I marked out the size of how wide the pit had to be, then and after about 3 days of digging during nap time I had gotten about 6 inches down.
The ground was a dense and rocky clay. It was SO difficult to dig in and there was of course not a lot of room down there. The only way we could break through the dirt was to go at it with a tire iron, clear what had been chipped away, then whack it some more. I went down every nap time with my helper Toby who found it all fascinating and fun.
Then he came back another day with a concrete drill that he rented for us to make a hole in the foundation where we could thread the pipes through so the water could exit the crawl space. The drill was long and heavy and we had to hold it in such an awkward way since it was so close to the ground.
Sam, Dad and I all took turns with the concreat drill. It was hard work and it took us all day. Dad was a pro at it. Sam and I took turns too, but we certainly had a thing or two to learn from the old pro.
Once we had the pump in the pit, gravel around the pit and the PVC routing the water out of the basement and into the drainage outside of the house, the weather was so cold that we decided to leave it as it was for a few months.
Now that it is not so cold, our next project is to find a permanent electrical solution so that the pump is not attached to any extension cords.
While the electrician was here fixing the problems with the kitchen island I talked to him about doing the sump pump electrical. He agreed, but then when it came time to fix the kitchen island, he told me he would come back another day to do the sump pump. He quoted me $250 for hooking up the electrical, but that he would have to come back another day. I was irritated that I would have to pay the expense of another the house call, so I want to see if I would save any money trying to hook the electrical up myself before I call him back to do it.
Here is the information I've found in my research so far
I should hook up one of these self testing GFCI outlets in the closet above the sump pump. Then run some wire into the crawl space to hook up the outlet needed for the pump to work. (If the self monitoring outlet is in the closet, then I don't have to go down into the crawl space to make sure the outlet hasn't kick off for whatever reason.
Here is a video that shows how to install the GFCI outlet
The sump pump is 115 volts, so this 125V outlet ($12.40) should work just fine for the closet and here is a 125V weather resistant 3 prong outlet ($4.50) that could be installed directly above the pump.
I still need to find out the expense of the wires. (looks like about $0.80 per foot) so far for the 2 outlets plus wire it would only be ($16.90+)
Dad told me that he would be willing to come and help out with the electrical install to make sure that I didn't forget anything important like to turn off the circuit breaker. And to have an extra adult around to help out with the kids.
Once the wiring is done, I will go back down into the crawl space and begin digging some trenches to route water from other areas into the pump. I think I will need to dig 1 deep trench, but the other trenches should be fine if they are fairly shallow. Hopefully it can be finished before the weather starts to get too hot and the kids are out of school for the summer.
