To learn some of the finer points of Pittsburgh sump pump replacement, there’s no better group of people to confide in than the pros. And it’s a well-known fact that plumbers in Pittsburgh install and repair sump pumps every day.
So before I got started on my project, I decided to call one of the better-known and highly respected plumbing contractors in Pittsburgh.
I pressed 412-681-9525 to get the folks at Kwiatkowski Plumbing on the phone to see if I could pick up some free advice.
As it turned out, they had quite a bit to say, so I was glad that I made the phone call.
Virtually everything that they told me helped me to complete my project in less than a day. Had I not called them and instead learned on the fly during the project, I don’t think I would ever be able to complete it. At least not as quickly as I did.
Mine was a Pittsburgh residential sump pump installation project.
Our new home came with an old non-functioning sump pump.
We bought a new home in Pittsburgh 6 months ago. Granted, it wasn’t actually new. Instead, it was an older home that had been completely restored and remodeled.
It really was an exemplary job, with the exception of one thing. That one thing is they neglected to replace the worn-out sump pump in the basement.
It wasn’t difficult to see how it could be an easy mistake to make because the people we bought the home from had done all the repairs and remodeling work during the summer months.
So they hadn’t even gone through any rainy winter months, so it’s easy to see how they could have missed it. Luck was on our side, though, because the sump pump alarm did work, or we would have had our basement flooded.
After about a week of heavy rain, once winter set in, water started making its way through the drainage pipes into the sump in the basement.
So the pump didn’t kick turn on, but the alarm thankfully did, and we were blessed to get a quick response from Kwiatkowski Plumbing. Had we not, we would have for sure had real problems.
It started out as a DIY sump pump replacement project.
I wanted to do the work. What could go wrong?
After all, I had to go through getting our home ready for sale back where we moved from; I now consider myself quite the handyman when it comes to most home repair projects.
I also now have a fairly broad assortment of tools, and I paid good money for them, so I might as well use them when I can.
So I decided that my first step was to go down into the basement, do the surgery required to remove the old pump, and then basically install a new one to take its place.
But before I could do even that, it was plainly evident that the sump had not been cleaned for quite some time because it was loaded up with sand and gravel that I had to scoop out.
After that task was done, it was on to removing the pump. Easy enough. So I cut the plumbing connection using a small hand saw and then reached down to wrestle the pump up out of the hole, and that’s I got hit by a severe electrical shock that quite literally knocked me to the floor.
Before you get started on DIY sump pump replacement in Pittsburgh.
They forgot to tell me to unplug it first.
So it turned out that DIY sump pump replacement in Pittsburgh wasn’t as easy as I thought it was. It’s not a complicated job per se. It’s just that there are a few things you need to know first, and folks at Kwiatkowski Plumbing neglected to inform me about the most important one.
For sure, they were kind enough to tell me point-by-point how to remove the old sump pump and replace it with a new one. But there was just one little thing that they forgot to throw in there, and that was to unplug the thing before I started it on it.
I think they assumed that I was smart enough to remember to do that, but obviously, they were wrong. Anyway, it was 120 volts, so I’m okay.
I got a good scare out of it, though, and you can bet that from now on, before I work on anything electrical in a home, I’m going to unplug it at the wall, or if I can’t do that, I’m going to turn the switch off at the power box.
Time for some sump pump maintenance while I have the old pump out.
I picked up a new high-tech check valve.
One great tip that I got was to replace the check valve with a new PVC model that does away with the all too common water hammering problem.
The check valve attaches to the waterline. Its job is to make sure that the water flows in one direction when it’s being pumped up out of the basement.
If the water were to flow backward, all the water left in the line would fill the sump back up and trigger the pump to go on. Then back into the line, it would go. The pump will shut off, and the process will repeat itself over and over again indefinitely.
So the solution is a check valve to keep the water from flowing backward, but it carries with it the risk of water hammering. That is a loud hammering noise that’s created when the water in the line comes down on the valve and is stopped.
So the solution is a newer model check valve that has a built-in design feature that effectively eliminates water hammering. It looks noticeably different, too. It’s larger with a tapered shape, and also it’s made out of PVC plastic.