Any suggestions to get rid of sump pump water?

[Brian Elfert]

I dumped all of the water from my sump pump into the sewer for the first few years after I built my house. This is against the law and just plain a bad idea.

So, after some suggestions here last year I installed a dry well in my front yard. (Yard slopes a few feet from back to front and the back yard would not really have worked. ) I finally got the sump pump hooked to the dry well this spring, but the sump pump is overwhelming the dry well. The dry well I bought at Menards and it is 24" diameter and 28" tall. I wrapped it with landscape fabric and filled with rock per directions.

Any other suggestions for dealing with my sump pump discharge?

I really can't just send it out onto the ground as the water would run into the neighbor's yard. (My yard is 55 feet wide.) I started digging for a second dry well, but the new hole got water in it from the original dry well overflowing and it doesn't appear to drain well at all. The soil is sand and I'm surprised it does not drain well.

I don't know if going really large with a dry well would help or if I would just waste my time digging a massive hole and building a dry well.

[Joe Chritz]

Depends.

Do you have ditches or are you in the city or burbs with curbs and gutters?

If you have a ditch just run it out there and let it discharge.

If you are in the city the city will tell you what you have to do with the discharge.

I am outside the city but the county allows a drain field and tank for gray water which would include sump as well as washer, sinks, etc.

Ultimately the water has to be absorbed into the ground. That may mean making it spread out over a larger area with trenches or a field.

Joe

[Brian Elfert]

I have city sewer so no using a septic drain field. I've talked to the city and they just say good luck and don't direct any water to the neighbor's yards. they also said don't send it into the sewer.

There is sort of a drainage ditch at the rear of my lot, but it is a good 150 feet from the house and uphill the whole way. I can't imagine I could really pump that far uphill.

My lot slopes up towards the street and there is no curb so I can't dump out to the road.

A bunch of perforated drain tile might be my best bet. I wonder if I can get a trencher that makes an 8 to 12 inch wide trench 18 inches deep with out destroying the lawn?

[Joe Chritz]

You only need about 1 or 2 inches per 10 foot drop, less if you use perforated tile.

You would probably need a laser to find out the actual drop but you could use solid tile in a trench and run it out to the ditch. I run that far, plus all around the house. Mine drains to a pond and here the water table is really high.

Any trench will tear up the grass but if you feel ambitious you can de-sod it with a shovel then trench. When done compact the soil and put the sod back. I have done it a bunch when I was landscaping and it works good.

Joe

[Brian Elfert]

My father was just over and had a good idea. He suggested having a perc test done on the soil to determine how much water the soil could handle.

[Brian Elfert]

Joe, the problem with going back to the drainage ditch is the pipe would be at least 5 feet below ground to maintain any sort of slope by the time it hit the ditch. I'm not sure the ditch is even that deep. There is a 3 foot retaining wall about 40 feet from the house and about 100 feet from the ditch.

I'm mostly concerned about the tires on the trencher destroying the grass. Some of the trenchers have pretty agressive tires.

[David G Baker]

Brian,
Get the perc test done if the soil will handle a fair amount of water, a larger dry well may be in order. I used a plastic 55 gallon barrel and drained all of my eve troughs into it and it worked very well. The soil was adobe.

[Rob Russell]

Our town let us run a pipe from our sump to the storm drains under the street. A contractor dug a trench fro the back corner of our house down to the street, under the sidewalk. The town allowed the contractor to tie the pipe from our sump into the concrete storm drains under the street, actually connected to the pipe, not one of the big cisterns where the grates are.

Our house sits high enough above the road so we no longer have a pump - the water just gravity drains down.

The town did require that the contractor be one of the properly licensed and bonded contractors approved to do such work in town.

[Ed Breen]

I think that I would have the perc test and if positive I'd have a lateral field laid out. When we build a tank we use a 55 tank with holes poked in it. You could set the 55 and connect it to a lateral field.
ED

[Brian Elfert]

I talked to a guy who could do a perc test. He could do the test for $125, but he really doubts that my soil could support the 50 gallons an hour I am pumping out.

I got a price for a 1300 gallon drywell at $800, but the perc test guy also said even one this big likely couldn't drain 50 gallons an hour. The only place making smaller drywells said they would have to charge $1200. A lot of places stopped making drywells since the state pollution folks outlawed them for holding surface water.

I also talked to the assistant city engineer today and he is going to check where the storm sewers run near my lot. He is also going to come out to assess the situation. I'm not going to do anything until he comes out.

[Prashun Patel]

Seems to me you're doing all you possibly can by having 1 drywell already.
The purpose of the stormwater drains is to handle runoff from yr property. It's good for the community when you hold as much as you can on-site, but that shouldn't mean converting yr whole yard into an expensive drywell.

Assuming the twp permits it, I'd install an outlet drain at the TOP of yr drywell that leads to a convenient place on yr lawn in the direction of the street. This will allow yr yard to absorb all it possibly can and then direct the rest (properly) to the storm drain.

[Brian Elfert]

The issue with going to the storm drain is getting the water there. The nearest access to a storm drain is two lots over and uphill a good dozen feet.

The city doesn't seem to care if I dump water into the storm sewer if there was a way to access the storm sewer. If I had a curb on the front of my property it would be easy.

[Prashun Patel]

You should post this q on Terry Love. They'll have some good answers for you.

[Stephen Beckham]

Brian - just because I'm curious - sorry it doesn't help...

