Sump pump cycling too often ?

[Diamond Dave]

We just bought our first house 3 weeks ago (that was built 2 years ago and lived in by first owner) and I have been noticing that the sump in the basement runs about every 1.7 minutes. When I look at the pipe exiting the house above ground, it runs through 1.5" sch. 40 pipe out the wall then bends down a 90 into a "Y" (one side of y looks like it's for cleaning out pipe?) continuing down to an adaptor into 4" sch. 20 pipe into the ground. It then looks to exit away from the house approx 6ft but not too sure where it goes from there. Where it comes out from the house the approx. 6ft is a pooling area of water in the grass and I notice that every time the sump cycles I see movement of water in that pooled area of the grass like it's either dumping right there from the house or it has a cracked conector just below the grass. It rained a couple of days ago but not too heavy. the ground around the house is quite soft which leads me to think I am having all the ground water just recycling through my sump in the basement.

My property runs a total of 220ft from front to back, with a drainage ditch running along the width of the front of my property to a major street (I assume for all the properties runoff to connect to a major sewer). I also have an area collection "pond" at the back of the property which I assume is also for runoff from other houses on that side of the area. I had one plumber come out today and tell me that I have huge water drainage issues the way the house currently is and that he would charge me $3000. He said they run the correct pipe to the front of the property into the drainage ditch with some sort of air inlet installed right off the house there at the size of pipe change (to keep water flowing,and keep from freezing?) along with getting permits, etc.

With getting a crash course lately on home fixes, insane estimates for repairs, and getting alot of new information from this site, do I ........

Call a few more plumbers for ideas/estimates
Rent a small excavator, run 3" sch. 40 pipe from house to front of house where drainage ditch is and also figure out how I install this "air" inlet to keep water flowing and keep from freezing. Along with how to navigate around water and gas lines on that same side of the house.
rent the excavator, run the piping out the back of the property toward the "pond" area.
Do I also look into the cost of either myself doing it or having someone else install an external drainage (french?) system around the foundation of the basement.Tie it's drainage via gravity (hopefully!) to the line from the existing sump exiting the house now in whatever direction is best with what I already am having to have fixed.


Any guidance will be huge at this point since I am not sure how to tackle this.

[Gary Slusser]

First, although you don't mention them (downspouts), get the downspout and then this sump pump water farther away from the house.

Then see how the sump pump operates during and after rains. If the problem is still there, then look into a french drain etc. or running a line out the front to the street. You're looking for a vacuum breaker and all pump or plumbing supply houses will have them. IMO the best pipe to run to the street and out the back yard, is PE pipe. You buy it in 100' or longer rolls. Sump pumps usually use a 1.25" outlet and you can use 1.25" or 1" PE pipe in one continuous piece (no joints except one at each end; I see no need for 3" PVC.

[scuba_dave]

It also depends upon how big your sump pump pit is
Mine has pipes (Frencg drain?) under the basement floor
Once the sump kicks on it starts to empty the pit, then draws & drains water from the drain system. This is a lot of water in most cases & it can run for some time
The sump float keeps dropping until 2 of the pipes are drained
The 3rd pipe is almost fully drained when the float bottosm out & shuts off

THEN (important!!) the drains & drain pit MUST fill back up before the pump kicks back on. This is a lot of water & takes time usually

IF:
you have a small pit with low water volume to pump THEN it will cycle off & on quickly

IF:
the float on/off are not spread out enough, THEN it will cycle off & on quickly

I have graded the side of my house that faces my nieghbor 2' away from the house with a sharp slope to assist in drainage & keeping water away from the house. I also added a 14' long garden behind the house to force water draining away from the house & into the back yard
With a new garage foundation going in I ran 4" drainage pipe to the far side of the garage (24') then an additional 15-20' with perforated 4' pipe. one of these ends up in a dry stone "river" bed that I made
Approx 25' or more beyond that is a small "stream". Actually just a drainage system or the streets

I had water leaking in near the front porch. I enclosed the front porch
I have water leaking in between the back patio & the house. Thsi will be eliminated when I build a sunroom on the back patio

[TMetz60]

Our home is only 3 years old and during the first winter, my high water scensor in my sump pit activated our alarm. Unbeknownst to us until that time, we have a high water table problem. Found out later that our builder hit water when digging the foundation and decided to backfill 2'-3' of dirt into the hole and built the house higher (dummie!) anyway, the sump outlet pipe went through our basement wall just above grade and terminated. So when the sump started kicking in when the watertable rose significantly, the pump dumped the water right outside at the foundation. (dummies). Our sump would fill up and cycle every 30-45 seconds and did so for about 25 days!!! Let's just say I had a hard time sleeping at night.
Keeping in mind it was at or around 0 degrees during this time, I had to crawl under my deck, oh yeah, they put the pipe way under my deck (dummies) and I extended the pipe about 40' into my backyard so it wouldn't drain back into the foundation drain system and ultimately back into the sump.
It hasn't happen since then, but what a nightmare.
I have the scensor monitored by my alarm company so that if the sump pump ever fails (it did once), I get a call.

[CR500]

Make sure you have a check valve at the output of the pump to prevent the water from flowing back when the pump shuts off.

You can increase the run time and decrease the cycling by drilling a small hole (1/4" diameter) in the pipe between the pump and check valve. I did that at my parents house and it worked great.