If your Window wells are flooding 95% of the time its filling from the bottom, up! The cause is always bad grading around the foundation. Backfill a little, increase the slope to pitch water away from the window wells and you can remove this nonsense
@A. V. i guess in flood prone zones people just really shouldnt have basements at all, but hopefully theres even better minimal effort ways discovered to deal with water runoff in areas that dont expect floods anyway.
I'm pretty sure that's what mine is doing. Going to work on the grading, but also putting pumps into each well as a precaution. Tired of our basement flooding. We are about to finish it out and the kid wants to move down there.
Jfrey1. You are the man. My basement flooded for the very first time. Got torrential down pour that overwhelmed the window well drainage and water pour into the basement. I have to find a solution and the very first one was your solution which I will get done in a fews days. Thanks a lot for sharing your solution. I guess the pump just sits in the bucket. It is not secured to the bucket at all. Correct?
That's correct. I recommend that the outer bucket is put in place as flat/level as possible. That way, the inner bucket and pump will be flat. The pump isn't attached to the bucket. I cut a hole in the bucket lid where the discharge pipe runs out. Good luck!
Thanks for the comment! There are 2 things at play at my property. First, the soil in the area is very clay-like, so it doesn't absorb/drain water as well as it could. Second, my back yard was backfilled over time, and so the overall level of the soil is too high in relation to the house. When we would get heavy downpours or get a good rain when the ground was frozen, the water would spill into the basement. However, the issue was only limited to one corner of the basement. The yard grading/pitch is decent in the other areas. So this solution has worked for me (no significant water in the basement since the install), but it may not be right for everyone.
thank you for this video. I have a question: where do you plug the powe? I have an outdoor cgfi outlet but a heavy rain may trip it. I am thinking about running a wire from the basement out and putting it in a plastic enclosure box attached to the siding and covered by a plastic rain cover for outdoor wells.
Previously, I had the pump plugged into an outdoor GFCI outlet. I *do not* recommend this, as it may be a safety hazard. A few months ago, I had an indoor GFCI outlet professionally installed in my basement, close enough to the pump that an extension cord is not needed. I opened the window enough to feed the cord through, filled the opening with gap filler, and sealed the indoor and outdoor crack with wide masking tape. I bring the pump inside during the winter months, so running the cord inside the basement isn't a year-round situation.
What happens when those two buckets get stuck together ? Did you ever try to pull one bucket out from another once stuck ? Almost impossible. I like your idea but the outer bucket should somehow be a bigger bucket for the 5 gallon bucket to sit inside of. Also , why take it out for the winter ? What about snow melt ? Is there anyway to throw some type of waterproof I insulation blanket over it or the whole pit for the winter ?
Regarding the buckets sticking together, I haven't had that issue yet, and I've been taking the inner bucket + pump insde during the winter months. Since the outer bucket is mostly sunk in stone, it hasn't moved or shifted, even when I remove the inner bucket. A little grease or WD40 around the tight spots may be good preventative maintenance to prevent sticking. My window well is fairly small, and anything larger than a 5-gallon wouldn't fit. I take the pump out for the winter primarily because I believe the manual states it's not supposed to be used in colder temps, and kept outside through the entire winter may not be good for it in general. If I saw that we were due for a warmup and a large amount of rain in the winter, I'd just put the inner bucket + pump back in place temporarily before the storm hit. Luckily, I haven't had to do that yet. The inside of the bucket may not get as cold as I think it does in the winter months (I could test by putting a thermometer in it, and comparing that to the general outside temp), but it's just my preference to remove the pump (I also remove my window AC unit in the winter, but some people don't). Regarding insulation, that'd be the next level of what I've done! There's probably a creative solution to be found there.
@@jfrey1 I like the idea of the wd 40. Tackling the same window well issues for years. I live in the northeast and have cold winters. I leave my pump in - just in case. I would rather go through a pump every several years than one time of a unexpected heavy rain or snow and thaw to have my finished basement flooded. But that’s me. Thanks for your reply.
