Garage Door Openers & Sump Pumps

[casticus]

Ok 2 questions here, we just moved into a new house (built last October) and I have two things I would like to hear from the "collective wisdom" on:

 

1. We had a lightening storm come through and according to garage door manufacturer and garage door installers they think that lightening either through a power surge or a "direct hit" fried my garage door control boards (maybe more...they are coming Wednesday to "look" at them). They suggested, when asked how to protect them from this in the future, to install surge protectors for the doors openers. Anyone have any experience with this? Or thoughts?

 

2. We of course have a sump pump and it runs for very short periods of time at irregular intervals...Now it just poured here and it didn't go off at all. It'll run on days I am running the in ground sprinkling though...Has anyone ever installed some kind of battery back up system for a sump pump? What about 2 pumps in case the first fails? I am trying to figure out how to assuage my worried mind for when we are not home if there is a power failure/pump failure.

[Rottweiler]

Last year my 25 y/o Stanley garage door opener was killed accidentally by me. I was working in the garage in the winter time and was wearing a down jacket and rolling around the floor on my plastic creeper. As you may or may not know this combination makes millions of volts of static electricity build up in ones body. I stood up in the middle of the garage right under the opener which has an antenna wire hanging straight down under it and POW, I felt all those volts jump from my head to the antenna. I survived but the opener was toast. A replacement control board was no longer available so I just replaced it with a new belt drive unit (with better security and safety) for about $110. The Stanley was the very first thing I did when I moved in, I don't mind getting a new one every 25 years. If yours is a newer model you should be able to find a replacement control board for $50-$70 on the web. Good luck, sorry I can't help with sump pumps, I live on a slab.

[edge51]

We have a house that requires a sump pump - without it the basement will get wet fast. I have a spare pump and a generator ready to go at a moments notice. My pump has failed and it took me less than 10 minutes to slip in the spare. The only thing I worry about now is the pump or power failing while we are not home.

 

Oh well, you can't cover everything.

[too old to care]

I have two answers that may help. Several years ago our Direct TV Antenna was hit by lighting. It fried the TV control boxes, external antenna, internal splitter, etc, and our phones because the phone line connects to the TV boxes. Also, one of the two garage door openers fried the circuit board. Nothing else in the house was damaged.

 

After Direct TV refused to replace the equipment, which was less than one month old, we junked their system and went to cable. We were able to replace the PC board in the door opener (Sears) for about $90 and it has been fine since.

 

We have a Sear’s pedestal sump pump that takes up most of the sump well. Because of its size we could not get a normal backup sump pump in the pit. We installed an external sump pump made by Base Products Corporation, model RH1400 with two batteries. There are many different battery sump pumps that fit in the pit, but very few external ones which is what we needed.

 

The pump sits outside the sump and only a pipe with a foot valve and a small float switch goes into the pit. It is adjusted so the if the water rises about 1 inch more than when the normal pump comes on, the battery backup pump runs. Here is a link to where we bought ours. http://www.radonseal.com/backup-sump-pumps.htm

 

Our regular pump runs almost constantly when it rains, often as much as once per minute in a strong storm, and a few times when we water our lawn. The pump almost never runs any other time. Before we added the Sears (lifetime warranty) pedestal pump we had replaced the submersible pump twice due to their wearing out in only 2 or 3 years. Having the back-up pump gives me confidence that if the normal pump fails or we lose power, our basement will not flood.

 

[John Ranalletta]

We have a house that requires a sump pump - without it the basement will get wet fast. I have a spare pump and a generator ready to go at a moments notice. My pump has failed and it took me less than 10 minutes to slip in the spare. The only thing I worry about now is the pump or power failing while we are not home.

 

Oh well, you can't cover everything.

 

Maybe you can.

 

Water-powered backup syphon sump pump. Always on duty unless you turn the water off when leaving home. Even then, you could isolate that part of the system. Does NOT require electric current to operate.

