# High water table and sump pump - distressed please advise



## chiraldude (Nov 16, 2013)

I lived in a house where the water table was above the basement floor. Lots of people live with water table issues actually! 
Here are some questions to allow people to give you good advice:
I don't understand why the water would stay in the pit. Isn't the pump at the bottom of the sump (pit)? It should pump the pit down to 2-3" before cutting off.
What is the soil type around the foundation? 
Where does the sump discharge go? Is there a low spot on your property?
What size pump and how long does it run before cutting off?
If you unplug the pump, how long before water reaches floor level? 
Where are you located? Do you expect the water table to stay high all year long?


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## amoldc (May 22, 2019)

Firstly thank you for your reply. I am first time buying a home that has a basement.

The water stays in the pit. Earlier the pump was set too low and I could see water flowing into the pit from the drain tile pipe and the pump ran every 30 seconds for about 5 seconds or so. Now the builder says he raised the pump so water stays at that level right below the floor level by about 4". When I went to see the home today I triggered the pump manually and it drained in about 10 seconds and the pit filled in right back. Water does not go above floor level however.

The soil type is clay. Before raising the floor by pouring concrete the builder also stopped all pumps to see how high the water rises and it stayed at about 6" above the older floor height.

The sump pump discharges to the rear of the property about 30 feet away from the house into a small rip rap apron (basically a stone pit). 

I think the pump is 1/2 hp. 

I am in Central New Jersey..

The engineer said it is seasonal high water table or SHWT. Does that mean in the next few months in summer it will actually go down?

This house foundation is deepest from the rest of the houses around.

I am clueless at this point and hence the distressed message


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## 3onthetree (Dec 7, 2018)

You have 2 pits, and they are connected, but only 1 sump pump? And you say the water (after the builder raised up the sump pump) fills to just below the new slab height and stays there, or does the sump still run at that high water level? Is this still holding up the Occupancy permit?


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## amoldc (May 22, 2019)

Yes, I have two pits and both have sump pumps. Yes the water fills to just below the new slab height. The builder has also raised the pumps higher by placing them on bricks. The pump doesnt appear to run. I am not sure if the builder is doing something goofy here to make the sale. He claims he can now get the occupancy.


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## Bud9051 (Nov 11, 2015)

Raising the level of the floor to hide the water table height is a hack job. The original footings and slab should have been set high enough to avoid a problem under the worst case conditions, seasonal flooding is not acceptable nor is running a sump pump 24/7.

With that much water under the foundation you will never be able to finish that basement without concern for moisture and mold. Basically, they probably should not have issued a permit to build there.

Giving up a foot in height was not part of the deal. tell him to raise the entire house or give you your money back. Unfortunately that might not be enough as the worst case height has not been determined, that requires an expert engineer who has insurance to back up his final decision.

Digging a hole into clay soil may have created a pond below the surface that has no place to drain so you end up being stuck with pumping out that pond forever. Not good.

Bud


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## amoldc (May 22, 2019)

My heart just sank but I appreciate the reply. Builder says he has done what the township and his engineer required him to do. I will lose money if I back out and he will not give me any moneys paid in upgrades. I might lose upto 30k here. I am not sure on what basis I can sue him if the township issues him a CO now that he has "fixed" the problem of the pump not running 24x7.

Also, the township had the builder hire an engineer. He did a soil log to determine the seasonal high water table and as a result, they raised the floor. The house sits on gravel and foundation is engineered walls.


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## 3onthetree (Dec 7, 2018)

I know sump pumps can lower water tables, but who knows how long that could take and if other factors help the cause. It's ok to have water under the slab (moisture notwithstanding), but you usually don't choose to build right at the water table line, apparently it was a compromise to keep some ceiling height. Seasonal water you pump out, tearing out a slab and raising it after the house is built means someone dropped the ball. Usually on a high water table you build a different style basement, like a "look-out" if you must have one.

Make sure he didn't also adjust the float so the water rests higher on the pump. Also, it looks as if the plastic pit is sitting 4" or so above the slab rather than flush, or is it just the pic perspective? 