Not sure but if your house has a subpump anywhere you can connect a drain to the drainage system under your house. The drain would redirect water into the subpump drainage system. You can also dig out the hole 4 more feet and add 4 feet of more stone. That is a good short term solution but I would be super nervous if the pump fails. I have 3 window wells one has a drain that leads to the subpump drainage under house and other 2 have gravity drain to a rock pit in yard.
That's good information. There isn't a sump in the house, just a floor drain in the basement. I get the line snaked occasionally, so that shouldn't back up, but my goal was to stop the water from getting in the basement. So far, this has worked. I also purchased a generator in case we lose power, so I can still run the pump.
I'd replace the well and get a deeper one (ya they're expensive for what they are) and grade the land away from the house. This is very similar to an issue I have with my crawlspace - and no one suggested throwing a sump at it, inside or out (craw space is lower so a basin would be level with the well). Eventually - you'll find out one or all of the failure modes people are warning you about here. IF it was a good solution - they'd sell a ready made product for this. That's typically a safe adage to apply to home repairs.
@@syopspwnz Agreed. Regarding grading, a factor that makes that difficult is my neighbor's property is about 6 feet from the window well, and they are slightly higher up than my property. During downpours, water naturally flows from their driveway (parallel with my wall) to the area around my window well/wall. There's not a lot of room for grade adjustment in that space, but I did have a french drain installed there that runs from the back yard and back of the house to the front yard (there's also a slight downward slope from the back to front). I priced out costs for having the window well drained or just bricking up the window and sealing it off, but I'm not really willing to put that much into it (I don't plan on being in the house for too long). So this was a reasonable solution for this situation, and the basement has stayed dry since I installed it.
I just came across this video, and it looks like it might be a solution for the same issue I’m having. Question, does the sound of the pump resonate through the window at all? I’d be installing this in an egress bedroom window well, and I would be concerned about potential noise. Thanks, and great idea.
Good question! In this video near the end, I have a clip of the pump kicking on a few times during a rainstorm. You can't hear the pump very clearly. Also keep in mind that it should only be turning on during a storm, which drowns out the sound of the pump for the most part. Thanks for watching!
We had a sump pump installed a little less than a year ago. Last week we had torrential rains, the well filled up leaked into the window well into our guest room. We didn’t lose power I checked the outlets they were fine. How come the sump pump didn’t do it’s job? You can’t see the sump pump I guess it’s below the surface so you can’t hear if it’s operating or not.
I'd recommend having an expert (ideally, the company that installed it) take a look at what's going on. If the pump that I set up didn't work, some common causes may be: the power got disconnected, the water sensor failed, or the discharge pipe got clogged/blocked. Good luck!
@@jfrey1 new sump pump installed 2 days ago heavy rain last night came in through window again! This time it only went up enough to leak inside last time the water level was about 3in. above the bottom edge of the window. Can the window be sealed better?
It sounds like your pump was working to an extent but got overwhelmed. Again, I'd recommend having the installer take a look. The window in my well has a panel that horizontally slides, so there's no way to truly waterproof/seal it off. I wouldn't rely on any window to hold water back. Even if the window was sealed, it may break under the pressure/weight of the water. Good luck in fixing the problem!
So far so good. I always check it from the basement window when we get heavy rains, and the pump always kicks on when it should and pumps water out. I took the pump and inner bucket inside last winter. Occasionally, we'll get freak rainstorms in February, so if that happens in the future, I'll just drop the inner bucket back into the outer bucket, plug the pump in, and I should be good to go.
Curious does this pump turn on automatically when water is detected or do you manually have to switch it on every time it rains? My thought is what if you’re not home and a storm hits.
Hello, this is a non-egress window and only one side opens, so it would be impossible for a person to fit through it. I'd recommend budgeting for having the window well drained if you're creating a new window well and/or installing an egress window. Then you won't need a pump.
