sump pump help

[mross]

I have drainage problems in my back yard in Connecticut. On very bad rains I will get water into the back room of my house. My house has no basement so I paid a waterproofing specialist to install and exterior drainage system with a sump pump about 4 feet under my patio. The pump discharge goes underground about 100 feet and out into the road. It worked great but the drain line wound up freezing underground. I flushed it out with hot water and had to take off the faulty check valve. Now it pumps ok but it seems like the pump is getting air locked. Can a pump get air locked without a check valve? Do I need a check valve? Do I need the 3/16 inch relief hole either way? Is there any way to keep the discharge line empty so it wont freeze? Please help!!!

[Wgoodrich]

This is a common problem. Reason the gravity part of your drain going across you yard has to be so shallow to be able to drain on top of the ground it ends up not below frost line causing it to freeze in adverse weather.

Proper installation in this condition is to dig below frost line from the house out to the point of daylight draining into a cistern out there deep enough for the gravity drain to work in adverse weather being below the frost line draining into that cistern. Then a second pump is installed in that cistern and pumping the water to daylight with a very short hose that stays empty of water when the pump shuts off.

Easy fix rather than a total overhaul of your existing system is to dig down to that shallow gravity drain line where your pumped hose enters that gravity drain line. Put a tee in the line bringing a rigid pipe up to surface about 8" above ground depending on the depth of snow you have in your area. Then when your gravity drain line freezes shut you have a blow hole that the pumped waetr will blow on top of the grass until the frozen gravity drain line thaws out and starts working again. This allows for an emergency outlet of your pumped water during the time your normal gravity drain line is frozen. Cheap, easy and will work during the short time of adverse weather freezing your gravity drain outlet.

Remember often times the line is not frozen but rather the daylight outlet has domed over with ice due to warm water leaving the pipe into freezing temps causing it to frost shut only at the end where that drain daylights on top of the grass. If this is the case then you can trench out a 120 volt power placing a post and receptacle at the outlet of that hose then running a heat tape into the drain plugging it in during freezing weather.

Hope this helps

Wg