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Plumbing question

arvin

NJRC Member
I am moving my sump to the basement. The outlet from the sump is 3/4". The pump that I have is a GenX 70hp. This has an inlet of 1" and outlet of 3/4".
Is it okay to put a converter between sump and the pump to cut down the size? Will it affect the performance of the pump?
 

JohnS_323

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
I'm afraid you'll starve the pump if you feed it with a smaller line.  Ideally, you'd come out of the sump with something larger and then step it down right at the pump.

I know it stinks but here are a couple of options:

1) Make the existing hole larger (like 1.5")
2) Plug the existing hole and drill a new one
3) Drill a second 3/4" hole and tie it and the existing one to a larger size that feeds the pump.

I went with option 3.  Here's a pic

04.jpg
 

arvin

NJRC Member
Thanks John, you are a genius!

I have actually two separate 3/4 outlets from my sump. I had reserved one for the drain. I will tie both and feed to the pump just like the way you did. I will have to figure out the drain part later.

That leads to my next question. How do you divert water to the drain during water changes? I see that it is connected in your pictures, but I don't quite understand how it drains the water.
 

RichT

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
I would jump both lines right up to 1" at the sump, 1.5" at the Tee then back down to 1" at the pump

.75"    .75"
1" 1"
╘â•â•¦â•â•›     1.5"
     1"
    Pump

Or build a 1.5" manifold similar to the above.
 

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Before we tied into the basement plumbing/sewer, we used a port under the tank to run a hose outside for waste water. You'll see in the pictures in the thread Malulu pointed you to that there is a union/ball valve under there. We replaced the cap part of that union with the barb that's sitting in the bottom of the cabinet, attached a hose and then pumped water out the front door.

We have a similar barb setup in the basement now and we use that to pump water from external sources (garbage cans, etc) into the waste line.
 

arvin

NJRC Member
Rich:

Are you suggesting .75 hole in the sump be made bigger to 1"? Are use a
.75 to 1" converter right outside the sump?

Phyl/John,

Thanks for the reply. Why is there a union valve before and after the ball valve. And also in the picture pasted above, there is a union valve right after the sump. What is the benefit of using a union valve?

Sorry if the question sounds stupid, this is my first plumbing project...

Thanks.
 

JohnS_323

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
I think Rich is suggesting you keep the 3/4" hole but step right up to 1" and then carry that to the 1.5" piece.  That is a good idea.

The unions before and after the valves are all connected.  They're called Union Ball Valves and they're all I use.  I've only found them at Lowe's.  I don't think Home Depot carries them.  They are a little more expensive than regular ball valves but well worth the money.  They give you the ability to take the plumbing apart at those spots if you need to (plus some other advatages).

The two unions after the sump are there to make assemble and disassembly easy.  If they weren't there, everything would have to be glued into place at the sump without ever being able to remove it (without having to cut pipe).  With those unions I was able to assemble a lot of it away from the sump, carry it over and connect it at the unions.  I can also disconnect the unions now and then unscrew the fittings in the bulk heads.  If the unions weren't there I couldn't do that.

Here's a little on the water changes.  In the basement, I open up the 2 ball valves shown and water goes right from my manifold into the waste line.  I probably only needed one valve but I didn't want any chance of waste backing up into my system.

Basement Water Change.jpg


Before I tied into the main waste, I did water changes from under my cabinet.  I put an extra Tee in with a union and a capped piece of pipe.  I made a mating union piece that has a barbed fitting on it.  For water changes I'd swap out the two pieces, hook up a piece of hose, run it out the door and open the valve.  After the water change I'd put the capped piece back on.

Cabinet Water Change.jpg


If you want, you can swing by any time to see it in action.  I can probably explain it all a little better in person.
 

RichT

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Cross sectional area of a:  3/4" pipe = 0.44 sq.in.
                                              1" pipe = 0.78 sq.in.
                                         1.25" pipe = 1.23 sq.in.
                                           1.5" pipe = 1.76 sq.in.
                                              2" pipe = 3.14 sq.in. (pi)

