HB1000 High Volume Water Powered Backup Sump Pump with Water Alarm

I actually bought this pump from Amazon almost 2 years ago, installing it probably 3 months or so after that. So it's been in service for probably about a year and a half.Although our house (which is only about 5 years old) is elevated from the street about 8 feet, the farm field behind us rises and drains into a large storm sewer behind our house in the neighbors yard. In addition, both of our neighbor's houses sit above our house. So even though we're not the low point of the neighborhood we're in the drain path. Our builder didn't do such a good job planning for this and our house really could have been built about a foot higher than it currently sits. But we did have someone come in with a bobcat and slope our ground around the house. So short of a small pool area on the back of the house we now have pretty good drainage. But our sump pump still eventually collects quite a bit of ground water during a good rain. Because of this, I installed a batter powered back up sump pump.First, let me explain how I got to where I am now with my sump pumps. On Good Friday 2011 in our area we had massive, massive storms. Although we didn't have any tornado damage we had a loss of power for a couple of hours. Along with the tornadoes we we had an unprecedented amount of rainfall within a short period of time. This caused the storm sewers to back up, essentially pushing water towards our house and eventually into our sump. With the power being out and the loss of our sump pump I was relying on the battery backup pump to keep us dry. Unfortunately the switch was bad and the battery backup failed. That was probably irrelevant as the battery backup pumps have a ridiculously low flow rate.That brings us to the BasePump water powered backup pump. In the year and a half since being installed it has not been needed. Granted, this is mostly in part to some additional grading and sloping I did to the yard to keep surface ground water away from the house. But we still get quite a bit of ground water during a long, heavy, soaking rain. Which is what we had today. Heavy rain for about five hours straight. Eventually during the heaviest rain the main 1/2 HP electric powered pump was overwhelmed by the water coming in and the sump and our entire foundation drain tile filled with water. This caused the HB1000 pump to come on for the first time ever. This unit worked flawlessly. It came on and pumped water (along with the main sump pump) for over an hour and a half before the rain let up. Between the two pumps working together we narrowly missed another basement flood. This pump saved me thousands of dollars and two weeks of aggravation!!I've posted some pics of my installation to give you an idea of how it's installed. There are a couple of things I'd do differently if I were doing it again. The installation I did was to run a second discharge pipe out of the house and tie into the same 4" underground pipe that the main pump dumps into. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I doubt that these two pumps will overwhelm that pipe but you never know. Being as this is a backup and rarely should run I will probably disconnect this discharge and run it separately out to the yard somewhere just to be safe. In the event that it runs the yard will already be full of water so what's the big deal with a few hundred gallons more?In addition, I agree with other posters that a water hammer arrestor would be a good idea. When this pump stops it really slams hard and shakes all the piping. My concern is that it could cause a pipe somewhere else to break, causing another flooding problem. So for now I'm going to secure the feed pipe with clamps and silicone and see if that helps.I hope this review helps and good luck with all your water issues!!

Update 2024: I've had this for 12 years now. It has never given any trouble until recently when it started leaking a tiny bit out of the water switch fittings. I contacted Base Products and was able to get the two fittings and more tubing shipped for under twenty bucks. Great pump, great service. Should ready for at least the next 12 years.2012 Review:I previously had a Basement Watchdog Emergency battery-powered backup pump. It did the job when I needed it to but I was pretty fortunate not to have more trouble. It came with a cheap trickle charger that ruined batteries within 2 years. That's the biggest issue with battery powered pumps...cheap chargers. Even powerful ones are not really good quality, they are just more powerful. At one point an overcharged battery started emitting toxic fumes into my home. And unless your battery is brand new you can never be sure how long it will pump. After spending hundreds of dollars on replacement batteries and still not having confidence in it, I decided to try out a water powered pump because I was just not able to find a battery system with a good charger and reliable float mechanism. They all have a lot of bad reviews and appear to be unreliable in one way or another.There's really not a lot of info out there about these pumps. I relied on reviews here and the company's literature to make the decision. During storms my sump can run every 30-40 seconds with a ten foot lift so I needed something strong. Basepump appeared to be the best water-powered option. According to the 5 gallon fill test on their website, the HB1000 was the biggest I could use. Note that if you do their water test with a frost-free spigot, you can take 30% off your fill time. My adjusted time was 24 seconds. My municipal water pressure runs about 70 PSI which is well above the 40 PSI minimum required.Installation is fairly straightforward with basic plumbing skills. But you will need some skill, especially to run the supply line which involves tapping into your main water line.I was careful during installation to follow instructions, having an unrestricted 3/4" line to the supply, running my suction and discharge runs as straight and short as possible, and using their downward tee at the end which the instructions claim is important for the suction action.Once installed, it was time to test. I was a bit leery of this pump since it was flow rated about the same as my old battery powered system whose power I was never really comfortable with. But obviously Basement Watchdog's ratings were optimistic, because this Basepump empties the pit a lot faster, I'd roughly estimate it to be twice as powerful. It's not quite as powerful as our main 1/2 hp pump, but it's more than good enough to do the job in the worst conditions I will face.I don't really understand how the float mechanism works, but it evidently relies on a hydraulic switch which requires a line filled with water that runs from the float to the pump. Which means it is mechanical and could leak. The float is also rather large, similar to the size of my old backup pump, which may be an issue in small pits. On the other hand, I understand the necessity for something mechanical since there is no electricity in the system. I'll be keeping a close eye on it to ensure the mechanics stay reliable in my pit filled with hard water.Also, the alarm is a separate basic water alarm that runs off a 9-volt battery. This means you will need to replace that battery periodically. Most of my instances of needing a backup have been because of pump failure (stuck float, frozen discharge, etc) not power outages, so notification is important. After the pump is activated and the water level goes down the alarm turns off which means you no longer have an indication your primary pump failed. If the pump fails in the "on" position the alarm also won't notify you as your pit where the water sensor is would be dry. It is capable of hooking into a security system for notification, so that's good. It's also loud enough for me to easily hear it from the main floor above. I may replace it with one that also uses electricity so I don't have to rely on the battery to notify me. I don't know how long the battery will run the alarm. As I said though the alarm is completely separate and does not affect the function of the pump itself.I have read a lot of reviews about a loud water hammer effect with this pump. I used Pex to connect to my copper supply and I don't have any loud noises. Maybe the Pex has a little give to it which helps, I don't know, but it's a quiet pump for me.The downsides are minor, just things to keep in mind. All in all, so far I am very impressed with this pump and it helps give me peace of mind knowing it will have no problem keeping up with my worst situations. I also don't have to mess with and worry about batteries anymore. I suppose something could always happen to my water supply, so in that regard there may be situations where it may not be as reliable as a battery system with a good strong battery, but in my real life experience I think it should provide much better protection.