I have a finished basement. It has saved the basement from flooding many times.

Now that the subdivision is full of houses, my sump only hards hard when it rains heavy. All the other houses in the subdivision have sumps and the water table is quickly lowered by all of these pumps working.

If i was the OP, I would monitor the sump for the next year and see if there is a pattern to the sump pump running load.
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ebabin
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Re: Sump Pump Running Every 8 Minutes?

Post by ebabin »

Much depends on the water level and the porousness of the soil. My house is on a sand base and after some excessive rains, you can actually see water percolating up through the ground in my crawl space. My sump ran every 6 minutes for almost 3 months one year. Underground streams flow in my soil and find a normal level at some point. Normally, the water pumped out is deposited outside my house which just returns underground and back into the crawl. In abnormal times, I have bought a collapsible hose that I can unroll out to the storm drain which is about 200 feet away.
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Re: Sump Pump Running Every 8 Minutes?

Post by likegarden »

I have two sump pump pits with an AC electric sump pump in each plus a battery driven sump pump. I have no problem since 1987 when we lost power for 16 hours and had to bail out the pits with buckets every 20 minutes during a rain storm. Since then I watch that my gutters are always clean, so no gutters spilling water down directly to the house walls. Since then 3 downspouts empty into 4 inch underground pipes I layed to low spots 40 ft away from the house. On one side I have a french drain. Your ground should always slope away from the house, or you have to use underground drains to spots far away.
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Re: Sump Pump Running Every 8 Minutes?

Post by Retiredron »

Just wanted to share my recent experience. My sump pump started turning on exactly every 4 minutes a few days ago. That seemed very odd to me and I couldn't understand why the pump was working to such an exact schedule. At first I thought it was the recent heavy rains and frozen ground thawing out.

Well, after doing some research on-line I listened to the main supply line coming into the house which is located in the basement. I heard a hissing sound and then shut off the inside main valve to the house supply. The hissing sound was still there! My research indicated that was a sure sign that there was a leak outside the basement in the water lateral line from the city water main by the street to my house. The leak was under constant pressure of course and the water was flowing into my French drain and then into the sump pump. That explained why the pump was turning on every 4 minutes - the flow rate of the leak was constant and it filled the pump every 4 minutes!.

Thus, listen to the main incoming water supply pipe. You really shouldn't be hearing a hissing noise. If you do and your pump is turning on at very precise regular intervals then you probably have a leak in your water lateral.

Luckily my homeowners association covered the water lateral repair.

I hope my story helps.
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Epsilon Delta
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Re: Sump Pump Running Every 8 Minutes?

Post by Epsilon Delta »

While everything people have said is possible, and you should check for the ones you can, I think the most likely explanation is the "natural" water table is between the top of the pit and the "on" location of the float. With no sump pump the pit fills up to the natural level and sits there. When the sump empties the pit more water flows in. Soil conditions will determine how fast the pit refills and how often the pump runs.

The water table will move up and down during the year depending on rainfall, etc., but underground conditions may ensure it never actually gets higher than your basement floor.

This is fairly normal. A water table that is high can damage the slab even if the basement remains dry, so you may just need the sump pump to run every 8 minutes during your wet season, but if the above is true you are at least safe in a power outage. At least until somebody does something that alters the drainage.
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