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The more you know - Grinder Pumps

           
            Up until this moment, I had never heard of or seen a Grinder Pump.  It's actually a very common piece of plumbing equipment that is usually found in commercial businesses or homes, like mine, that are located lower than the nearest municipal sewer line.  It's designed to prevent waste water backup.  


             (Sorry for such a bad video but there is so little information out there)  

            Now exactly how my house sits lower than the nearest municipal sewer line is beyond me.  After all, when my house was built, it appears to have been done so in such a way that all the water flows away from my home and downhill.   So what I'm thinking is that the grinder pump is there to "push" the waste into the sewer lines that are a good football field distance from my home?  My property is the last in the boro to be hooked into the municipal lines so I suppose I could be "down hill" from them?

            I might be wrong here and it would not be the first time.  

            However my grinder pump needed to be replaced, and frankly it is our fault for letting it get to this stage and falls under the column of homesteading mistakes.  It would have also helped if we recognized the issue before it became a bigger issue, which we didn’t do. 

          


            Back in July when Susan and I were on vacation in Tennessee, our grinder pump alarm went off.   It went off once before in the previous year when our power went out for an extended period of time, we simply told her daughter where the off switch was, and didn't think of it again.

            Now in October, we have signs that the pump's chamber is overflowing.   Actually it was my neighbor who noticed it first as the ground was wet surrounding the pump chamber.  We opened it up and decided to close it immediately.  Yep, it was bad.

            Great, just great.

            It would also appear that alarms go off for a reason. 

            Now there are pumps that we could have bought online for about 1/2 to 1/3 of what we ended up paying.   However we were only able to find one plumbing company that was willing to do the work, which by the way we will never again use, basically stated they could not guarantee their work using a pump we bought.   Nor would they honor any guarantee that came with the pump.  

            So it was their pump...or nothing.

            Plus it would have taken one week for delivery even with our Prime membership.   Susan and I frankly didn't want to run up to the gas station to...you know; and even though I work from home…I got to take a shower sometime right?

            The other reason we wanted this done quickly is that we didn’t want sewage backing up into the house (we did let the issue go for 3 months after all)..   So we tried to watch our water usage over the weekend.  We just could not be sure how bad the issue actually was until it was fixed.

            In the end we also decided to buy a brand new pump.   The average lifetime of a pump is anywhere between 10 to 25 years - and the pump that was replaced was original to the property.   Our home will be paid for by then and hopefully we will be living the life we want to live as traveling vagabonds.   I've already marked my calendar however to do maintenance on the new pump.   

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Location: Stoneboro, PA 16153, USA

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