# The "Almost" Flood



## Brian Rupnow (Apr 14, 2013)

My house is in a low area, and at this time of year when all of the snow is melting at an incredible rate, my sump pump goes absolutely nuts. It sits in a cast concrete well 22" square x 36" deep in the corner of my basement, and comes on every 4 minutes for about 3 weeks every spring. Then it might only come on 5 or 6 times the whole rest of the year. I have lived here for 14 years, and every spring there is considerable tension around my house until the "big melt" ends. This past Friday we got a fairly bad ice storm in our area. Power was out in surrounding areas, but not at my place. I figured we had dodged a bullet, and then at 3:00 in the afternnoon "POP" no--hydro!!!  Wife got on the phone to our local electricity distibutor and was told that they expected to have electricity back on by 7:00 PM.  I went downstairs and checked, and sure enough, it looked like twin versions of Niagara Falls pouring into the sump hole, and no electric power to pump it out----and the water was rising fast. I quickly drove up the hill to my nearest HomeHardware store and asked if they had a water pump with a gasoline engine on it.  Ahhh---No, we don't sell nothing like that.--Then I drive down to the Midhurst small engines guy who sells chainsaws, weed whackers, etc.---Same question----nope---No Pumps, but they rent them across the street at a "Rentall" place. I rush to the rentall place----They have one.--The guy wants to talk and talk and talk--Told him "Damn, son--This is an emergency!! Quit yacking and get that damn pump out and start it for me!!!"---The pump is seized up--Won't start--and its the only one they have. I rush home to see if the electricity has come back on---No Luck. Oh, by the way, did I mention that my basement is fully carpeted, drywalled, etc., and that I have $1000 deductible on my house insurance?
  I tell the wife--"Quick--Get on your cell phone (The other phone is out with the hydro) and start calling rentall places and find me a pump with a gas engine on it!!!" First call she finds one, on the other side of Barrie, but they are just about to close for the day.--Hang on guys--we are getting flooded out here and my husband is on the way to pick it up!!!  Away I go driving like a maniac now, to get there before the rentall joint closes. They have a pump, hose, etcetera, none of which I have ever ran before, and here I am, a fat old 66 year old geezer---thinking---Holy %$#@ ---this is what gives old farts like me heart attacks.---So---I offer $50 to anybody that will come out to my place and help get all of this stuff hooked up and pumping water. But #1 guy has to be at a birthday party for his mother in law. #2 guy has to pick up his kids from somewhere. Sorry---They can't help. Then somebody remembers the kid out back who cleans up returned rentall stuff, and they ask him if he can come.---HE CAN!!! Load up pumps and hoses and kid and drive like maniac back to my house. Basement is blacker than Hell, (no electric lights, very feeble flashlight). We set engine and pump up in garage, bash a hole thru the drywall right abobe the sump well, and stumble around in the dark to get the sucker hose down the sump well. The water is now 1/4" from running out the top of the sump well into the basement proper.  It works---It works---Hallelujah---The water is cascading out in a flood from the discharge hose into the driveway. 7:00 PM comes and still no electricity.--Wife calls again---is told "Electricity will be restored by 9:00. I check and see that I have enough gas in a can to run the engine all night if I have to. Wife takes kid home with $50 and I decide I will stay up all night to babysit the pump. Wife comes back, and I have a sudden horrible thought. --The electric column style sump pump was only 36" tall, and the flood water had come right up over the electric motor. Even if the electricity does come back on, the pump will short out and not run. Its Friday night, and the stores are open until 9:00. I leave wife to babysit pump and I drive back up to hardware store I started at hours ago, and buy their last electric sump pump. Then I rush home----And the power has come back on!!! Praise God---I go downstairs and check the flooded electric sump pump and it still does run, even though it has just been completely immersed in water until 30 minutes ago. I leave the gas engine running for half an hour, just to make certain the electricity is going to stay on, then shut the gas engine off and watch the drowned sump pump go thru a couple of cycles without shorting out.  By this time, I'm wore right to a frazzle from all the excitement and running around, so I fall into bed, hoping that I won't wake up Saturday morning with an indoor swimming pool in my basement.--I get up Saturday and all is still well, so back I go to the hardware store, return the column style sump pump I had bought the night before but not used, and buy a Red Lion submersible pump and a high water alarm that shrieks like a Banshee if the water gets within 11" of the top of the sump well. I think the panic is over for this year. I sure hope so!!! Before next years flood time arrives, I  will have bought a gen set with a gas engine on it, or a battery powered sump pump back up, or something. My heart won't stand another rodeo like this one!!!----Brian


