Replacement Sump Pump

I need to replace another sump pump. This one I'm thinking of replacing it with the Basement Watchdog Big Dog. See the following link for info.

http://www.basementwatchdog.com/basement_watchdog_bigdog.htm

The main reason I want to do this is because I would like to have battery backup incase of a power failure and this is the only battery pump I could fing that can be used alone. Also it must go in a small sump where it would be very difficult to fit a regular bump and a backup.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

Sears pump

Hi, don't know if this is what you are interested in, but it appears to be used on its' own, and you would have to buy a battery to use it. The setup you are looking at is really nice though, compared to the Sears.

http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/prod...N&subcat=Fountains+&+Pumps&BV_UseBVCookie=Yes

Thanks for the reply Mike. I may want to consider the one from Sears.

Since I last posted I thought of another idea to keep a sump pump operating during a power outage. An uninterruptable power source could be used instead of the backup systems we discussed in previous posts. What I'm talking about is a unit with a battery and charger that would plug into a regular 120VAC outlet and a regular 120VAC pump would plug into the unit. When power went out the battery would run the pump. Does anyone know if such a unit is available?

UPS's are available at most any place that sells computers. Getting one big enough to provide more than a short duration backup means fairly big money, though, and you may have to order from them or get it on-line. You can use a dc (battery) power pump, and roll your own without buying a 120vac pump, though. One or more car batteries with a trickle charger or an automatic one meant to be on all of the time would run the pump from the batteries kept charged by a/c. When the power goes off, the batteries would last as long as the capacity you chose to keep charged. Just remember to run them in parallel (assuming a 12v pump), and not in series.

Go with the batteries

A "UPS" battery backup unit to run a pump would have to be huge and correspondingly expensive. I'll bet you'd have to get up into the 3kVA plus category to get one big enough to start the pump, and the run time wouldn't be enough to satisfy you, I'm sure. If BobNH is reading this, I'll bet he could tell you exactly how big a unit you'd need.

OTOH, 12V batteries are pretty cheap, readily available, and can handle large starting loads easily. Just keep adding batteries until you have enough capacity to run the pump as long as you'll need to. And, in a pinch, you could use your car's alternator to keep them charged.

back up

I agree that a UPS would not stand the test of use if it was required to be available over an extended outage. The deep cycle marine battery is built for just such use and would be relatively inexpensive compared to a UPS system. The UPS also has filter etc; that are not needed for the sump application.

I use an UPS with it's internal battery augmented by a deep cycle marine 12v battery, works just fine.

Rancher

If you are looking for a device that will operate your AC pump and have strong DC power backup capabilities, then the link below is for such a device. They are not cheap and require 2 deep cycle batteries (recommend 105 ah AGM's vs. wet cells). It has a built-in inverter and transfer switch mechanism to switch from AC to DC in the event of an outage.

http://www.sumpro.com/Sumpro_original.shtml

Cheaper versions may exist but have far less battery power (60 amp hr batteries won't last long for a sump), but have enough inverter wattage for brief power outages.

http://www.backuppower.citymax.com/sumppumpbackuppower.html