Peak Basement Systems
Battery Back Ups on Sump Pumps for Your Colorado Springs Home
Alternate power sources?
Some alternate power sources for sometimes appeared on the market in recent years that sounded great at first review. One is the battery power system for your primary AC operated pump. When power goes out the system converts the DC power AC power and runs your only sump pump. The manufacture will tell you that it's better since your primary AC operated pump will normally pump more than a DC operated one. This is true, but not a key issue in most cases.
The main issue or problem here is that you have only one pump. If the pump fails , you get flooded despite this back up protection. Secondly, converting DC to AC power is very inefficient. You lose more than half of your power in the process. So your primary pump will run and pump plenty of water out, but not for long. In our test, it was only one hour of time and then the batteries went dead. Since the primary pump that we used pumps 2200 gallons an hour, it was just 2200 gallons of protection that the system offered.
The next type of system that sounds good is another single pump system that can be used as a primary and back up pump in one unit. It is actually a DC pump with batteries hooked up to it. When the power is on, the AC is converted to DC to run the pump. When the power is off, the pump runs on the batteries. Sounds good, but you only have one pump and if it fails, you're dead in the water--literally. In addition, no matter how strong the DC pump, you only get as much water out as is equal to the amount of battery power that you put behind the pumps .
The back up system that we recommend is called an "UltraSump". It's a DC battery operated pump that kicks in if the power goes out. It is available with one of two specially designed, 120-amp, maintenance free batteries to pump out over 12,000 gallons or over 24,000 gallons of water respectively at an 8 ft head.
Head is a term meaning how high you can pump the water. An AC pump that pumps over 2,000 gallons per hour at an 8 ft head is a good, strong pump. Likewise, a battery back up unit should give you a number of gallons it can pump per charge at an 8 ft head in order for you to know it will clear the water from your basement.
