plumbing a sump through the attic

[john wright]

I live on a slab foundation And I went to put my filtration in the garage But the display is on the other side of the house. I thought about a sump pump In a small sump under the tank. And what about the heat in the attic.

 

[shadow]

John,

Heat is an issue. It's always harder to cool a tank than heat it.

The bigger problem is getting the plumbing to behave properly. The sump based system has a pumped side and a drain side. The two side have to have a balanced flow. The drain needs to always go with gravity. If you have to pump the drain side up to you attic, it makes it difficult to balance pump and drain. The balance is easily upset and you end up having overflow issues.

 

[rbredding]

yeah... it's gonna be tough to make that work...

 

[porpoiseaquatics]

I don't see the issue. Gravity still comes in to play. It would seem to me that you could run a gravity feed out of the tank to a good sized, external pump that would pump up to the attic to the sump. The sump would fill to a certain level. The level would be determined by an overflow hole with bulkhead which in turn would flow back down to the tank. The flow rate is then determined by the pump at the tank. You'd have to put a check valve in so that the flow couldn't reverse and overflow the tank but that's easy enough. You'd have to have a bigger line coming back down (drain side) to the tank than what is going up from the pump. Your only real issue then becomes heat.

 

[jennm]

It's doable but it's a major pain in the rear. We had a client that had a tank built into a mantle, plumbed up through the wall/ceiling and into a utility room. It was a basement, not an attic though, but the same idea. It had closed canisters and an external pump. No skimmer. He bought the house with the setup already there, I don't know who installed it, but it was done incorrectly and he had to do some major reconstruction on it, and it was always a pain. Plus, it had a hang-on overflow box (because a bottom drain is useless when you have to go UP)... and that failed a time or two.

Not sure how an attic would work but heat and cold would most certainly be a concern.

Jenn

 

[dan3949]

I am running an elevated sump system (on a freshwater tank) with no problems. One advantage of this setup is no gavity drain noise at the display tank. Of course, you must be careful in proper sizing of the drain line and return pump (just like any sump system). In this case though, the main tank is the greater risk for overflow since it is now the low point. Good system level control and an ATO location is the main drawback for this configuration.

 

[jcr333]

To help clarify, as john is helping me design a system. The tank will be located in the house, all other equipment will be in the garage. We plan on enclosing a portion of the garage and provided air condition to the area. We were wondering if and how to run the plumbing to and from the tank thru the attic. Also would heat be an issue heating the water in the lines in the attic. Since the water is constantly moving and the volume of water in the system, would there be an issue with heat build up?

If anyone has knowledge of how to build this type of system please pm john or me as there are more details to discuss that could be difficulty to explain in chat fourm....thanks jcr

 

[wannaplayatlanta]

porpoiseaquatics;654571 wrote: I don't see the issue. Gravity still comes in to play. It would seem to me that you could run a gravity feed out of the tank to a good sized, external pump that would pump up to the attic to the sump. The sump would fill to a certain level. The level would be determined by an overflow hole with bulkhead which in turn would flow back down to the tank. The flow rate is then determined by the pump at the tank. You'd have to put a check valve in so that the flow couldn't reverse and overflow the tank but that's easy enough. You'd have to have a bigger line coming back down (drain side) to the tank than what is going up from the pump. Your only real issue then becomes heat.

And the factnthat evaporation would show in The display tank because it is the lower tank and is in theory the sump. And I if u insulate the pipes u would help with t he heat in the attic. Have you thought of build ing a small room for it outside if. Its on an external wall

Edit:

jcr333;654612 wrote: To help clarify, as john is helping me design a system. The tank will be located in the house, all other equipment will be in the garage. We plan on enclosing a portion of the garage and provided air condition to the area. We were wondering if and how to run the plumbing to and from the tank thru the attic. Also would heat be an issue heating the water in the lines in the attic. Since the water is constantly moving and the volume of water in the system, would there be an issue with heat build up?

If anyone has knowledge of how to build this type of system please pm john or me as there are more details to discuss that could be difficulty to explain in chat fourm....thanks jcr

I would think that it would have to be a completely closed loop to make it work correctly.

 

[jcr333]

the display tank and the sump and etc will be on or close to the same height as the house is on a slab.

 

[dan3949]

It sounds like you need a pump to get from your display tank to the garage (through the attic) and another pump to get from the garage to the display tank (again through the attic). Is this correct? You will not have a gravity drain either way? If this is the case, it will be very difficult to operate and will always be at high risk for a problem.

What size system is this?

