Sewage ejector pits
Drains run downhill. When a fixture sits lower than the line it has to reach, something has to lift it — and that is what this is.
When you need one
A bathroom in a basement, a shop or garage bath added on afterwards, a laundry put somewhere the original builder never planned for one. Anywhere the drain would have to run uphill to get to the sewer. If the fixture is above the line, you do not want one of these and you should not be sold one.
What is actually in the hole
A sealed basin set in the ground, a pump sitting in it, a float that starts the pump, and a discharge line running up and over to the gravity drain. A check valve on that discharge keeps what went up from coming straight back down, and the basin is vented like any other part of the drain system — it is a sealed tank of sewage and the air has to go somewhere.
The part people skip
An alarm. The pump is underground, it runs when nobody is listening, and the first sign it has failed is usually a bathroom floor. A high water alarm costs very little next to that and tells you while there is still room in the basin.
What goes wrong with them
Floats stick. Check valves wear and let the discharge drain back, so the pump runs over and over on the same water and burns out early. And the single commonest one: wipes. Nothing marketed as flushable belongs anywhere near one of these.
Questions we get asked
How long does a sewage ejector pump last?
It depends almost entirely on how often it cycles and what goes into it. A pump on a guest bathroom and a pump on a busy shop are not the same machine in service terms. What shortens one fastest is wipes and a worn check valve.Can I replace just the pump?
Often yes — the basin, the discharge and the vent stay. What is worth doing at the same time is the check valve and the float, because the labour is the lid being off, and it is already off.The rest of the job
Where we go
Parker, Wise and Tarrant County, out of the shop in Springtown. Springtown, Weatherford, Azle, Boyd, Decatur, Newark, Millsap, Fort Worth and the country in between.
Call 817-487-8866