Thank you for your comments. I'll first say that I am not a contractor or code expert...just a homeowner. I'd check with your local government on regulations regarding drainage. Large amounts of water shouldn't be drained near sidewalks, because that could turn into a safety/slipping hazard. Draining water at curb/into the street is also generally discouraged/outlawed. The end of the discharge pipe for this pump ends far enough from the house where the water won't affect the house foundation, and the water will also not pool or impact the sidewalk, street, or neighbors.
At 2:57, you can see the discharge pipe. It runs along the side of the house and ends several feet past the front corner. I notched out a hole in the side of my window well cover for the pipe.
Great project. I myself is going to attempt this. However, I'm going to dig deeper, remove existing well and cover, use landscape plastic against dirt, install two wells on top of each other, use a sump pump bin for the bucket (less run time = cheaper electric bill) install cover and that should suffice.
A few months ago, I had a GFCI outlet installed in the basement. The pump cord is running through a narrow space where the window is slightly opened. I stuck some foam gap filler in the space and sealed it off with wide masking tape on the inside and outside. I *do not* recommend using an extension cord with a pump like this, as it may be a safety hazard.
What happens when those two buckets get stuck together ? Did you ever try to pull one bucket out from another once stuck ? Almost impossible. I like your idea but the outer bucket should somehow be a bigger bucket for the 5 gallon bucket to sit inside of. Also , why take it out for the winter ? What about snow melt ? Is there anyway to throw some type of waterproof I insulation blanket over it or the whole pit for the winter ?
Looks like a good plan. I may do something similar. Thanks for posting it!
i did this. awesome idea. works well so far. thanks!
You should add a check valve so water doesn’t run back down the hose into the bucket
Done! See photo at 1:13.
If your Window wells are flooding 95% of the time its filling from the bottom, up! The cause is always bad grading around the foundation. Backfill a little, increase the slope to pitch water away from the window wells and you can remove this nonsense
Window wells are to provide additional escape methods from a basement in case of emergency and to bring in some natural light
@A. V. i guess in flood prone zones people just really shouldnt have basements at all, but hopefully theres even better minimal effort ways discovered to deal with water runoff in areas that dont expect floods anyway.
I'm pretty sure that's what mine is doing. Going to work on the grading, but also putting pumps into each well as a precaution. Tired of our basement flooding. We are about to finish it out and the kid wants to move down there.
Great video. Need something temporary until it’s repaired .
Jfrey1. You are the man. My basement flooded for the very first time. Got torrential down pour that overwhelmed the window well drainage and water pour into the basement. I have to find a solution and the very first one was your solution which I will get done in a fews days. Thanks a lot for sharing your solution. I guess the pump just sits in the bucket. It is not secured to the bucket at all. Correct?
That's correct. I recommend that the outer bucket is put in place as flat/level as possible. That way, the inner bucket and pump will be flat. The pump isn't attached to the bucket. I cut a hole in the bucket lid where the discharge pipe runs out. Good luck!
Brilliant! Love the double bucket idea! It seems you have serious rain/flooding in the area
Thanks for the comment! There are 2 things at play at my property. First, the soil in the area is very clay-like, so it doesn't absorb/drain water as well as it could. Second, my back yard was backfilled over time, and so the overall level of the soil is too high in relation to the house. When we would get heavy downpours or get a good rain when the ground was frozen, the water would spill into the basement. However, the issue was only limited to one corner of the basement. The yard grading/pitch is decent in the other areas. So this solution has worked for me (no significant water in the basement since the install), but it may not be right for everyone.
great idea
thank you for this video. I have a question: where do you plug the powe? I have an outdoor cgfi outlet but a heavy rain may trip it. I am thinking about running a wire from the basement out and putting it in a plastic enclosure box attached to the siding and covered by a plastic rain cover for outdoor wells.
Previously, I had the pump plugged into an outdoor GFCI outlet. I *do not* recommend this, as it may be a safety hazard. A few months ago, I had an indoor GFCI outlet professionally installed in my basement, close enough to the pump that an extension cord is not needed. I opened the window enough to feed the cord through, filled the opening with gap filler, and sealed the indoor and outdoor crack with wide masking tape. I bring the pump inside during the winter months, so running the cord inside the basement isn't a year-round situation.
