Terre Haute House Repair - Cellar (8)

Having assembled the parts it was now time to test my idea - and it didn't work! What was happening was that the pump float was getting caught by the curved sides of the paint bucket and not lifting as it should. Bummer! The only good thing to come out of the testing was that the pump could easily deal with the amount of water that the faucets could deliverto the sink.

The next plan was to look around for something else I could use as a container. We've got a number of the plastic tote boxes but the ones I tried were either too tall or wide to fit under the sink or too shallow that they would overflow before the pump float switch activated.

Some of the pump container candidates - September 24th, 2010

Looking around for something more suitable I found an old 35lb cat litter containers that might do. After testing it without the lid I marked where the pipes would go into the lid and used a hole cutter to drill out the holes so that the pipes would fit snugly. The lid is necessary becausee there is always goingto be some water in the bottom of the container and it might start to smell. If it still does I'll use silicon sealer around the pipes and lid.

The pump in its new cat litter container home

The new basement sink

The finished basement sink

You can buy a ready-made undersink pump units but these cost at least $200. As I used parts I already had lying around mine cost $35 and that was only because I chose to buy brass fittings instead of plastic ones which would have cost me just $7. Mine also features a nice yellow and red colour scheme instead of the black or grey the ready-made ones use.

This page created 24th September 2010, last modified 24th September 2010