Hidden away in the lowest corner of your basement there is a hole, and in this hole the plumbers in Lafayette have installed a sump pump. A sump pump is rarely thought of as being glamorous but it sure is useful, so useful in fact that it may be among the most important appliances in your home. The sump pump quietly sits there, cycling on and off and removing water that gathers under the basement slab. Without this wonderful device, it would not take long for your basement to fill with water up to the level of the water table.
The pump sits in a hole; the concrete floor is sloping a little toward the hole so that any water will drain toward the pump. Any water that gets in the basement some other way than from under the slab just flows to the hole and is pumped outside.
In most municipalities it is illegal to connect the sump pump directly to the sewer and it is a bad idea to connect it to your septic tank if you are not on the sewer system as the amount of water will tax the septic tanks ability to perform is digestive function. It is best to run the pipe into the yard and just let it pump out on the ground.
There are two common types of sump pumps that plumbers in Lafayette are familiar with; the pedestal pump and the submersible pump. In the case of the pedestal pump there is an assembly which is perhaps three feet long. On one end is an electric motor, running alongside this motor support is a pipe which extends to the bottom of the sump hole. As the water rises, a float valve activates the motor which in turn sucks the water from the hole and sends it outside.
A submersible pump is much smaller, maybe only a foot high. It sits in the bottom of the sump pit. Unlike the pedestal pump there is no pipe to collect the water, the pump sits at the bottom of the pit and takes in the collected water directly. The submersible pump is actually the better unit as the pump has a protective screen over it which stops any loose pebbles or debris from getting in the mechanism, this is not the case with a pedestal pump; it may get clogged with loose gravel.
