Liberty Pumps 404 issue fixed
"Well, there's your problem," K coyly said after I showed her the check valve I had cut out of our basement drain's plumbing. The good news is we found the culprit to our basement drainage issues.
Backing up a bit, our basement plumbing is below our house drain. The configuration consists of:
- Washing machine
- Utility sink
- Furnace condensate line
- (2) water heater tanks overflow
Seemingly all of a sudden, we were having drainage issues in the basement. We noticed water pooling up in the garage around the furnace (we later realized that due to the drain backing up, it backed up all the way down the condensate line and out/into the furnace), the utility sink filling up with water, and the pump motor sometimes not shutting off. It only seemed to happen when the washing machine drained (i.e. a big dump of water).
We dug into figuring out what could be the culprit. There were a few scenarios (from most expensive/pain to fix to least):
- The pump motor itself was losing power and not being able to keep up with larger volumes of water
- The float switch was failed/failing
- The check valve was broken
Before figuring that out, I took off the lid to the pump and cleaned it with a shop vac and garden hose. Since it's just grey water, it wasn't very dirty.
We noticed both the sink backing up and the motor running constantly were intermittent issues. Meaning, if there was something wrong with the pump motor or innards, it seemed either or both of those would happen consistently. Or so went our thinking.
That led me to looking at what the heck a check valve was and how it worked. Turns out there are a few different kinds, namely a spring or a swing. They worked differently, so it was important to know what we had and what the symptoms would be if it was failing. Basically, if water dumped back into the pump after the motor did its thing and shut off, it meant the check valve was bad.
With the lid off, I ran it and watched. Sure enough, when the motor stopped water came back down into the pump bucket. So rather than replace the motor or, slightly worse because we'd have to disconnect all the plumbing, the whole pump, we opted to start with the cheapest option: replace the check valve.
For $40, I ordered a new one. An exact replica, thankfully. Then picked up the couple of requisite pieces (2" to 1-1/2" reducers and a new shutoff valve just for kicks) and got to replacing everything. The job took about an hour.
We tested today by first running water down the utility sink and then, ultimately, doing a load of laundry. Everything drained properly. We knew it was fixed because the check valve again was making the solid 'Thunk' it boasts when it shuts after the pump is done running water up the discharge pipe. Thinking about it, we realized it hadn't been making that sound for a little bit.
Coincidentally, or not–maybe it was in fact this issue that brought up the conversation–K mentioned recently what one thing, if money were no option, she'd want to not have to do. Hers? Not have to fix something ourselves when it breaks. After thinking about that for a bit and agreeing sometimes it's a pain to stop what I'm doing and deal with a broken thing, I have to admit I'd still just want to fix stuff. (My response would probably be cleaning up messes in the kitchen).
Before this happened, the pump was this mystical device stuffed in our basement water heater closet that magically pumped water uphill. Now, after learning about how they work, how check valves work, and taking everything apart, I know exactly how the system works (it's not really that complicated and certainly nothing mystical). Saving the few hundred dollars it probably would have cost to hire a plumber notwithstanding, yeah, it feels cool to fix things.