To feel better about the deal you have (which you could probably get all your money back if you lawyered up), have a conversation with the building dept about other houses in the neighborhood. Make sure your drainage rock pit will not have issues going to the storm sewer - sometimes they will bend rules and let you connect directly to storm rather than have pools of water sitting around. Get copies of all reports the engineer did, maybe get another local civil's review of those. Get in writing what the builder used on the exterior of the foundation walls, the footing drain tile, and under the slab (or pics). Measure the basement moisture content.


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## Nealtw (Jun 22, 2017)

People do stupid stuff, we put a foundation in where we pumped 2 ft of water out every day and expected we would do 12 ft foundation to get the basement above the water, when they insisted that that would be the floor level we finished the foundation and refused to build the house. The house was built and it was not against code.


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## AllanJ (Nov 24, 2007)

The natural water table above basement floor level is not unusual and can happen anywhere. The natural water table will vary depending on rainfall.

The purpose of a sump pump is to artificially lower the water table in the vicinity of the house (in practice out to a foot outside of the foundation all around). If your house needs a sump pump then such a pump has to be on standby, complete with power source, 24/7/365.

If you are talking about walk outs and building the foundation higher to stay above the water table then you can go to the extreme and have no basement and build the house on a slab.

Perimeter drain pipes (a kind of French drain) lets one sump pump and pit protect many feet, often all of, the perimeter.

My own guideline is that, if the water level in the pit does not cover more than half of any of the fat pipes dumping into the pit then the sump pump does not need to keep cycling. Scientific measurements together with some trial and error can be used to determine how much higher the water can sit in the pit and be left there.

When the sump pump starts, it should keep going until the pit is nearly empty.

The rim of the pit liner above the basement floor both looks like and is a sloppy job. It also detracts from the amount of water that can be pumped out on each pump cycle and in turn leads to more frequent pump starts. If the drain pipes do not line up with the knockout holes in the sides of the pit liner it is okay to slope the drain pipe down but not up to match the holes. When you know that the drain slopes down into the pit (easiest to see if it is only the last 2 feet that slope down) then more of the pipes as seen in the pit can be allowed to be submerged before the pump starts.

I suggest pits with at least 3 cubic feet (about 20 gallons) of space below where the fat crain pipes dump in and not filled with rocks. They do not make plastic pit liners that big so you have to build a pit liner out of bricks.


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## 123pugsy (Oct 6, 2012)

Actually, they don't make sump pumps with enough float travel to empty a sump pit.......or do they?


The pits are actually quite tall in relation to float travel.


To the OP. If you are on city water supply, get a water powered back up pump. This requires a 3/4" line and you don't need to worry about the battery dying half way thru a power outage. In my 57 years, I've never seen city water stop.


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## Full Moon (Oct 19, 2013)

I lived in a house where the sump pump turned on every 30 seconds - less than two minutes every day for years. I got it closer to the two minute mark when I put in a back stop as previous to this water was coming back in from the exit too. We lived in a wet area with a lot of clay. I upgraded the pump and added a second pump that was on stand by with a battery. Also put in a significantly deeper pit. 

It could be dry for weeks and still the pit filled and emptied, filled and emptied, filled and emptied. Eventually we had a significant drought and it stopped filling up. I was in shock. At that time I sold the house. That was a few years ago and I’ve wondered what’s happening now. I was completely honest with the buyers about the situation.

I felt significantly better after I had the upgrade and battery put in. Still, I would not knowingly go into a situation like that again.

I second talking to building inspector / municipal personnel to see what they say. Also maybe neighbors. Curious what they would have to say. 

My thought is it’s better to have the pump lower and running a lot than raising it and letting the water get higher. Have another ready to go with a quick switch out in the PVC. Also have two in there with the second a bit higher as a back up. Preferably on a battery. 

You may have a decision to make on whether it’s worth losing some money to avoid this situation. 

For what it’s worth I never had any issues after I upgraded the sump pump. Who knows, maybe you can figure out a way to market the water! Believe me, I spent some time wondering about that. 

