The Baggage Room Basement - Phase II - Pumping It Out!!

Today was quite a different pace from what we had been doing for the previous 2 1/2 months.  No digging clay or slinging crushed stone today!  Hard to believe it eh!?  For the past 10 weeks we've been doing nothing but digging out wet, mucky clay out of the basements and trucking back crushed stone - it's been hot,  sweaty, grunt work.

When we arrived this morning, the first thing we looked at was the sump pit - the 45-gallon steel barrel that we had installed last week.  The water in the barrel was about 12" from the top - a good indication of where the water level out in the swamp was at.  Our objective for the day was to get the sump pump and the necessary plumbing installed so that we could start pumping out the water and lowering the water table in the baggage room basement.

Cory, Bill S and I started with 1 1/2" ABS rigid plastic pipe working both ends against the middle - first fitting fitting bits and pieces of pipe and fittings together at the sump pump end and then moving to the other end by the drains - cutting into the mains, installing a Y and working the pipe back to the sump pump.  We had a couple of "oops" moments but we were able to quickly recover (that's what I like about ABS plastic pipe!).  In between all of this, we had to make several trips over to Rideau Lumber to pick up bits and pieces (big and small) to make it all fit together.

By lunch time it seemed as if we hadn't made much progress but it's always the case that the prep work is the most important.  We went back at it on our return at 1:15 and by 2:30 we had the plumbing pretty much completed.  We took some extra time to judiciously place a few 2"x 4"s so as to keep the sump pump upright in the pit.

And then came the moment of truth.  Corey kept an eye on the plumbing in the bathroom basement and I kept an eye on the plumbing in the baggage room basement.  On signal, we plugged in the sump pump.  We heard the whirr of the sump pump motor - but no sound of the water swooshing through the pipes.  Or so it seemed.  Had we installed the check valve the wrong way!?  Did we have a major leak?  Why can"t we hear the water running through the pipes!?

And then we heard the sound of music.  No!  Then we heard the sound of water rushing through the pipes.  It had just taken a few seconds longer for the pipes to fill up with water.  No leaks in the stuff we had glued together!!  And only a few drops around the check valve (I forgot to put on some teflon tape!).  And a small stream of water coming out of the union but that was easy enough to fix with a few twists, some moving of the pump and some teflon tape.

The sump pit was quite full of water so it took a few minutes for it to empty out and then the moment of truth - would the sump pump shut off???  Yup.  Right on cue.

And so we have another success story.  Last week we successfully installed the sump pit.  Today we successfully installed the sump pump and plumbing.  And in the weeks to come, we'll have even more success stories as the pump keeps working to lower the water table and we start digging some trenching to install some drain tile and crushed stone.

Stay tuned for more adventures of "The Swamp Chronicles".