 

[shadow]

Dan3949 works because his sump is elevated. As long as one tank is lower it will work over a short distance. In effect, Dan3949's sump works like most our main tanks. Gravity does not care. The drain does its function and the pump side does its function.

Trying to balance a system that is pumping water up both ways is very difficult. It will not be worth the effort expended.

 

[falos]

wen running your pipe both have to be the same linth number of elbows if not flow will change run 3 valves on return and intake 1 at the tank 1 at sump 1 inthe half way mark on the pipe in case you have to work on it id run 2'' to keap from over flow run a ato in the tank wired to the garage pump aquire 2 pumps from the same batch look for pumps with a 20' head run the pump from the tank closed loop and set your sump up so the return pump can only pump the water it gits from the tank for added protection you can run a line from the tank to out side the house in case it gose bad

 

[wannaplayatlanta]

falos;654643 wrote: wen running your pipe both have to be the same linth number of elbows if not flow will change run 3 valves on return and intake 1 at the tank 1 at sump 1 inthe half way mark on the pipe in case you have to work on it id run 2'' to keap from over flow run a ato in the tank wired to the garage pump aquire 2 pumps from the same batch look for pumps with a 20' head run the pump from the tank closed loop and set your sump up so the return pump can only pump the water it gits from the tank for added protection you can run a line from the tank to out side the house in case it gose bad

Good idea for an emergency over flow level. I think u would be better of building a small shed outside next to it and put an a/ c on it separately. That's if ur tank is on an exterior wall
L or close to one

 

[grouper therapy]

The system will not work if the drain pipe is higher than where it enters the drain pipe unless a siphon was created to draw the water to the elevated height. Two pumps could be used but would be a pretty elaborate system to maintain a balance between the two tanks. I have wanted to experiment with a system that would use two pumps and two large float valves that might would regulate the levels. In each of the lines a float valve would reduce the flow from each pump as either tank began to overfill. After a while the sytem in theory would reach equilibrium and the valves control the levels not the pumps.
The problem I see would be loosing one pump and not the other so perhaps a relay would be needed to shut both pumps down should one fail.

 

[fncracing]

basically your plumbing would be like a giant U tube the main problem i see would be power loss losing the siphon

 

[ichthyoid]

If I understand the problem, you are looking for the simplest level control between two sumps connected by elevated pipes. Correct?

If so, I would run 3 pipes. Two of them would have pumps, each sending water to the other sump. The third pipe would be a siphon, with both ends submerged below the water level in the sump at either end. If there was to be an imbalance in the levels of the two sumps, such as caused by one pump pushing more than the other, the levels would be immediately corrected by the 3rd/siphon pipe. This also assumes that the two sumps will be at almost the exact same elevation (slab foundation).

The only draw back to this would be, if you ever broke siphon in the 3rd pipe. If you decide to set this up, make sure that you have a 'purge' valve at the highest point of the 3rd pipe in order to vent ALL air/gas from the pipe when establishing the siphon.

 

[john wright]

That is close to what I was thinking I do plan on using an apex and to Control the pumps. It will prob take some elaborate programming but I think we can do it

 

[ichthyoid]

Sine you will be running a controller, you can install a float switch in each sump as an emergency cut-off control for unexpected failures.

 

[jcr333]

How do we maintain a constant tank temp. As the water will be traveling thru the attic, heat in the summer and cold in the winter.

Edit:

ichthyoid;654748 wrote: If I understand the problem, you are looking for the simplest level control between two sumps connected by elevated pipes. Correct?

If so, I would run 3 pipes. Two of them would have pumps, each sending water to the other sump. The third pipe would be a siphon, with both ends submerged below the water level in the sump at either end. If there was to be an imbalance in the levels of the two sumps, such as caused by one pump pushing more than the other, the levels would be immediately corrected by the 3rd/siphon pipe. This also assumes that the two sumps will be at almost the exact same elevation (slab foundation).

The only draw back to this would be, if you ever broke siphon in the 3rd pipe. If you decide to set this up, make sure that you have a 'purge' valve at the highest point of the 3rd pipe in order to vent ALL air/gas from the pipe when establishing the siphon.

Great simple solution....

 

[grouper therapy]

The purge valve would not start the siphon would it. When the level dropped in the tank that was higher something would have to stop that siphon before it starting taking in air. If the siphon did take in air what would prevent it from getting trapped between the surface of the water and the purge valve? I have not tried the purge valve but I have tried the siphon between two open tanks and was not reliable. It works fine between two closed containers with purge valves on them.