I have recently bought a 1966 home in Louisiana. One side of the house is about 4 feet below grade and the downstairs bathroom feeds outside into a 8 foot cement drain pit that has an ejector pump that shoots the sewage out to the street/city sewage. I have a local plumber helping me (albeit slowly). He brought over a regular sump pump (which I think should be a sewage pump that will grind the sewage out) and is saying he thinks we need to saw off the existing pipe and replace the whole "works". I have asked why we can't disconnect the old pump and put the new one in it's place. This pump has apparently been working for nearly 15 years and it took a lot of digging just to find the lid (2 feet down, and it was raining on us). So a few questions for you:
- I think I should buy a sewage pump that is made for the purpose and that grinds. Yes?
- Why would we need to "saw" the old pipe and reconfigure the whole thing?
- Should I install a new check valve? If so, where does that go?
- I assume there is a backflow preventor already in that system (somewhere). Does that need replacing?
-Also, I want to get some sort of "riser" to bring the system up to ground level or just below so I don't have to dig for 4 hours to service this again. Any suggestions on what type or where to get these?

Many thanks for your help!

Is the old piping PVC or something else? A sump pump is not want you want for sewerage, get an ejector pump. If the old piping is solvent cemented, you will need to saw off the piping to unscrew the outflow side. Use a Fernco fitting and you won't need to cut again. Don't know about your city or county requirements regarding a check valve and a backflow preventer, I consider them the same. I use a check valve with a ball valve on top of that. That way, you can shut off the flow to change out the checkvalve. Use a piece of PVC to form a riser but what difference does it make when the pump is 4ft down? S**t flows downhill so you need drop. Mine is about 2 ft down, although not outside.

Hello Falloons,

1. Sewer Ejector in not a garbage disposer. It is a pump. It is capable of pumping large solids through interior of the pump and push it through the discharge pipe. I suggest that you purchase Zoeller M267 sewer ejector pump for your application.
2. You don't necessarily need to cut of all piping within the well. If pipes look OK then just reuse already installed system
3. Always install new check valve with new pump
4. "Back Flow Preventer" is the check valve
5. I am not familiar with your situation - but it appears to me that it used to be a Septic System. Once City installed City Sewer, homeowner utilized his Septic System as a pit for Sewer Ejector. The only other possibility would be if there was problem with the sloping and that's why the pit had to be built this deep.

Back to you. Milo

ma0641- thanks for the response. The old piping is metal. Yep, ejector pump is what I thought. I don't know if the piping is cemented or not, but thought I would take a pipe wrench to see what I could loosen and then get the old unit out and disconnected and put my new pump on there, reconnect and hopefully be done. When I talked about a riser it was a riser to bring the 2 ft+ hole up a couple of feet in case I need access again... and also, put a cap on it instead of the old steel plate with a hole in the middle (which did little good given it was buried 2 feet under dirt). The old, old cement viaduct is down 2 foot from ground level and goes down 8 feet. I'm not even sure if there is a metal/cement bottom at this point. But I am in a situation where the plumber may not return for days due to rain/hurricane developments and I have a jury-rigged situation now with a regular sump pump suspended a bit off the ground hooked to PVC that is draining c**p in my yard. Expecting 10-15 inches of rain in the next few days and would like to get this permanently fixed and closed soon! Many thanks!

Hey Falloons, hope the water isn't too bad there. Question. "Viaduct", is that the drain pipe? 4 ft. below grade? And then drops how far or how far down is the pump? My lower bath dumps into a catch basin that has it's botttom at 3 ft. below grade. From there it pumps up about 8 ft. above grade to the main house drain. Could you not use a similar setup if you have basement space? Have to jackhammer a small pit and supply a vent but that seems easy compared to what you currently have. Brian

MaO641,

Many thanks to you and others for fantastic advice! Appreciated more than you could realize!

After reading my post, perhaps I could have been clearer.

I have a 1966 home that is built 4+ feet below grade. There is currently a pipe coming out of my house that funnels all my downstairs, toilet, shower, sink wast out approximately 3 feet (horizontel) into this old (1966) cement, circular pit that is 2 feet in diameter, and is 8 feet deep. IThe house sewer line hits that point about 3 feet down from the top of the pit. It then drains into the pit (dropping sewage, bath-water down to the bottom which then, when the float activates, triggers the sewage pump to shoot the waste up and across the sewer line where if shoots the sewage to the main sewage line in the street. Ideally that would be a downward (gravity) shoot... my feeling is that it is an upward shoot, therefore the added need for a check valve.

Currently we have had 10+ inches of rain and my jury-rig of the temporary pump (suspended just above bottom, ejecting only rain water that gets in to my lawn) is working. I am waiting for my weather resistant plumber to re-appear. Since my posting, I have taken on water in my home along the south side (where it is 4+feet under grade. Lots of bath towels and some wet-vac activity. It seemed to clear up, only to return when the rains did. BTW - I don't believe the open pit has anything to do with the flooding in my home, and it is not sewer water. According to the previous owner it happened a couple of times but they had something shot/fixed in the foundation where it happened. So... I'm perhaps starting a new thread, but it seems to me that I need a trench dug down to my foundation (or below) on that low side of my house and put in drain tiles, rock and dirt to avoid this happening again. My gutters were clogged during Friday nights storm... but the periodic leackage/flooding continues. My previous owner swears this has only happened twice and he had someone "fix it" in the corner it happened. My gut tells me it was some sort of injection of something into the base brick/cinder block. My gut tells me to bring in a min-back hoe and dig down to below grade, install drainage tile, cover 4 feet of rocks, then dirt and have it angled towards edge of my house (at slope end) and put an end to this mess.

If this is easier - please advise the process to share email/phone to discuss offline.

Many thanks to all!

Update!

Many thanks to those who provided valuable information during my saga. I did finally get it all fixed and learned quite a bit in the process. I had to let my first plumber guy go as he was claiming it would take at least a full day to repair. The next guy was sharp, quick, honest and really knew what he was talking about. He brought over the Zoeller ejector pump, cut the pipe, lifted the whole unit out, replaced all with PVC, put quick-dry cement on bottom, lowered a spare stepping stone to make level, lowered the pump/pipe and connected everything perfectly. He also redid the wiring by bringing it out of the hole and putting in a weather-proof, GFI connection and filled up the dirt. I couldn't have been happier!

Thanks for the update. Sounds like you have a plumber to keep. Brian

That's great ! Milo