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Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Do it Yourself Discussion! => Topic started by: a_scanner_brightly on December 05, 2017, 10:47:20 AM

Title: How dangerous is crawling around in a flooded crawl space to fix a sump pump?
Post by: a_scanner_brightly on December 05, 2017, 10:47:20 AM

I suspect the sump pump under my house doesn't have a backflow prevention valve on it.

I want to go down there and install one but I'm concerned about working on it while I'm soaking in water.  At the same time, I can't really tell if it's sealed and working properly unless I'm right up on it to test it.

The sump pump's wired into a GFCI outlet.  It trips once in awhile.

On a scale of 1-10 how dangerous is working on an active sump pump wired into a GFCI outlet?

Title: Re: How dangerous is crawling around in a flooded crawl space to fix a sump pump?
Post by: Syonyk on December 05, 2017, 04:16:56 PM

Disconnect or flip the breaker while you're working on it, then it's not dangerous at all, and you won't get a face full of water when it trips on with the pipe disconnected because you bumped the float.

Once it's properly connected, as long as the insulation is fine, there's no harm being down there, though I assure you, you can hear the backflow preventer working from anywhere in the house (it's a solid thud, or at least ours was).