Window well Done! Nice
What happens when those two buckets get stuck together ? Did you ever try to pull one bucket out from another once stuck ? Almost impossible. I like your idea but the outer bucket should somehow be a bigger bucket for the 5 gallon bucket to sit inside of. Also , why take it out for the winter ? What about snow melt ? Is there anyway to throw some type of waterproof I insulation blanket over it or the whole pit for the winter ?
Regarding the buckets sticking together, I haven't had that issue yet, and I've been taking the inner bucket + pump insde during the winter months. Since the outer bucket is mostly sunk in stone, it hasn't moved or shifted, even when I remove the inner bucket. A little grease or WD40 around the tight spots may be good preventative maintenance to prevent sticking. My window well is fairly small, and anything larger than a 5-gallon wouldn't fit. I take the pump out for the winter primarily because I believe the manual states it's not supposed to be used in colder temps, and kept outside through the entire winter may not be good for it in general. If I saw that we were due for a warmup and a large amount of rain in the winter, I'd just put the inner bucket + pump back in place temporarily before the storm hit. Luckily, I haven't had to do that yet. The inside of the bucket may not get as cold as I think it does in the winter months (I could test by putting a thermometer in it, and comparing that to the general outside temp), but it's just my preference to remove the pump (I also remove my window AC unit in the winter, but some people don't). Regarding insulation, that'd be the next level of what I've done! There's probably a creative solution to be found there.
@@jfrey1 I like the idea of the wd 40. Tackling the same window well issues for years. I live in the northeast and have cold winters. I leave my pump in - just in case. I would rather go through a pump every several years than one time of a unexpected heavy rain or snow and thaw to have my finished basement flooded. But that’s me. Thanks for your reply.
Good idea👍
Not sure but if your house has a subpump anywhere you can connect a drain to the drainage system under your house. The drain would redirect water into the subpump drainage system. You can also dig out the hole 4 more feet and add 4 feet of more stone. That is a good short term solution but I would be super nervous if the pump fails. I have 3 window wells one has a drain that leads to the subpump drainage under house and other 2 have gravity drain to a rock pit in yard.
That's good information. There isn't a sump in the house, just a floor drain in the basement. I get the line snaked occasionally, so that shouldn't back up, but my goal was to stop the water from getting in the basement. So far, this has worked. I also purchased a generator in case we lose power, so I can still run the pump.
I'd replace the well and get a deeper one (ya they're expensive for what they are) and grade the land away from the house. This is very similar to an issue I have with my crawlspace - and no one suggested throwing a sump at it, inside or out (craw space is lower so a basin would be level with the well).
Eventually - you'll find out one or all of the failure modes people are warning you about here. IF it was a good solution - they'd sell a ready made product for this. That's typically a safe adage to apply to home repairs.
@@syopspwnz Agreed. Regarding grading, a factor that makes that difficult is my neighbor's property is about 6 feet from the window well, and they are slightly higher up than my property. During downpours, water naturally flows from their driveway (parallel with my wall) to the area around my window well/wall. There's not a lot of room for grade adjustment in that space, but I did have a french drain installed there that runs from the back yard and back of the house to the front yard (there's also a slight downward slope from the back to front). I priced out costs for having the window well drained or just bricking up the window and sealing it off, but I'm not really willing to put that much into it (I don't plan on being in the house for too long). So this was a reasonable solution for this situation, and the basement has stayed dry since I installed it.
thanx for sharing
Wouldn't a tight fitting cover reduce this problem?
I just came across this video, and it looks like it might be a solution for the same issue I’m having. Question, does the sound of the pump resonate through the window at all? I’d be installing this in an egress bedroom window well, and I would be concerned about potential noise. Thanks, and great idea.
Good question! In this video near the end, I have a clip of the pump kicking on a few times during a rainstorm. You can't hear the pump very clearly. Also keep in mind that it should only be turning on during a storm, which drowns out the sound of the pump for the most part. Thanks for watching!