----------



## ronkh (Apr 14, 2013)

Good for you Brian and I'm glad it's all sorted.

By the way; that would give Steven King a run for a short horror story!!

Kind regards,

Ron.


----------



## aonemarine (Apr 14, 2013)

Glad you dodged that one.  Reminds me of the time my 6000 gallon fish pond drained its self one night.....right into my basement!


----------



## Shopguy (Apr 14, 2013)

Yikes! that's as about as close as one wants to come.  Glad you got a pump in time.
While we've had snow lately out here in west central Alberta its nothing like you folks have been experiencing in the east.
We really are at the mercy of that piece of wire that brings electricity to our homes and work.  Having a standby plant is probably an investment well worth making.  I don't have one but given the way the weather has been going of late it may be on my list as well.
Regards,
EJ


----------



## Swifty (Apr 14, 2013)

Brian, that is exactly the thing that you don't want happening at this time in your life. Glad that it turned out alright. Very few houses have basements over here, so generally not a problem, although our back yard does get flooded a couple of times a year when we have a torrential downpour of rain, the storm water pipes can't keep up with the deluge, but not high enough to get into the house.

Paul.


----------



## ZipSnipe (Apr 14, 2013)

Great story!!   

Reminds me of the 2006 hurricanes we had here in Florida, my place had always sat high and dry. But during one of the hurricanes, I go to the car to get something and look down the street and see this puddle creeping its way towards me.  I shrug my shoulders and went inside.  A lil while later I go to see what happening to the neighborhood and the water had creeped into my court yard.

   Now panic sets in and I am like holy crap I am about to get flooded out.  I jump in my 4x4 Rodeo and head down to the fire dept..  Mind you now there are 80 to 120 mile an hour winds 30 feet up with 40 to 60 mile an hour gusts on the ground and there is not a single car on the road. But I felt pretty safe in the Rodeo, its a solid vehicle.

  Get to fire dept. and they are out of sand bags, now I am freaking out as I drive back down the same road, a giant oak tree had fell across the road and the only other way back to my house is a road that is teeming with giant oak trees.  But I made it back to the house no problems.  I go into my court yard and the water is an inch from creeping into the house floor.

 I started to move everything on the floor off, but then the rain stopped, and the hurricane  had passed over.  It was one inch from disaster and that was the heaviest flooding in the Daytona Beach area in like 40 some years, I escaped by hair of my teeth.

  But glad to hear no major damage in your situation Brian


----------



## AussieJimG (Apr 15, 2013)

Great story Brian but ... where's the video? You know we like pictures and video.

Jim


----------



## Noitoen (Apr 15, 2013)

What an adventure. For your next project you should experiment with one of these. http://plumberologist.com/2011/09/venturi-water-pump/


----------



## Brian Rupnow (Apr 15, 2013)

Noitoen said:


> What an adventure. For your next project you should experiment with one of these. http://plumberologist.com/2011/09/venturi-water-pump/


I am on a well and presure system ran by electricity. One of those wouldn't do me much good unless I had a hose two miles long to reach somewhere thet did have electricity.


----------



## ConductorX (Apr 15, 2013)

I am glad everything worked out.  I remember seeing one of those basement thingies when I was a kid.  I often wondered why anyone would dig a hole under their house. 

