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Buyer's Guide for Septic Grinder Pumps InspectAPedia®  -

• Where to buy Septic tank pumps, septic grinder pumps, septic effluent pumps
• What type of septic pump should you buy?

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This article offers buying advice for Sump Pumps, Sewage Ejector Pumps, Septic Grinder Pumps, Sewage Pumping Stations, & Septic Pump Alarms. Citation of this article by reference to this website and brief quotation for the sole purpose of review are permitted. Use of this information at other websites, in books or pamphlets for sale is reserved to the author.

Technical review by industry experts has been performed and is ongoing - reviewers welcomed and are listed at "References." This document is a chapter of Inspecting, Testing, & Maintaining Residential Septic Systems an online book on septic systems. Sketches are from the Environment One Low Pressure Sewer Systems Grinder Pump catalog. © Copyright 2009 Daniel Friedman, All Rights Reserved. Information Accuracy & Bias Pledge is at below-left. Use links at the left of each page to navigate this document or to view other topics at this website. Green links show where you are in our document or website.

What Brand of Sewage Ejector Pump Should I Buy? - Sewage Pump Selection Guide

The general name for these pumps is sewage grinder pumps if they are intended to grind and move black water or sewage, or sewage effluent pumps if the pump is intended only to move clarified effluent, say from a septic tank to a drain field. Some well-established and widely-used septic pump brands include:

• ABS pumps
• Crane (centrifugal grinders) pumps
• Environment One or E/One sewage pumps
• Goulds pumps
• Hydromatic pumps
• Liberty sewage pumps
• Little Giant pumps
• Myers pumps
• Tsurumi pumps
• Webtrol sewage pumps
• Zoeller sewage grinder pumps

Several sewage pump manufacturers produce a separate line of commercial or municipal sewage grinder pumps from those used in residential application.

What Type of Septic Pump Should I Buy?

The type of sewage pump you need depends on how it will be used. The pumps at left may have been a misapplication for this municipal lift station ,which may explain why we found these discarded units on the site. Septic pump systems vary by these parameters:

• Grinder vs. ejector pump: in how they treat the waste
• Lift capacity or "head": by how many feet of elevation does the waste need to be raised to reach the build. "Head" is the term used to describe the height in feet that a column of wastewater needs to be raised, and is expressed in feet of lift. A "ten foot head" means that the pump has to be powerful enough to lift the column of waste water ten feet vertical distance.
• Total wastewater system capacity: how many toilets and other fixtures is the pump serving. A basement bath including a shower, sink, and toilet, uses a small pre-packaged low-capacity septic grinder pump that may be just 1/3 hp. while in a home where all of the wastewater needs to be moved from a common pumping point to a higher-elevation sewer line, an higher capacity multi-horsepower pump needs to be used (and probably should be installed duplexed with a pair of pumps.)
  
  
• Size of solids that need to be removed: larger solids are handled by larger grinder pumps. A pump with a four-inch impeller housing and impeller will typically be able to handle solids up to 3" in diameter without clogging.
  
  
• Water temperature: most sewage pumps are designed to operate at a maximum temperature of 180 deg F. So if a restaurant were installing a pumping station that had to handle near-boiling water, say from a commercial dishwasher or an asian fast-food cooking line, special equipment may be needed.
  
  
• Duty cycle: a community pumping station or a sewage pumping system serving a multi-family home needs to be able to run more frequently to handle the much higher wastewater load than that from a single family home.
  
  
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  Reliability requirements: while single-pump systems are often installed to support an extra basement bathroom, where a sewage pump is handling an entire home or larger facility, duplex septic pumping systems (shown in the photo at left) are preferable for their greater reliability. (Remember that in a power outage your pump system will not work unless you've provided backup power.)
  
  
• Vertically-suspended sewage grinder pumps and closely-coupled submersible sewage grinder pumps are further distinguished and described in more detail at Septic Pumping Stations.

Septic pump manufacturers provide a pump selection and sizing table that is used to guide the installer in selecting the proper pump. We've seen sewage handling systems where the wrong type or wrong capacity of pump was installed, sometimes as an attempt to "save money."

Two types of sewage pumps are used in residential applications, sewage grinder pumps or sewage ejectors pumps, and non-clogging sewage ejector pumps. We describe these next.

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Use links just below or at the left of each page to navigate this document or to view other topics at this website. Green links show where you are in our document or website.

SEPTIC SYSTEM PUMPS
  Sewage Ejector Pump Grinder Pump
    What is a Sewage Ejector?
  Free-Standing Sewage Grinder Pump
  Septic Pump Alarm Systems
  Septic Pump Buyers Guide
  Septic Pump Duplex System Designs
  Septic Pump Inspection & Maintenance
  Septic Pump Installation Guide
  Septic Pumping Stations
  Sump Pumps

SEPTIC SYSTEMS HOME
SEPTIC INFO ARTICLES
HOME BUYERS GUIDE to SEPTIC SYSTEMS
SEPTIC SYSTEMS ONLINE BOOK
SEPTIC PUMPING REPAIR
SEPTIC TREATMENTS
SEPTIC CONSULTANTS
SEPTIC AUTHORITIES
SEPTIC SYSTEM BOOKS REFS CODES
SEPTIC SYSTEM DESIGN MANUAL - Online
SEPTIC SYSTEM DESIGN BASICS
SEPTIC SYSTEM DESIGN ALTERNATIVES

More Information on Building Diagnostic Inspections and Repairs

• The Septic System Information Website home page for this topic
• Septic Systems Inspection, Testing, & Maintenance- online textbook. Detailed how to inspect, maintain, repair information
• The Home Buyer's Guide to Septic Systems
• Septic Tank Pumping Guide: When, Why, How to pump the septic tank
• Home & Outdoor Living Water Requirements
• Septic Tank Capacity vs Usage in Daily Gallons of Wastewater Flow, calculating required septic tank size, calculating septic tank volume from size measurements
• How Big Should the Leach Field Be? - table of soil percolation rate vs. field size
• Septic System Drainfield Absorption System Biomat Formation - what leads to drain field clogging and expensive drainfield repairs
• Table of Required Septic & Well Clearances: Distances Between Septic System & Wells, Streams, Trees, etc.
  Pennsylvania State Fact Sheets relating to domestic wastewater treatment systems include
  
• Pennsylvania State Wastewater Treatment Fact Sheet SW-161, Septic System Failure: Diagnosis and Treatment
• Pennsylvania State Wastewater Treatment Fact Sheet SW-162, The Soil Media and the Percolation Test
• Pennsylvania State Wastewater Treatment Fact Sheet SW-l64, Mound Systems for Wastewater Treatment
• Pennsylvania State Wastewater Treatment Fact Sheet SW-165, Septic Tank-Soil Absorption Systems
• Document Sources used for this web page include but are not limited to: Agricultural Fact Sheet #SW-161 "Septic Tank Pumping," by Paul D. Robillard and Kelli S. Martin. Penn State College of Agriculture - Cooperative Extension, edited and annotated by Dan Friedman (Thanks: to Bob Mackey for proofreading the original source material.)

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