I live in the Northeast and have only very recently educated myself (somewhat) about sump pumps despite the fact that we had one installed in our home 25 years ago. I was trying to determine what (if anything) may be wrong with our Little Giant because it seemed like the water was rising higher in my basin than previously before discharging. Per the company, the switch needs to be replaced, but it does seem foolish to repair a 25 year old item. The company that did my waterproofing 25 years ago no longer uses Little Giant, they use Zoeller pumps.
Due to having some ignorant workers sent to my home by other contractors lately to deal with other issues, I like to get myself somewhat familiar with what they should be doing. That is when I discovered that my sump pump basin is much smaller than typical. I am reading that the depth for a Zoeller (and a Little Giant for that matter) should be a minimum of 24”. Mine is 17”. It is not in a crawl space so I don’t know why the contractor didn’t dig deeper. (I hope it wasn’t to save himself the work, but who knows.) The upshot is that that the pump has been working without issue for 25 years. The only thing that I just had replaced after the last time the pump discharged was the check valve as I had noticed that the valve was dripping.
I don’t want to switch out the basin – it already has the cut outs for the pipes that bring the water to it, and any time something is touched/played around with, there is always the chance someone will screw something up. I’d rather leave well enough alone, as I have said, all seems to have gone well these past 25 years.
It would be one thing to replace my Little Giant, 6” high, with another one that looks and operates the same as mine (506158-6-CIA - I think they even make the same model) but the waterproofing company uses Zoeller now, and Zoeller pumps are much taller – over 10 (model M53) or 13 (model M73) inches high. The Zoeller also use a float switch instead of a diaphragm switch used by Little Giant. Who knows, these differences may cause the Zoeller pump not to work properly with my small basin, and I have a feeling that whoever I speak with at the waterproofing company will say “it will be fine”. (Everyone always says that, but so many contractors and their workers are ignorant!) It’s not so simple to find someone else to do the job - good people are hard to find around here. What would you advise? Thank you
Due to having some ignorant workers sent to my home by other contractors lately to deal with other issues, I like to get myself somewhat familiar with what they should be doing. That is when I discovered that my sump pump basin is much smaller than typical. I am reading that the depth for a Zoeller (and a Little Giant for that matter) should be a minimum of 24”. Mine is 17”. It is not in a crawl space so I don’t know why the contractor didn’t dig deeper. (I hope it wasn’t to save himself the work, but who knows.) The upshot is that that the pump has been working without issue for 25 years. The only thing that I just had replaced after the last time the pump discharged was the check valve as I had noticed that the valve was dripping.
I don’t want to switch out the basin – it already has the cut outs for the pipes that bring the water to it, and any time something is touched/played around with, there is always the chance someone will screw something up. I’d rather leave well enough alone, as I have said, all seems to have gone well these past 25 years.
It would be one thing to replace my Little Giant, 6” high, with another one that looks and operates the same as mine (506158-6-CIA - I think they even make the same model) but the waterproofing company uses Zoeller now, and Zoeller pumps are much taller – over 10 (model M53) or 13 (model M73) inches high. The Zoeller also use a float switch instead of a diaphragm switch used by Little Giant. Who knows, these differences may cause the Zoeller pump not to work properly with my small basin, and I have a feeling that whoever I speak with at the waterproofing company will say “it will be fine”. (Everyone always says that, but so many contractors and their workers are ignorant!) It’s not so simple to find someone else to do the job - good people are hard to find around here. What would you advise? Thank you