Here in Louisiana we even "bury" people above ground.  The only way we keep swimming pools in the ground is to keep them full of water all the time otherwise they float out. Most buildings in downtown New Orleans call the first floor the basement and there is no real offices until the second or third floor.

"G"


----------



## ignator (Apr 15, 2013)

Brian:  It takes a lot to kill an induction motor.  Mainly it would take the start capacitor to be submerged and short out internally.  These are sealed, and most likely would have to be submerged fairly deep to leak water into them.  If there was corrosive minerals in the water, and it was conductive that would be a bigger problem for both the float switch contacts, as well the centrifugal start motor switch contacts (electrolysis, can put oxides on them fairly quick, and they act open circuit).  Long term, it would be corrosion of the stator and rotor, iron laminates that would cause motor failure, as these tend to swell, and prevent the motor from turning.  The air gap between them becomes solid rust.


----------



## /// (Apr 15, 2013)

Nice save!
I have to admit though, while reading your story I was just waiting for you to say you had jury rigged one of your engines to the task of running a pump ;D


----------



## Clockguy (Apr 15, 2013)

Back in my hippie days I had a new king size water bed in a first floor bedroom. We were filling it with a garden hose when I was called away for an emergency. I told the wife to turn the faucet off and away we went. Came back an hour latter to find that she had not turned it off. She had turned it full on. I have no idea want the thing weighed but I was sure the floor was going to give way any minute. The bed looked like a giant loaf of bread at least five feet high and eight by eight feet. I carefully turned off the water, disconnected the hose and put it out the bedroom door, through the living room and down the porch steps waiting for it to blow any minute. It didn't and for some reason the floor held. I took half a day for the water to drain down to where I could move the carcass which now looked like a anorexic whale. I never did figure out what the thing must have weighed but it was well over several tons is my guess. Another bullet dodged. Glad you made it through Brian with no  damage except to your nervous system.


----------



## Plumberologist (Apr 19, 2013)

Brian Rupnow said:


> I am on a well and presure system ran by electricity. One of those wouldn't do me much good unless I had a hose two miles long to reach somewhere thet did have electricity.


Brian,

As a plumber, let me just give you one warning about battery powered backup sump pumps: they aren't really meant to move the same amount of water as your main sump pump. They are almost always a smaller pump that is simply meant to slow the tide to give you time to either locate a generator or for the power to come back on. They are not meant to stop the flood completely, nor are they meant to run for extend periods of time or deal with excessive amounts of water. I have to explain this to customers all the time who are purchasing battery powered backups in the middle of a hurricane after their basement has already flooded. I tell them that it is only a temporary measure and they need to find a generator to get their main sump back on.

If, like me, you live somewhere that power can go out for extended periods, i.e. more than a couple of hours, you are better off spending your money on a backup generator that'll run your main sump rather than purchasing a battery powered backup pump.

Hope this helps.

Randy Baldwin,
Owner, Plumberologist.com


----------



## Brian Rupnow (Apr 19, 2013)

Thanks Randy---I had pretty well sussed that one out for myself. I think a small gas engine powered gen set capable of running the sump pump is all I really need. The big trick will be remembering to start the thing 3 or 4 times a year just so that I know it will start and run when I actually need it.---Brian


----------



## AussieJimG (Apr 19, 2013)

I also live where I am dependent on electricity for everything: water, sewerage, light, heat. So I have a backup generator that runs the whole place.

But it is 11.5HP pull start with a 240V 20A outlet which runs the house and as I get older and more decrepit, it is harder to start. So I recently purchased a 7.5kVA electric start machine as a replacement.

It was advertised (online) as 240V, single phase, 7.5kVA. But when it arrived, it turned out to have three separate 240V single phase outlets, each 2.5kVA because they used a three phase, star connected alternator.

Needless to say, it won't run the house and I am now in negotiation with the supplier over its return. I thought I had been careful but it pays to be ultra-careful. I hope nobody else gets caught.

Jim


----------

