Sump Pumps in the UK

[keffs]

Hi,

I am considering using a sump pump for my new darkroom. I know some of you are using these from searching the forum, but could not find anybody using them in the UK.

If there are any UK users, I would appreciate any comments, including pump models, about ther use.

Steve

 

[Ian Grant]

We used to fit these for commercial minilabs, in the UK. They aren't expensive. We only fitted them in basements when the drains were at a higher level. Basically we installed silver recovery units, and then all the waste dev, de-silvered bleach-fix & fixer, & wash water were mixed in a tank and pumped to drainb using a sump pump. (Of course we had obtained water board permissions).

You need a tank, a hot water header tank is perfect, the pumps come with their own float switch and are enough to pump nahead of about 10 -15 ft. I can't remember what make we used but Grunfloss seems vaguely right. I'll do a search for you.

Ian

 

[Ian Grant]

Company is Grundfos. I think we used the smallest of the "KC/KP/AP Submersible Sump Pumps"

We also used a plastic yellow & black sump of similar size, that was over 4 years ago and I can't remember what make. Go into somewhere like Hire It, or HSS they rent them out, so you can ask all about them.

Hope that helps

Ian

 

[Dave Miller]

Check out you garden center for a submersible pool pump.

 

[Steve Smith]

More expensive but more elegant solution: http://www.saniflo.co.uk/


Steve.

 

[Ian Grant]

Beware of pool pumps because they aren't designed for the same use, many won't have enough head to raise water a sufficient height and much more importantly they don't have any type of float switch control, so you'd have the additional cost of rigging something up, so would be false economy.

In addition they wont stand up to chemical waste. The Grundfos stainless steel is sufficiently resilient to fixer and bleach fix, they were still OK after 3 or 4 years of use.

Ian