Therefore using the two 3/4" penetrations  = 0.88 sq. in. which is greater then the 1" intake of the pump (0.78 sq.in.). So theoretically, you could run two 3/4" pieces of pipe to a tee  increasing it to 1" at the pump. I'm not a fluid dynamics engineer but the way I understand it, friction loss will reduce the performance of the pump. Will it be enough to make a difference, I don't know. But I have a tendency to err to the "Bigger is Better" mentality when it comes to things like this. The way I look at it is if you have a pump with a 1" intake and you plumb it all the way to the source with a 1" pipe, then the pump will have to pull that 0.78 inch cube of water all the way from it's source to the pump dragging it along the walls of the pipe using all it's resources while doing so, reducing performance. Or, if you used a larger pipe, say 1.5", your pump will have a 1.76 sq.in. cube of water to draw its 0.78 sq. in. cube of water from, which will/should make the pump much happier not having to work so hard. So the next question I have is "Doesn't the pump have to work hard to fill the 1.5" pipe?". Two things (in my mind anyway) that help that is 1) the weight of the water in the sump will push the extra needed water into the larger pipe (provided the pump and pump intake is at/near the bottom of the sump) and 2) the flow created by the pump uptake will also pull in the additional water needed to fill the larger pipe, similar in principle (again in my mind) to the inductors on the return lines in the displays of some tanks.  All of this is based on assumptions and understandings on my part. It would be fairly easy to prove by timing the filling of a container using the different plumbing options available.

One other misconception I want to point out is; by looking at the sectional areas for the pipes, you will notice that two 1" pipes do not carry as much as one 2" pipe. They (two at 1") don't even carry as much as one 1.5" pipe.

HTH   
 

arvin

NJRC Member
John & Rich,

Thanks for the patient walk through. This is what I've come up with so far:

130_3095-small.JPG


As advised, the sump outlet is connected to a union followed by a step up adapter and then an elbow which connects a step down adapter and then a 1.5" X 1" Tee. Now my question is can I keep the fittings as close as possible, or do you think I should leave more space between the fittings?

Thanks.
 

JohnS_323

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
In my opinion, you can keep them as close as possible. The only reason I would leave a space would be to have the ability to cut off a fitting and replace it if necessary (like if it's leaking or something). Speaking of leaking, you may want to use Rain R Shine adhesive. It's in the same aisle with the rest of the PVC cements. It's a nice thick blue goopy glue that seals really well. I use it whenever I'm gluing something that would really be a pain if it leaked.

HTH.
 

RichT

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
How long is that 1" pipe going to be? You should stay at the larger size all the way to the pump. Sorry if I didn't make that clear in my other post. In fact, I would suggest a 1.5x1.5x1.5 tee to 1.5 pipe to 1.5 x 1" reducer at the pump. Other than that, it looks fine.  
 

JohnS_323

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Yeah, what he said! ;D

I didn't even pick up on that, but definitely come out of the Tee at 1.5 and then step down right at the pump.
 

arvin

NJRC Member
John,

Looking at your pictures I was wondering how you managed to fit them without the purple showing up anywhere. Now I understand it is the goopy glue!

Rich,

Yes, I will switch to a 1.5X1.5X1.5 and cut it down to 1" at the pump. I am thinking of leaving about three to four inches of the 1.5" pipe between the Tee and pump. I hope it is ok.

Thanks!
 

arvin

NJRC Member
The two drains in the sump are only eight inches apart. I am unable to fit a 1.5" inch tee in this short gap. The distance looks perfect for 1" tee. Is it alright to skip the 1.5" vestibule between the sump and the pump? Two .75 outlets will combine to 1" which will feed the pump.

The other option that I have is to fold down (or up) to accommodate that 1.5" to 1" target. I am wondering if it is worth the effort. Pls. advise.
 

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Adding extra bends would be worse than doing 1", I would think. I'd skip the 1.5 and use 1".
 

arvin

NJRC Member
Thanks to you all, my project is nearing completion. I have to glue some last pieces and start testing.

I saw the other basement sump thread and have these two questions:

1) I am planning to use Gen X Mak4 rated at 1800 gph (high pressure) for my setup. This is how I calculated the pump sizing.

My current pump located under the tank is rated at 692 gph at 0 mph
and 375 gph at 4 feet (which is the current height from the sump to the display tank).

Assuming I have to maintain the same 375 gallons per hour water pressure when pumped from basement, I used the Head loss calculator in RC to calculate the total head loss based on loss of pressure and based it on a equivalent Iwaki 70 RT2 which gives me about 570 gph.

To make long story short, is this pump good enough for me?

2) The other question is this pump has an outlet of 1" and my return line in the display tank has .75". I finished nailing/gluing the .75" from near the pump to the display tank all the way. Now I saw the response on the other thread and wondering if I should have used a 1" pipe all the way and cut it down near the tank.

If I have to rip it off and start with the 1", it is going to set me back a day or two which I hate to do this at point. But if this is going to cause me problems in the long run I would rather do it now than repent later. Pl. advise.
 
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