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Sump Flood Alarm. Help Needed...


Grandalf
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Friend has a problem that I am sure has a simple solution that can be provided by PW members.

She lives in an old farm house with her husband who has Alzheimer's so can't get help from him and asked me.   I said I didn't know but I knew some guys who would....

Problem.   Large extension to large farm house was built 70 years ago.   Somehow they seemed to ignore the fact that a filled in ditch would be underneath the floor of the extension.   This did not give any problem for years.   20 years after my friend bought the house, after a heavy rain period, the still existing part of the ditch, which goes onto the next door farm, got blocked and the house got flooded.  'Experts' were called in.   They dug up the floor, fitted drainage pipes which lead into a sump under the dining room.   The sump has an electric pump that works on a floating switch and the problem was solved.

All this was 16 years ago.   The pump system has worked flawlessly for all those years and the problem was forgotten about.   That is until a couple of weeks ago when I got a very early call to tell me she had no electricity in the house but her stables were still on power.   She is a very capable lady had had tried all the right things.   I went over and did them again.   We narrowed it down to the power circuit in the new extension but couldn't find the offending a appliance.   Then I remembered the flooding incident.   She had totally forgotten the pump.   We turned it off, after finally locating the switch, and power was restored.  

The company who installed it came and fitted a new pump and all is now well.   Except - I then got to thinking...

The sump, when we looked in, was full to the brim and flooding was only averted by the lights going out as the pump motor failed resulting in our investigation as to the cause.   We then bailed the sump out by hand.   If the CB hadn't tripped then she would never have realised anything was wrong until the house flooded again.   We discussed this and she contacted the firm to discuss an alarm system.   After lots of humming and harring they say a flood alarm can be fitted but it will cost over £800.   This strikes me as very expensive for a simple switch on a float that sounds an alarm - Probably battery operated.

Surely there is some 'gizmo' on the market that is used in boat bilges, farm sump/slurry tanks and the like that would do the job.  

If anyone has any useful info I would be very glad to receive it.     

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Morning Ben,

We have alarm systems similar to what I think you may need at work, they work similar to the sump pump float.

The alarm is both audible and has a strobe light, I would have thought that a simple back up battery could be fitted in case of any power failure similar to house alarms. 

 

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Edited by Dougy
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as wisdom has quoted i would use a "rule" bilge float switch  a simple 12v siren and a mains 12v power output with tricle charged battery backup like is used on door entry systems.

you get the lot for well under £100 plus a bit of wiring.

stay away from cheap unbranded float switches found on the bay.

 

Edited by Remimax
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I’ve got a sump in our house with a pump that kicks in when water reaches a certain level. We have an alarm in the sump too, it’s not a float switch, it looks like a plastic tube about the size of a large marker pen. I assume there are two electrodes in there and when water rises there is continuity completing the circuit to the siren.

You could rig up the same thing with a piece of plastic tube, a soldering iron and a 12v battery for about a fiver!

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Thank you for all the replies chaps.   The unit Dougy found seems to be the one for the job at the moment.

Have just been over to look at the sump again and it seems that it will be very easy to install that unit after a drilling through the top of the sump for the cable.   A nine volt smoke alarm battery is all it takes and that keeps it nice and simple for the lady to deal with.   As long as she changes the battery when she does the smoke alarm ones she should be alright.

Any other ideas are most welcome.

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18 minutes ago, Grandalf said:

Thank you for all the replies chaps.   The unit Dougy found seems to be the one for the job at the moment.

Have just been over to look at the sump again and it seems that it will be very easy to install that unit after a drilling through the top of the sump for the cable.   A nine volt smoke alarm battery is all it takes and that keeps it nice and simple for the lady to deal with.   As long as she changes the battery when she does the smoke alarm ones she should be alright.

Any other ideas are most welcome.

If you need any help, I’m off this week.

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