Where in the heck are you getting 50 gallons an hour to pump out of your basement. Sound's like you could put a filter and some Cholrine in and run an inground pool in the basement. Maybe the city is pumping their water under your house....

[Rob Russell]

The issue with going to the storm drain is getting the water there. The nearest access to a storm drain is two lots over and uphill a good dozen feet.

The city doesn't seem to care if I dump water into the storm sewer if there was a way to access the storm sewer. If I had a curb on the front of my property it would be easy.

If there is a pipe in the road in front of your house, tie into it there. You don't need to tie in at one of the storm drains. That's what we did.

I guess I don't understand the point about not having a curb on the front of your property. Does that mean you don't have storm drain piping in the street?

[Art Mulder]

Where in the heck are you getting 50 gallons an hour to pump out of your basement. .
:eek::confused::eek::confused::eek::confused:
Yeah, what he said. Is this a typo!?!? If this is true, then there is a major issue with your ground/water !

edit: Err, not that I'm a building engineer, or geologist. This just seem like a huge, huge amount of water.

[Brian Elfert]

Brian - just because I'm curious - sorry it doesn't help...

Where in the heck are you getting 50 gallons an hour to pump out of your basement. Sound's like you could put a filter and some Cholrine in and run an inground pool in the basement. Maybe the city is pumping their water under your house....

I live across the road from a decent sized lake.

When the house was built in 2001, there were major issues with the basement hole filling with water. It took two weeks of pumping to get the hole dry enough to pour the footings. After the water issues I paid $2000 to have sole borings done to be sure the soil could support the house.

The builder put drain tile on the inside and outside of the footings plus put 9" of river rock under the floor. The basement has stayed dry as a bone since the house was built.

The sump pump runs generally six times an hour so that is where 40 to 50 gallons an hour comes from. I've never actually measured the amount of water.

[Brian Elfert]

I figure if I had a curb in front of my house I could dump the water over the curb and it would drain down into the storm sewer.

I don't know yet if the city will allow me to tap directly into the storm sewer pipe. I expect it would cost $2,000 to $3,000 to hire someone to do the excavating and actually connect the pipe to the storm sewer. (This is based on my experience hooking up to sanitary sewer in 2001.)

I really don't want to spend $3,000 to fix this if I can help it. The road was rebuilt maybe 10 years ago, but only some sections have curb for some reason.

[Brian Elfert]

The assistant city engineer was out today and he said there are no storm sewers in the area. The two catch basins and drain culvert two lots over actually dump straight into the lake.

His only good suggestion is to run a drain pipe in the city right of way over to the drain culvert, but that could be a $2,000 to $3,000 job. There is also the question if the head city engineer would actually approve this.

[Jim Becker]

So....they want you to direct the excess water appropriately, but have no place for you to direct it to...oy!

[Matt Meiser]

So what about this ditch at the back of your property? Where does it go?

Could you put in some kind of tank for the sump to pump into, then pump from that tank to the ditch? PITA, but might be cheaper than the other option?

[Justin Leiwig]

Have you thought about actually using the water? You can have a cistern installed with a pump and never have to worry about using tap water to water your lawn or flowers or anything else.

I know of a guy who has 2400 gallons of water and his county was under water restrictions, but he had the greenest lawn and prettiest gardens of anyone because of his cistern.

Not only is it better for the environment, but you save yourself some cash outlay on the water bill.

[Brian Elfert]

So what about this ditch at the back of your property? Where does it go?

Could you put in some kind of tank for the sump to pump into, then pump from that tank to the ditch? PITA, but might be cheaper than the other option?

The ditch flows through an easement (for a road that will never be built) down into a lake. The problem is the ditch flattens out at the edge of someone's yard and my discharge would most likely turn their yard into a swamp.

The ditch is not an official county or city drainage ditch so the homeowner would likely win if they complained.

I would have to install a tank and pump if I was able to drain into the ditch as the ditch is higher than the sump pump discharge.

I have someone coming out Friday morning to look at the situation based on his expertise wth drainage. He also said boring costs have come way down so going to the drain culvert might be the most feasible way to go.

[Brian Elfert]

The idea of storing the water for lawn watering has merit, but what do I do with the water when I don't need to water? In the spring the sump pump starts running at least a few weeks before the grass could possibly need watering.

[John Fricke]

A walk behind trencher will do very little sod damage from the tires. We have one at work we use for trenching in LP gas lines in customers yards. Should be easy to find one that digs 4" wide x 18"-24" deep at most rental stores. When trenching for drainage you only want about 1/2" fall / 10 feet of run or it will tend to run to the far end. I would run solid pipe til you get away from the house a ways then switch to perforated. This will help prevent pumping the same water over and over again. If you want help with setting up grade strings for the trencher PM me or email me at roadymi@hotmail.com If you trench it is always best to call locator service to markany buried utilities, it is a free sevice. Good Luck water in the basement sucks.

[Brian Elfert]

This is going to be very expensive to fix. The city engineer says I might be able to build a holding pond that overflows into the road easement/drainage ditch in my back yard.

The city engineer recommended I hire a civil engineer to look at the problem and to design a solution. It is estimated to cost $1,000 to $1,500 for just the engineering. The city cannot give me written permission to dump water into their road easement/drainage ditch. My fear is spending $3,000 on a solution that ends up flooding a neighbor's side yard and the city shuts me down after getting a complaint.

The gentleman I had out Friday said the amount of drain tile I would need would make my yard a total mess and might just cycle the water back to the sump pit eventually.