Outdoor sump pump, what would you do?

[kohai]

I've got a sump pump outdoors in a pit for the french drains around the house.  My challenge is that the wiring to it has a splice that must be getting wet and it trips the gfci and I never know.  The pump originally had it's power outlet in the pit itself which must have gotten wet at some point because I found it dead last year and so I spliced the wire and moved the outlet to the outside of the pit.  

 

Challenges/goals:

 

- I've got to resolve the power splice issue.  Challenge is that it runs under a patio and into the house.  Maybe I put the outlet back in the pit?  Ugh.

 

- I need to monitor to know if there is power loss, need notifications

 

- I likely need to monitor for pump not working via monitoring water level

 

- Any devices I put outside to monitor this will need to be housed in something weatherproof

 

- The pit is in the ground with a very heavy solid industrial metal lid (metal like a sewer cover).  I'm concerned if anything is in the pit trying to transmit out, that it won't get out.

 

- I would like to log how often the pump runs

 

- I'm a z-wave ISY user, no plm.  

 

 

Any tips?

 

[Teken]

Could you offer a real picture of this sump pit I am truly at a loss how a 120 VAC outlet could ever be allowed to be installed in a water born area regardless of a GFCI.

[kohai]

Could you offer a real picture of this sump pit I am truly at a loss how a 120 VAC outlet could ever be allowed to be installed in a water born area regardless of a GFCI.

 

The outlet isn't in the pit anymore.  I put it outside the pit on a post about 10 feet away.  The electrician had to do a splice to extend the 120v power to reach the post.  The splice is using gell filled wire nuts.  Due to the patio cement and the pit location against the cement, the splice couldn't be nicely enclosed which I think is my problem now.

[Teken]

The outlet isn't in the pit anymore.  I put it outside the pit on a post about 10 feet away.  The electrician had to do a splice to extend the 120v power to reach the post.  The splice is using gell filled wire nuts.  Due to the patio cement and the pit location against the cement, the splice couldn't be nicely enclosed which I think is my problem now.

 

If you believe the splice is the primary issue why not place that section of cable in a small outdoor rated enclosure?

[kohai]

If you believe the splice is the primary issue why not place that section of cable in a small outdoor rated enclosure?

 

I might try that again.  My first attempt had an enclosure but the cement for the patio and the edge of the pit wouldn't let the lid close tightly.  I may have to dig under the patio to try to put in a box.

[Teken]

I might try that again.  My first attempt had an enclosure but the cement for the patio and the edge of the pit wouldn't let the lid close tightly.  I may have to dig under the patio to try to put in a box.

 

When its daylight it would be beneficial to see a real photo of the working area along with how the *New* power pole was installed etc.

 

The primary concern is a sound power supply that is properly installed per NEC / CEC.

 

Regardless, if you intend to monitor the other attributes like power, water level, there are lots of options. So long as your not fixated on just a Z-Wave solution. Then again it makes sense because you have a Z-Wave network. I won't lie to you that none of these home automation protocols would be my first line of defense or solution unless there was a direct method to secure the device so its reliability was 100%. 

[DennisC]

What type of cable is used for this outlet? Is it in conduit or direct burial cable,or something else? Is the cable in the sump it the same?

[kohai]

The wire is in conduit.  Where the splice is has a small junction box but it doesn't have a lid and it is filled with caulk to try to water proof it (wire nuts are gel filled).  Electrician helped with it.  Might need him back out.

 

Attached is my picture.  For monitoring, what would people recommend?  I'm not totally stuck with z-wave if there are other wi-fi or other options.  I may need to put a larger weatherproof box if I have to house other devices for monitoring.

 

 

[mwester]

I spent 20 years in a house (near Chicago) where keeping the sump pump operational was a requirement -- I was lucky that I just needed the sump pump; my neighbor across the back yard needed the whole french drain system and went through pumps every couple of years.  We escaped from Chicago, finally - and our new house doesn't need a sump, but due to geography and strict regulations, it needs a lift pump in the septic tank instead -- and it's just as important to keep THAT operational as the blasted sump pump in the old house was.

 

So, here's what I've learned over the years, and would suggest you consider:

 

a) Double-check the regulations where you live regarding that GFI.  Even when I lived in Chicago -- the Midwest's most over-regulated, over-building-coded, over-inspected, (and overly-corrupt, but that's another topic) city -- they not only did they make an exception in the code so that they didn't require GFIs for sump pumps, they actually went so far in my community to specifically recommend to residents that their sump pumps be on a non-GFI circuits.  The same is true where I live now - GFIs are not recommended for use with sump or septic pumps.