 

[Woodie]

Water-powered backup syphon sump pump. Always on duty unless you turn the water off when leaving home. Even then, you could isolate that part of the system. Does NOT require electric current to operate.

 

Dang! I wish I had joined this board earlier! Do you know how many basement floods we had in the old house when we lost power? It SUCKED!

 

(new house has a walkout basement, so NO pump!

 

[Quinn]

First a question: Does your doorbell ring? Often it shares the 12 or 16V transformer with the garage door's circuit board. Anyway, make sure you've got a good 12 volts going into the circuit board. Next, see what happens when you press the button. Sometimes the board will just reset and need to have the remotes re-programed to it. Last thing is, Lowe's and Home Depot both sell a new board and remotes for around $50.00.

 

Can't help on the sump pump; mines a walk out basement/garage. It does seem to me, however, that I'd be looking at exterior drainage lines outside the house to keep down the water up against the foundation. I put a drain line in about four feet down across the front of my house to relieve the hydrostatic pressure that was giving me a damp wall in the basement.

 

 

[ltljohn]

We have a house that requires a sump pump - without it the basement will get wet fast. I have a spare pump and a generator ready to go at a moments notice. My pump has failed and it took me less than 10 minutes to slip in the spare. The only thing I worry about now is the pump or power failing while we are not home.

 

Oh well, you can't cover everything.

 

Maybe you can.

 

Water-powered backup syphon sump pump. Always on duty unless you turn the water off when leaving home. Even then, you could isolate that part of the system. Does NOT require electric current to operate.

 

 

I requires power to operate if you are on a well like me.

 

There are several battery backup systems on the market, I prefer the second pump type so just in case the primary fails there is a backup. Make sure you get one that can use the sealed batteries. The first one I had could only use wet cell batteries that required maintenance and it was generally a POS. I am still researching a new one.

[FrankT]

I would recommend you have surge protection installed at your electrical panel. That way, everything in your house is protected, not just the garage door openers. The battery back-up operated pumps are ok to the extent that the power failure doesn't last longer than the battery power, otherwise, you will flood. I do like a backup pump that will start at a higher than normal water level if the main duty pump doesn't. If you have natural gas by your new place, I recommend a natural gas powered generator with an automatic transfer switch.

[rfc1992]

Interesting, Garage Door Openers and Sump Pumps...

 

1) Some of the Stanley GDOs had 3 MOVs (M? Output Varistors). These were designed to blow in the event of an electrical spike in the current going to the opener. Stanley was unique in the use of 3 of these, one each for hot, neutral, and ground. Unfortunately, Stanley Door Openers are no longer a going concern. In the event that the board is indeed fried, I would replace with a Chamberlain chain drive (Screw drive = problems). If the MOVs are bad, you may be able to replace them - I don't remember the specifications.

 

I worked as the Mechanical Engineer for Stanley GDOs in 1993-1994.

 

2) Backup sump pumps:

 

The water driven model uses the induced flow to draw the sump water into the discharge. Moving water has high dynamic pressure with low static pressure. This low static pressure draws the sump water into the flow. I would question (i) how much head (height) can such a system flow at what flow rate of water. A typical faucet can flow 2 gallons per hour or 1400 gallons a month at 40psi. I suspect the flow rate on this pump is low and would not raise the water more than a few feet.

 

The battery backups are effective. Most are a standard bilge pump that run on a deep cycle 12 v marine battery. These are low flow pumps but can deliver ~50 gph at 10 ft of head or more. These are only as effective as the battery - once it is dead - no more pump. The general suggestion is to hook the battery up to a trickle charger (often supplied). I have installed them and they can be effective.

 

The dual battery pump described is interesting. Were that connected to a trickle charge, that might be the way to go. I would be concerned about priming of the pump, since it would have to draw water from 1' below grade. If that isn't an issue, I would look for the maximum flow rate with a minimum of 10' of head.

 

Strangely, I worked for Wayne Water Systems after the Stanley job.

 

[casticus]

First off thank you for sharing your wisdom...the "collective knowledge" here is pretty impressive.