Keep us updated please...I’m curious. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## chiraldude (Nov 16, 2013)

Your ability to live with this house depends on whether you are in a rare local wet period or not. You have to assume that the water table was well below the original floor at one time otherwise, how would the builder have been able to put in the foundation. 
I bought a house a few years back and, at the time, the water table was above the basement floor. Basement would go under water if the pump was shut off. All the neighbors also were having issues but also said they hadn't seen it this bad for 10 years. 
Previous summer was very wet. Winter snow pack was way above average and then had a wet spring. The high water lasted for about 6 months but eventually went down to a point where the sump pump stopped cycling altogether.


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## DT1017 (Dec 8, 2020)

Full Moon said:


> I lived in a house where the sump pump turned on every 30 seconds - less than two minutes every day for years. I got it closer to the two minute mark when I put in a back stop as previous to this water was coming back in from the exit too. We lived in a wet area with a lot of clay. I upgraded the pump and added a second pump that was on stand by with a battery. Also put in a significantly deeper pit.
> 
> It could be dry for weeks and still the pit filled and emptied, filled and emptied, filled and emptied. Eventually we had a significant drought and it stopped filling up. I was in shock. At that time I sold the house. That was a few years ago and I’ve wondered what’s happening now. I was completely honest with the buyers about the situation.
> 
> ...


Full Moon - we are in a similar situation. We recently purchased a 75 year old house. The basement had no waterproofing, which we knew was something we had to address. We didn't know we would find a spring under the house! We just finished the project, but now the sump pump runs constantly. Did you find the noise disturbing? It's very disturbing for us, but the contractor has said there's not much we can do and it's functioning properly. It runs all night and makes it hard to sleep. Please let me know if you any suggestions on how to deal w the noise. Thanks!


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## 123pugsy (Oct 6, 2012)

DT1017 said:


> Full Moon - we are in a similar situation. We recently purchased a 75 year old house. The basement had no waterproofing, which we knew was something we had to address. We didn't know we would find a spring under the house! We just finished the project, but now the sump pump runs constantly. Did you find the noise disturbing? It's very disturbing for us, but the contractor has said there's not much we can do and it's functioning properly. It runs all night and makes it hard to sleep. Please let me know if you any suggestions on how to deal w the noise. Thanks!


Spring under the house? Time to sell? Or fill in the basement?
....damn....that sucks.....back up in a power failure will be an issue. Battery will die quickly with that condition.
Do you have a generator?
I have a back up pump that runs off city water pressure.


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## Full Moon (Oct 19, 2013)

DT1017 said:


> Full Moon - we are in a similar situation. We recently purchased a 75 year old house. The basement had no waterproofing, which we knew was something we had to address. We didn't know we would find a spring under the house! We just finished the project, but now the sump pump runs constantly. Did you find the noise disturbing? It's very disturbing for us, but the contractor has said there's not much we can do and it's functioning properly. It runs all night and makes it hard to sleep. Please let me know if you any suggestions on how to deal w the noise. Thanks!


Regarding the noise, before I upgraded things it drove me insane. Long story short, once I put the back stop in, and ran it shortest route, it made a huge difference. Before upgrade, when I ran it to the sewer it was this long route with pvc running through basement. As it drained it would vibrate many times, and by the time it was done, it happened again. 

I technically wasn't supposed to run it to sewer, but if I didn't, in the winter, it would literally create an ice rink on the street so the municipality asked me to. So when I redid things, I had it run into a sewer pipe right by the pump. After, whether routed outside or sewer, basically a hum and then a click. I got used to it and that noise wasn't as bad.


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## Full Moon (Oct 19, 2013)

123pugsy said:


> Spring under the house? Time to sell? Or fill in the basement?
> ....damn....that sucks.....back up in a power failure will be an issue. Battery will die quickly with that condition.
> Do you have a generator?
> I have a back up pump that runs off city water pressure.


The battery was a large boat battery. Supposed to last 8 hours. It never got tested even close to that, but yeah, I had concerns for a long outage. I also had a generator. Pretty much for this reason.


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## Bmat (Dec 22, 2020)

Full Moon said:


> Regarding the noise, before I upgraded things it drove me insane. Long story short, once I put the back stop in, and ran it shortest route, it made a huge difference. Before upgrade, when I ran it to the sewer it was this long route with pvc running through basement. As it drained it would vibrate many times, and by the time it was done, it happened again.
> 
> I technically wasn't supposed to run it to sewer, but if I didn't, in the winter, it would literally create an ice rink on the street so the municipality asked me to. So when I redid things, I had it run into a sewer pipe right by the pump. After, whether routed outside or sewer, basically a hum and then a click. I got used to it and that noise wasn't as bad.


