Insert sarcasm here. The laundry utility sink has a pump that hangs below the basin to lift water up to the outlet level in the basement. It’s a pretty common thing and so far has been pretty reliable, but it started acting a little funny about 4 months ago when a bunch off Ryder’s swimsuits were washed with a lot of beach sand. I’m guessing some of that debris wasn’t too kind to the internals of the pump. Fast forward back to present time (rather, a week ago) and I came home to the pump running constantly with no water in the sink. Ugh.
Of course the pump had to be hard plumbed in, meaning I had to cut a bunch of the plumbing out in order to even look at the pump. So that was step one: how to reinstall pump, before I even took it apart. Then step two consisted of taking the pump apart to see if it was serviceable.
Long story short, only two trips to the hardware store were required to determine the pump’s diaphragm pressure switch was not working correctly. Naturally, it had to be an obscure model that I will need to order from Antarctica using a telegram and wire a cashier’s check (also sarcasm, but you get my point).
The alternative is to replace the pump with a more common unit. Neither option is cheap, the switch is about $85 vs a new sump basin +pump at around $300. Either way we’re planning to put a bathroom in that space later this year, so its likely to become obsolete soon anyways. Oh well.
