Hi Terry,

I recently purchased a single family home that had no basement floor drain and no sump pump. I hired a plumber install both. He used a flashlight to point out that a water formation sits about 6-8 inches back when looking down into my main line (main cleanout).

I have three questions, 1. is this normal? And 2. is there a minimum distance from your main line (main cleanout) that my floor drain and sump should be?. because he has installed my floor drain less than a 8 inches from the main line (main cleanout) and the sump pump less than 2 feet from the main line (main cleanout).

I also ran a 67 foot snake down my basement cleanout for about 45 minute to an hour. I did not hit any major obstructions and there did not appear to be any tree roots that came back w/the snake. While running the snake, I noticed that the color of the water seem to turn more muddy looking the longer I let the snake run.

Third Question: Would this be a city issue or is this something that I will have to fix myself?

Thank you.

Standing water in your drain is not a good sign, it should completely drain to the city waste. I would suspect a sage in the drain. Nothing to do right now if everything is draining but it may get worse. Now a question or 2 about the sump. Why did you add a sump to a basement built without one? Not all basements need a sump and they are normally connected to a perimeter tile or curtain tile. Seems he did not do that so a sump really camn't do much to keep the whole basement dry, just a question.