OT basement sump pump or floor drain with inline check valve?

D107

To prevent floods from broken pipes etc I'm looking into sump pump or a floor drain with an inline check valve. basement is 500 sq ft divided into three rooms, one mechanical with boiler, HWH, washer/drier, etc. there is low point near the boiler. A floor drain there would be only about six feet from the underfloor waste line and cleanout. sump pump's the other option. House doesn't flood from heavy rains; most plumbing lines replaced in the 80s but main is galvanized.  other rooms are an office with things we'd really like to keep dry.

Jamie Hall

There's something to be said

for both options.  A floor drain with a check valve doesn't need any power to operate (it will need a trap, properly vented, however).  There are -- or used to be, anyway, floor drains with the check valve built in; I recall at least one type where the check was essentially a ball which usually dropped down but, if backwater occurred, floated up and sealed against a seat in the drain itself.  Don't know if it's still available... been 40 years now since I did that much plumbing.  On the other hand, almost any other type of check valve could clog and either need attention or fail to seal on reverse flow.



A sump pump, in the other hand, doesn't have that particular problem.  However, it does need electricity to operate -- and flooding is more likely to occur in connexion with storms, which is when you are more likely to not have power.  Also, the pump would have to be sized big enough to handle the maximum rate of flooding which you anticipate.

D107

Thanks

Yes I recall we had a floor drain installed in a coop laundry years ago with the access plate and swinging check valve ten feet away. I remember the plumber saying it would have to maintained at least once a year--cleaned etc. So you have to vent that to the outside--not those minivents that vent to the room?