Essex encouraging residents to install battery backups for sump pumps

Help with battery backup for sump pumps After high water flooded roads and basements, Essex is working to help residents pay for some sump pump needs. Bob Bellacicco reports.

Creating awareness that eavestroughs connected to storm sewers should be disconnected and making sure homes have a back flow valve are some of the things the Essex mayor feels could help avoid flooding in the community during a strong weather event.

“I think we have a lot of tweaks we can do,” said Mayor Sherry Bondy.

This week, town council brought forward a motion to help protect homeowners from experiencing the same flooding heartache felt following last summer’s storms.

“We're actually looking at our development standards manual in the Town of Essex and how we can encourage people to use battery driven sump pumps rather than the water back up sump pump,” Bondy said.

Josh Bedard, owner of Superior Plumbing, said a battery powered back up is a good choice.

“They really have a much stronger draw of water as opposed to a water powered back up sump pump.” he said. “They can pull out water faster at a higher rate but you are relying on a battery.”

Bedard said having a marine grade battery is key.

“One where you don’t have to add distilled water into every so often to keep the charge of the battery helps to just keep the longevity and not have a failed system,” he said.

Bondy said they discovered water driven sump pumps made their flooding problem worse.

“When the power goes out we have several water driven back up sump pumps who are pushing water five gallons a minute right into the very infrastructure that's flooding people,” she said.

Kingsville mayor Dennis Rogers discovered many residents have water backup systems.

“We found, we had a real issue with them and they drained our water tower,” he said.

There is about 1.4 million litres of water in the tower at any given time, Roger said.

“Our operators, they know on average you got about 12 hours of water in there before it gets below an unacceptable level and that 12 hours was gone in like three to four,” he said.

Council already approved increasing the subsidy to cover the cost of a permit to install a back flow valve or to replace a sump pump.

According to Bedard, battery and water backups are reliable and adds if you have a water backup, having a pipe to expel water out of the house is a good idea, if possible.

“It allows the sump pumps or the backup sump pumps to flow freely out of the house as opposed to fighting against a full storm sewer or frozen pipe even,” he said.

Bondy is hoping to see a report before the end of the year

“We don't ever want people to flood with storm and sanitary the way they did but it's not going to be a cheap fix and it's not going to be a fast fix,” she said.