Scott: Meet the Great Sump-man!

If you have read some of my past blogs you are likely to be familiar with the Great Stumpman! If not check him out here. Today let me introduce you to a close relative of the Great Stump man, the Great Sumpman!

The Great Stumpman cuts down trees, the Great Sumpman does plumbing and installs Sump Pumps. Sump pumps you say! What do you need sumps pumps for? Well earlier this year just after the spring snow melt the old homestead was inundated with melt water and due to a sump pump malfunction the water managed to get to an unreasonable high level of 3- 4 inches in a furnished basement. So a little after the fact and the mess is cleaned up it is necessary to refurbish the sump and pump to forestall the high water event from occurring again. This will require some messy concrete removal and digging a rather large hole in the basement floor. Oh and by the way there is water below the floor because of recent rains so the hole is going to be full of mud!

But first a simple plumbing job to warm up with before the heavy duty mess start on Saturday morning. The resident house maiden of the old homestead has been whining that the only outside faucet in the old homestead is located in the garage and requires her to drag hose all over the place whenever she wants to water here Tomato plants. So a simple outdoor faucet will be plumbed into the back wall of the house connecting to the existing plumbing under the kitchen sink.

The hole is drilled though the outside wall

The Great Sumpman works on the copper plumbing for the outside faucet, along side the new sump that has to be installed in the floor in the morning. That’s a mighty big sump and it will require a mighty big hole!

Pay attention this is how you solder copper pipe:

Get the pipe very clean with sandpaper, apply lots of flux, and heat the pipe and connector until the solder melts when touching the pipe, Then and only then melt a lot of solder into the connection.

Final touches to the outside faucet.

The resident house maiden inspects the final results, and it meets with her approval.

With the warm up job out of the way, and Friday night happy hour done, Saturday morning rolls around too soon and its time to remove the old sump and pump to get ready for the new one. Below in the cramped space under the stairs you see the old sump hole with the sump removed. The blue circle is the outline of the new sump, and the larger blue square is where we are going to cut the cement with a diamond cement blade for removal. The large square hole will allow us to dig a much larger hole for the sump.

After a 20 minute session with the cement saw and what passes for a cement sandstorm in the small enclosed stairwell, the Great Sumpman withdraws for breath of fresh air. (note from the editor: the Great Sumpman’s hair is not nearly as gray as it looks here)

The completed square cutout in the cement with the enlarged hole ready for the new sump. Gotta love that mud!

The new sump is in place, back filled with dirt and filling with water. We are now ready to place the new sump pump into the new sump and plumb it in place.

The house maiden and, cleaning crew inspect the work

Finally the total disaster is over and the cleaning crew moves into make the place respectable again.

After lunch, and the mess is cleaned up the final plumbing takes place and the new Ace hardware sump is dropped into the hole with the backflow valve attached. The final pieces of INCH 1/2 plastic pipe are welded into place and the cover bolted down along with the final wiring to run the pump is put into place. All that is left is to mix up a bag of cement and replace the cement floor around the new sump installation.