 

Ensure the pump is on its own private circuit, with nothing else on its breaker -- and make sure the wire is at least 12 gauge (for short runs) or 10 gauge (which I have now for a longer run), and the breaker is rated at 20 amps.  Bigger is fine, if your pump is bigger - but even if your pump is small, the last thing you want is a partially-blocked or iced up outlet to add enough back-pressure so that the pump blows a 15 amp breaker instead of starting the way it should.

 

c) Get rid of all splices and plugs.  Rewire if necessary -- it's cheaper to run a new cable all the way from the breaker panel to the pump now than it is to tear out everything your basement due to mold and fungus fears, etc.  You don't want any joints of any sort that can corrode and cause problems.  That includes plugs, of course, but I fear that your wire nuts also fall into that category.  They make proper splice kits, with set screws, which I expect would work better.  But best to get rid of the splice altogether -- abandon that wire under the patio altogether, and run a new one from the panel to the pump.  Your basement is worth it.

 

d) Do NOT rely on wireless.  It will fail you, sooner or later.  Instead, run a thick wire pair (or two pairs) from the sump/tank/cistern/whatever to the house -- I used landscape wire, 14 gauge -- way overkill, but waterproof, and l had a long run to do.  In the tank end, use a float switch that's set slightly higher than the pump's switch.  In the house, connect this to a tank alert device (mine is a siren with battery backup, really loud).

 

e) For automation, you want to monitor both the tank alert device (that'll tell you that the pump hasn't run), and the pump itself.  Do this inside the house - you can use z-wave for this if you want, but I have it all in the basement in one spot, so I use a raspberry pi and an Insteon I/OLinc -- redundancy is good for this sort of thing!  I monitor the high-water alarm, of course -- that's critical.  But for me, monitoring the pump is actually the key.  It turns out that the main problem for the pump in my case is the filter in the eject side of things -- and a simple chart of how long the pump runs each time it cycles shows clearly when that filter is in need of cleaning -- you'll see a knee in the curve where the run time for the pump rises precipitously!  After several years of records, I can pretty much tell when this is going to happen a week in advance.  That's plenty of time to prepare oneself for that horrible chore -- cleaning the septic tank filter.  I get an email from the ISY whenever the numbers look like the pump filter needs cleaning.

 

 

Final note - although I don't think this applies to your pump (but maybe?) -- after you get a history of results, you may find a need for proactive control.  I don't know your pump and situation -- but in my case, when the filter/eject clogged up, it usually didn't clog completely.  The key to keeping my pump actually working, albeit poorly, in that situation, was to shut it off when the run-time was too long (thus avoiding overheating of the pump if the level was low enough that the pump wasn't submerged entirely).  Then wait a while, for the eject pipe to drain back into the tank, hopefully clearing some of the clog with it, and enable another pump cycle.  This is done using a large contactor relay (usually used for HVAC gear) driven from a 24vac transformer, switched by an Insteon IOLinc.  The pump run time is sensed using a surplus current-operated switch ($12 on eBay) wired to the sensor input on that same IOLinc.  And of course, the Raspberry Pi corroborates the decision made by the ISY controller -- it uses a current sensor and actually measures the current draw from the pump, taking a snapshot every 5 seconds.

[kohai]

Thanks mwester, very very helpful.  

 

I have the outside sump pump and I also have two small condensate pumps inside.  My basement has the heating vents in the slab, so the two condensate pumps pull water out of the hvac system pipes (they're sunk in the floor).  I know the outside sump pump isn't working when I smell damp in the basement -- water is in the vents in the slab.  The outside sump pump seems to be seasonal and/or only run on wet weather.  Right now, we're having a crazy warm spell and had a lot of snow melt plus rain which saturated the ground.

 

I agree that a couple of monitoring approaches would be good to have a backup.  I'm going to reread your msg tomorrow and digest it.  

[Teken]

With respect to the GFCI I have to agree sumps, fridges, freezers should never be on a GFCI. Since the OP's unit is outside there isn't much he can do because its attached to a GFCI outlet.

 

Which is required for human safety never mind for the sump pump.

 

I don't know how old the GFCI is but from historic recollection anything pushing ten years needs to be assessed. Units from those periods were prone to nuisance tripping. The OP may very well find just replacing that current GFCI outlet with a WR (Weather Rated) GFCI with the proper in use cover will solve this issue.

 

Another alternative is to install a more expensive GFCI breaker which would negate any possible outdoor weather being the root cause and still have the outlet protected per NEC. Lastly, I agree with MWester tracking the sump pumps duty cycle, in rush current, run time, etc is extremely beneficial to gain insight about long term health and maintenance issues.

 

I have more than five years of hard data which tells me how many cycles, duration, watts, current, volt-amps, power factor (PF), costs, and KWH the pump has on my home.