This is so similar to my current situation, its unbelievable. In my case during a recent new purchases in MA, basement remodel, Whilst replacing a sewer pipe, a frenchdrain of some sort was discovered to be illegally connected to the sewer and my contractor (naively in the middle of a dry summer) eliminated the connection and installed a 30in deep sump pit with backup. This was July and since a few months the sump pit keeps filling at gal/min rates. It’s worse the day after a rainfall and of course freezing slow the water flow. After weeks of pumping into the street trying to figure out what to do, the City has asked me to connect back to sewer to avoid freezing as there is no storm collection in the street. I am waiting for this in writing, so a plumber can make this semi permanent / legit connection. For now i just have a hose going from the sump into a cleanout.

Now wondering what the long term solution should be, keeping in mind i want to finish this basement !

I’m leaning to making the sewer connection on the exterior of the house, this could be easily redirected to a dry well, sump or storm sewer in the future. The previous connection used gravity to feed the French drain to the sewer with a trap. I plan on adopting this same approach with a sump pit at a higher level as a backup. I also will make the connection to the exterior of the house, so any future changes won’t require tearing flooring, etc..

Any thoughts or ideas much appreciated ....


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## AllanJ (Nov 24, 2007)

Double check or triple check or check again. If rain water or gutter water is lapping up against the foundation anywhere you need to fix that, regrading if needed. There should not be a depression at the foundation where gravel or mulch is placed; Remove all that porous or soft stuff and replace with ordinary soil comparable to the rest of the lawn.

A spring under the house? Most likely your existing sump pump system will work as well as any other solution unless the volume of water is too great.

An underground pipe could be installed to reroute the spring around one side of the foundation. But the downstream end of this pipe could not be buried on the other side of your house where the stream continues underground. The water would back up all the way to the start of the bypass pipe upstream, leaving you back where you started.


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## Old Thomas (Nov 28, 2019)

I would make sure gutters and leaders are draining far from the house, no sense adding to the problem. I would put in a second sump crock that is much larger than the original. That can be the primary crock and pump. Being larger it will cycle less often but it will run longer. Put anything important up on platforms. Make the original sump crock and pump the backup. Then live there and enjoy your new house.
I have a 100 year old house. The basement used to get standing water. I fixed it with various measures, but my freezer, furnace, water heater, wood furnace and water softener are still above the floor.


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## Full Moon (Oct 19, 2013)

Bmat said:


> This is so similar to my current situation, its unbelievable. In my case during a recent new purchases in MA, basement remodel, Whilst replacing a sewer pipe, a frenchdrain of some sort was discovered to be illegally connected to the sewer and my contractor (naively in the middle of a dry summer) eliminated the connection and installed a 30in deep sump pit with backup. This was July and since a few months the sump pit keeps filling at gal/min rates. It’s worse the day after a rainfall and of course freezing slow the water flow. After weeks of pumping into the street trying to figure out what to do, the City has asked me to connect back to sewer to avoid freezing as there is no storm collection in the street. I am waiting for this in writing, so a plumber can make this semi permanent / legit connection. For now i just have a hose going from the sump into a cleanout.
> 
> Now wondering what the long term solution should be, keeping in mind i want to finish this basement !
> 
> ...


Most of what you're looking into is beyond my experience. Mine was pretty simple, though a lot of work to do. Big pit, 2 pumps, one battery. Water eliminated outside right by the pit. Second option, water went into sewer pipe right by pit. 

I don't understand how to do this by going into sewer outside home.

Hopefully you update what you did / do because I'm curious.


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## quatsch (Feb 4, 2021)

Sump pump switches have a wide range between "on" and "off”.

If you can find or build a switch that has a narrow range 
you might be able to adjust it to trigger at a water height
so the pump hardly ever runs but also does not flood your basement.

If might take only one inch difference.


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## Abuc (Aug 28, 2018)

Is that pump sitting on a piece of OSB?


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