Sump pumps are one of the most boring parts of home ownership. Until that one storm comes and suddenly they’re interesting.
After losing power one time this summer, I got paranoid and decided to build a battery backup. Home Depot had the basement watchdog systems, but they seemed high maintenance and I wanted something that would let me be lazier. I went with a LifePo4 battery system, that will (hopefully) get me 10 to 15 years. The battery charger has a float/storage mode so it can stay on 24/7. Doing some test runs, I think I can get about 400 cycles out of the battery before it hits 0%. I added some additional safety features (DC circuit breaker, GFCI with auto-on, Lithium fire extinguiser, etc), and added some battery powered lights and a basket of hand tools, so in the event the power goes out in the dead of night, something goes wrong, and I have to get my feet wet, everything is there ready to go.
And LAMINATED DOCUMENTATION!! Love the setup!!
Yessir, 'cause you know when I need to actually work on this thing…it’ll be in the middle of a storm, when the power is out, and the water is rising in the pit, and I’ll be stressed outta my gourd. So I’ll need battery powered lights, and tools sitting right there, and instructions on how to connect and disconnect everything, so I don’t actually have to think under pressure :D
I missed that, thanks for pointing it out.
I’ll have to get my dad to do this at his place. He’s on a well, water softener, and fancy septic tank, as well as sump and sewer being pumped up from basement level to ground level for removal.
The system looks impressive, but if he’s not around in an emergency I would not know what pipe or valve does what.
Every device and power cable has a label. So if the instructions say “disconnect ATS from Inverter”, you just look for for two devices with those labels.