The house we bought had a very strange setting with a downward driveway leading to a sideload garage which was lower than backyard and neighboring yard (separated by retaining wall). What type of pump do I need to move the run off ground water (will be dirty, with sand, particles, leaves etc, but will have some sort of screen at incoming port to help filtering). I'm currently using a liberty Sewage pump (instead of sump pump), but I also see other types of pump for "dirty water".

Thanks a lot.

 

I would use one of the centrifugal pumps designed to handle some solids. You don't need anything as drastic as a diaphragm pump.

 

They are called trash pumps!

So what is the water being collected in?

 

My limited imagination was to put a sump pit outside the garage and then some sort of submersive pump to pump the overflown water (during stupid heavy rain) out to the street. Currently there is only one channel drain in front of the garage which has a 4inch pump hooked up to the Liberty LE50A sewage pump inside one sump pit inside the garage. We had a 100-year level heavy rain/flash flood and that pump could not handle the speed of rainfall/water accumulation.

Any recommendation of brand/model of the pump for the outside? The inside pump is a 0.5hp sewage pump, which goes to 8400 gph at 5ft. Liberty/Zoeller anything at 0.75 hp or 1 hp (sewage pump) runs at ~$800-1000 according to ebay/amazon/homedepot.

Some more info/pix of the garage: https://www.doityourself.com/forum/r...mark-wall.html

BTW the gutter outside that garage door was not dumping water to driveway, it is connected to the tubes going around the house then to the street side. One idea of the 2nd pump was to put the pit at the corner of where gutter is at, and pump the water straight up and flow with that gutter water, but some concerns were brought up that the dirty ground water may clog the gutter's drain pipe. Now the idea is to use seperate pipes to go around that retaining wall (sitting on top of the wall, or sitting at the drive way) and then go to street. Pretty long distance to the street.

Not sure this would work or not : https://www.amazon.com/Tsurumi-Autom...ateway&sr=8-57

Another concern now that I thought about it more is the winter freezing... We are in DC area so winter sometimes does get bitter...

 

I don't understand "...which has a 4inch pump hooked up to the Liberty LE50A sewage pump...". The LE50 is a 1/2 hp 2" pump. How can you have a 4" pump hooked up to it?

 

Sorry typo. I meant there was a 4 inch pipe from the grated channel to the sump pit inside, but the pump itself was hooked up to a smaller diameter discharge tubing (2 inch port vs the 1.5 inch pipe)

 

You saw my recommendation on the post from last year regarding pumps, who the hell makes a TsurumI?

 

Problem is when googling "trash pump " plus "liberty/zoeller", i cannot find any specific models. "sewage pump" is the closet i can find that Liberty/zoeller offers. So are you saying the one i have for inside is the right type? Liberty LE50 sewage pump

 

A sump pump is a machine designed for getting rid of water from flooding or other excess water in a structure's basement. ... By contrast, sewage pumps are designed to remove not just water but also waste and other small materials from a building to the septic tank or the sewage system.


Sewage pump/trash pump, I think your good!

 

Thanks for the clarification. Now back to the solution, do you think 2nd pump would work? How about the possible freezing problem? And the is it doable to pump straight up and connect to that gutter pipe with check valve and maybe screening (to avoid particles from the ground water to clog gutter drain pipe?) or go with the surface pipe route (go around the driveway and sit at the retaining wall)?

 

I'm sorry, I've re-read both posts twice and I'm still not clear where all the pumps, pits, gutters, and drain pipes connect and exactly where the 2nd pump being discussed is being considered.

Maybe somebody else has grasped the situation better than me!

 

It is very confusing, sorry about that. If you look at the pix shows the garage door and the grated channel in front of the door, the 4 inch pipe is build inside the left portion of the channel, it goes under the concrete floor of the garage all the way to the left corner of the garage (where there is sump pit put on the concrete floor). That is where the 1st pump is, and the discharge pipe is also inside the garage.

right side of the garage door, you can see the gutter from the roof, it drains into a pipe that is right above the retaining wall, going round the back of the house then to street side.

Idea is to dig a hole outside the garage door, at the right corner where the garage door/wall meets the retaining wall, and somehow make it the lowest point by expanding/adjusting the grate channel. The run off water collects into that pit first, and get pumped out by the 2nd pump, anything overflow from that pit then would get collected by the channel until it drains into the original inside pit/pump.

Routing of the piping from the 2nd pump, there were two ideas. One is going straight up and connected to that gutter drain pipe (valve and stuff), so it only needs to pump up maybe 5-6 ft and merge with the gutter water, and drained out in the gutter drain pipe, concern is the particles from the ground water may clog the gutter pipe? The other idea would be put the pipe on the surface, go from pump to the top of retaining wall, then going along on top of the retaining wall all the way to the front side of the driveway which has natural slope towards the street (this would be at least 20-30 ft pipe).

 

If you do have sand and rocks getting into the system going up from a 2" line to a 4" outlet pipe isn't the best. The reduction in flow velocity when the water hits the larger pipe can allow the heavy chunks to settle out. When pumping water with trash it is best to have the same size line all the way to the exit. That way all the chunks are kept moving at higher velocity until they are out of the pipe.