Mullens Home: Our Sump Pump Jump

Installing a sump pump into a house that never had one is an extremely messy job! Our first house, built in 1926, had a wee bit of water problems. We had all the confidence that we could fix it ourselves – and we did. First we filled in the mortar joints that had come loose in our cinder block foundation with hydraulic cement. Since we plugged up holes where water used to come in, we only had water seep up through the floor – but we were also still worried about the water pressure on the house. Thus, the best solution for both these issues was to install a sump pump.

We had quoted a contractor to install a sump for us, and it would have cost us $1500. So big shocker, after hearing that number, we decided to do the work ourselves. The materials ended up costing us a whopping $250. That’s $1250 in savings and I would say it was well worth tackling this project by ourselves – even if it was a dirty job.

Matt and a good friend Jeremy tackled the work from here on out. They first used a jack hammer and concrete saw to cut a hole in the basement concrete floor where the sump would go. Matt had to install a breaker just for these tools as they draw so much power. This is the lovely temporary power solution for 30A service.

After all the concrete was out, it was just a lot of digging…

The hole was finally big enough for the mesh and drainage rock to go in.

Matt drilled holes in the sump well for water to seep through.

And voila we were ready for concrete.

Side note: a different corner in our basement had horrible cracks, so we decided to rip out the concrete and lay new concrete while we were doing the sump. Yay for pretty, new, concrete and no cracks (seen in the left corner of the room)!