What is the best backup sump pump?

What is the best backup sump pump; water powered or battery powered?

Even with a high quality primary sump pump, you will still need a reliable backup sump pump to minimize your basement flooding potential. At A-1 Basement Solutions we are asked every day; what is the best backup sump pump? Sometimes a storm will cause power outages. The sump pump in your basement is powered by electricity. If the electricity goes out, even for a relatively short time like an hour, a significant amount of water can enter your home. An hour of water entering your basement can cause thousands of dollars of damage.

Most people have heard of battery backup sump pumps. Most people have not heard of water powered backup sump pumps. Let’s address the question; which is better; water powered backup system or a battery powered backup system? The vast majority of battery backup sump pumps are sold at the big box stores and have a battery pumping time of less than 7 hours. A 7 Day Battery backup with a 120 Amp Hour AGM battery can keep your basement dry. Our A-1 DC Battery Backup will pump 12,000 Gallons of water on a single charge. Hurricane Irene is teaching us right now that power can be out for days, even in a highly populated area like New Jersey. Trees fall and power lines are down, it can take up to a week to restore power to all homes.

Years of professional experience with primary and backup basement sump pump systems leads to the following conclusion: for the vast majority of homes, water powered sump pumps are the best solution.

A water powered emergency sump pump is your best choice for a cost-effective emergency sump pump. With this ultra-reliable backup pumping system in place, you should always be able to protect your basement - even if the electrical power fails for an extended period. Additionally, there is effectively no required maintenance and no battery to worry about.

Water powered backup pumps are much simpler than battery powered backup pumps, and require essentially no maintenance, so they fundamentally have less to go wrong. However, you must have a reliable municipal water supply, consistently achieving 40psi pressure or more. Water powered emergency pumps work best with a full size, unrestricted water supply directly from the house water meter outlet to the pump. In an unfinished basement it is usually not a problem to run the required water line to your emergency backup pump, which must be located above the sump pit.

For obvious reasons, I don't recommend water powered sump pumps for use with an electrically powered well water system, or as a long-term substitute for your ac powered primary basement sump pump system.

In some cases, a battery powered backup pump is your only reasonable option. If you don't have a reliable municipal water supply, or if your basement configuration makes it difficult to run a water line to the backup pump location, a battery powered sump pump system will be the correct choice for you. In this case, it is preferable to plug the battery charger into a GFCI outlet on an electrical circuit other than the one serving your primary sump pump. That way, if the primary pump circuit breaker is tripped the backup pump charger will continue to receive power.

A battery powered backup pump system can provide excellent service. A 7 Day Battery backup with a 120 Amp Hour AGM battery can keep your basement dry. Our A-1 DC Battery Backup will pump 12,000 Gallons of water on a single charge.