Pond Vac - how do they work?

[Wills]

It's not strictly pond or aquarium-related but hoping someone here can help.

We've got a flooding problem in our basement at the moment and I'm stuck in a bureaucratic circle between insurers and contractors claiming they are not authorised/won't pay for anyone to remove the water out of the basement so I'm going to do it myself!

I've tried a pond/pool emptying pump but the water is down to about 2 inches now and I can't get the pump to suck. The room is 6 meters x 4 meters so 2 inches is still a lot of water! (You've got to love my British messed up use of metric and imperial...) I do have a wet-dry vac but it fills very quickly as the capacity is not huge and then its fiddly to disconnect it all lug it to the window and bail it out. I'm anticipating that we are not going to get any traction from the insurance or contractors for at least 4 weeks, likely 6 or 7 so I want to be prepared each time

I've found some pond vacs that look like they might be a good option, but ideally, I want one that can pump out the water as fast as it sucks it up but most of the cheaper models seem to suck for a certain amount of time and then pumps it out for a certain amount of time - one model said 20 secs in, 20 secs out.

Does anyone know of anything that could do what I need?

Wills


p.s - I'm aware there are lots of mentions of sucking, pumping and blowing in this post but lets keep it clean people!

 

[Uberhoust]

Most water pumps do not pump right to the floor.

Basements in Canada typically have a drain in the low spot of the floor, with a 3 or 4" pipe going to the drain. Can you put the pump there?

Alternatively you could use the wet dry to vacuum up the water but then use the water pump to pump it out of the vacuum rather than dragging it upstairs to drain it. You could even put a small hole in the vacuum to allow the routing of the water and power for the pump in your wet dry vac allowing you to vacuum and pump at the same time, you would have to seal around the water line and power cord but then the vacuum is just used to accumulate the water. (the Red Green Solution)

Do you have flooding frequently, if it was my home, you could find the low location on the floor and chisel down a zone about 3" below the floor and place the pump there, it is an easy fix to patch the concrete after you deal with the issue or leave it for next time. The only cautions would be to ensure you don't have any embedded services in the concrete, and you probably don't want to break through the cement to the surface below, depending what caused the flood if you break through you might just be opening the floodgates.

Push brooms can move a lot of water over a floor you might be able to setup the pump in a corner and push the water towards the pump.

Just some thoughts, 2" of water is quite a bit. I would likely due the Red Green solution just ensuring the hole in the Wet Dry is above the auto shutdown point. Duct Tape over the hole after you are done.

 

[davros]

A boat bilge pump may do the trick, the inlet is right at the bottom. The ones I have used are 12v so you would need a suitable power supply or car battery

 

[seangee]

Boat pump may be the way. I have a pond pump which I think is sold as a basement pump. It's very fast but it still won't go all the way down.
Did the water come through the walls or floor. If the floor you will be fighting a losing battle until the water table subsides. Assume you already have humidifier(s) going.
Fingers crossed for the rest of the week!
P.s. pretty sure I got my pump from Screwfix, they may have better models but I was only looking to drain the pond.

 

[Wills]

Thanks everyone this is the kind of pond vac I've found https://www.pondkeeper.co.uk/pondhe...a0vjd357RMDyno_-Bz9Ziv1SqKtWoUrRoCvt4QAvD_BwE

So I think it is basically a wet dry vac which will definitely work and then pump itself out the back so I don't need to modify anything. Just want to understand if there are any models that pump out continuously or if it is always just pump in, switch, pump out.

In terms of whats going on, there are three major problems with the drainage system to our house and its going to get fixed but it is going to take a while to fix. I do like the idea of making a sort of well a few inches deep I know where we could put it best. I'm not 100% where the water is coming in but I think I have an idea. Problem is we don't know whats under the floor - its a poured concrete surface, possibly with a layer of floor tiles under it and possibly very old (and nice) flagstones under that... but I'm, not sure how to achieve that.

We've had problems with the basement before and the answer was to fix the main drain as the clay pipes had collapsed with plastic pipes, that then let rats in who have damaged the remaining clay pipes and its the damaged clay pipes that are causing the flood so once that is fixed I think we should be ok again, but having some kind of back up system like a pumping system described above would be great but so few people in the UK do basement things and they are all insanely expensive.

Wills