 

I had someone else mention a natural gas generator...I will have to check into those. My other house had basement water problems and I will sleep better on the road with a "little piece of mind".

 

I looked a little online for surge protectors and I did see a "whole house" surge protector. I didn't know such things existed. The others were ones that were essentially replacement outlets or ones meant for protecting garage door openers that plug straight into the outlet.

 

I have a chain driven Lynx garage door opener (2 actually) and the company that installed them for the previous owner who built the house is coming to take a look at them on Wednesday.

 

I like the idea of some kind of back up pump if the primary fails while we are away and the back up generator if power fails.

 

I had never heard of the running water pump system mentioned, does that require you to keep water running while you are gone? I didn't quite understand how that operated. Could it draw enough water to work?

 

Again thanks for the info and keep it coming if anyone else has any other thoughts.

[John Ranalletta]

I had never heard of the running water pump system mentioned, does that require you to keep water running while you are gone? I didn't quite understand how that operated. Could it draw enough water to work?

 

Don't know about water quantity, but it works like the float in your toilet. If the water rises above a certain set point, a valve is opened and the syphoning begins.

 

Here's some more info. Hope it helps. It lists 3 models for 750, 1,000, and 1,500 GPH at a 10-ft. lift. Installed high and dry.

Runs infinitely during a power outage. No moving parts. No maintenance. No battery cost.

 

 

 

 

 

[Laura]

We had a new sump pump installed a few months before we sold our last house. The old one ceased to work at a very bad time..a terrible storm with about 6-7" of rain in a short period of time.......I had to hook up my outdoor elecric fountain pump into the hole then used part of a hose to get the water into a bucket and husband carried bucket after bucket across the entire basement to the slop sink which pumped the water up and out.

 

Point is.......had the electricity went out during this terrible storm we would have been knee deep in water. A battery back-up is a GREAT idea.

[too old to care]

Interesting, Garage Door Openers and Sump Pumps...

 

2) Backup sump pumps:

 

The dual battery pump described is interesting. Were that connected to a trickle charge, that might be the way to go. I would be concerned about priming of the pump, since it would have to draw water from 1' below grade. If that isn't an issue, I would look for the maximum flow rate with a minimum of 10' of head.

 

 

The battery backup pump that I mentioned in my first reply has two battery boxes designed for group 27 batteries, each one is suppose to provide 12 hours pump time at 50% duty cycle. The unit has a built in automatic battery charger (trickle) to charge the batteries. I am using 2 deep cycle gel batteries used in the power wheelchair industry.

 

It is tied in to the main pump’s discharge line via a “Y” fitting about 2 feet up the wall. When the normal sump pump runs it primes the backup pump automatically. Because there is a foot valve at the bottom of the backup pump, it stays primed.

 

Two or three times per year I reach down and raise the float switch manually to see if it is still primed and working correctly, it so far has performed as designed. The discharge rate is a little slower than the ½ horse main pump, but not much slower. Our basement wall is about 8 feet high, so it has to raise the water more than that since the water level in the pit is about 12 inches lower than the floor.

 

[LandonBlueRT]

Don't know about the garage door, but the sump pump should have a battery powered back up system. Both of my children live in homes with sump pumps and both have sustained considerable damage from sump pump failure. Both now have back up systems.

[FrankT]

I had never heard of the running water pump system mentioned, does that require you to keep water running while you are gone? I didn't quite understand how that operated. Could it draw enough water to work?

 

It does require that water pressure be available when the syphon pump needs to work. I always turn mine off when I leave for more than one day. It can work if the right conditions exist, i.e. like water pressure, lift, and discharge level. BTW, the industrial version of these is called an eductor.

[Ken H.]

1. Air is one of the best insulators know to man and lighting will travel through 7 miles of that. What the heck good is a 1 foot piece of anything going to do? Save your money and be glad you have insurance.

 

2. I have a UPS on ours and think it's better than nothing, but probably not a lot more. Buys me maybe 12 hours at best before we have wet stuff.