We had a sump pump installed a little less than a year ago. Last week we had torrential rains, the well filled up leaked into the window well into our guest room. We didn’t lose power I checked the outlets they were fine. How come the sump pump didn’t do it’s job? You can’t see the sump pump I guess it’s below the surface so you can’t hear if it’s operating or not.
I'd recommend having an expert (ideally, the company that installed it) take a look at what's going on. If the pump that I set up didn't work, some common causes may be: the power got disconnected, the water sensor failed, or the discharge pipe got clogged/blocked. Good luck!
@@jfrey1 new sump pump installed 2 days ago heavy rain last night came in through window again! This time it only went up enough to leak inside last time the water level was about 3in. above the bottom edge of the window. Can the window be sealed better?
It sounds like your pump was working to an extent but got overwhelmed. Again, I'd recommend having the installer take a look. The window in my well has a panel that horizontally slides, so there's no way to truly waterproof/seal it off. I wouldn't rely on any window to hold water back. Even if the window was sealed, it may break under the pressure/weight of the water. Good luck in fixing the problem!
Great idea - thanks!!
You need to put one way check valve
My only suggestion would be to plant where the water comes out. Plant a garden where you can use only rain water as your irrigation source. 🙂
Good suggestion. The hose I use to discharge the water happens to end at the trunk of a small tree, so it shouldn't be thirsty.
Is this still working well for you? I have a need for a setup like this and I like what you did.
So far so good. I always check it from the basement window when we get heavy rains, and the pump always kicks on when it should and pumps water out. I took the pump and inner bucket inside last winter. Occasionally, we'll get freak rainstorms in February, so if that happens in the future, I'll just drop the inner bucket back into the outer bucket, plug the pump in, and I should be good to go.
Well done
Curious does this pump turn on automatically when water is detected or do you manually have to switch it on every time it rains? My thought is what if you’re not home and a storm hits.
The pump is plugged in all the time, and it has a water sensor that triggers the pump to turn on. So it's all automatic.
Sounds a good solution, but it is not the case that it defeats the purpose of emerency scape? For this reason, I need to make an egress window.
Hello, this is a non-egress window and only one side opens, so it would be impossible for a person to fit through it. I'd recommend budgeting for having the window well drained if you're creating a new window well and/or installing an egress window. Then you won't need a pump.
What if you drain the window well water to the curb side/side walk? Is that allowed?
Thank you for your comments. I'll first say that I am not a contractor or code expert...just a homeowner. I'd check with your local government on regulations regarding drainage. Large amounts of water shouldn't be drained near sidewalks, because that could turn into a safety/slipping hazard. Draining water at curb/into the street is also generally discouraged/outlawed. The end of the discharge pipe for this pump ends far enough from the house where the water won't affect the house foundation, and the water will also not pool or impact the sidewalk, street, or neighbors.
Where did you run the discharge pipe too outside of the window well?
At 2:57, you can see the discharge pipe. It runs along the side of the house and ends several feet past the front corner. I notched out a hole in the side of my window well cover for the pipe.
Great project. I myself is going to attempt this. However, I'm going to dig deeper, remove existing well and cover, use landscape plastic against dirt, install two wells on top of each other, use a sump pump bin for the bucket (less run time = cheaper electric bill) install cover and that should suffice.
Where is the power plug.
A few months ago, I had a GFCI outlet installed in the basement. The pump cord is running through a narrow space where the window is slightly opened. I stuck some foam gap filler in the space and sealed it off with wide masking tape on the inside and outside. I *do not* recommend using an extension cord with a pump like this, as it may be a safety hazard.
What happens when those two buckets get stuck together ? Did you ever try to pull one bucket out from another once stuck ? Almost impossible. I like your idea but the outer bucket should somehow be a bigger bucket for the 5 gallon bucket to sit inside of. Also , why take it out for the winter ? What about snow melt ? Is there anyway to throw some type of waterproof I insulation blanket over it or the whole pit for the winter ?