Crawl Space Sump Pump Trench Refil

[creativemusicdc]

Hi,

I just bought a house with a crawl space (dirt floor) and the trench for the sump pump seems to have been eroded. It looks like the barrel for the sump pump is not low enough now and I'm getting some water pooling in the trench. It's concerning me because the house smells musty, I found a small patch of white mold on the floor of the crawl space and the eroding trench seem to be too close to two of the support columns.

I'm having the yard graded to keep the water from flowing in and installing some down-spout tubes on the gutters, so I'm not too concerned about keeping the water out at this point. (you can trace the seepage directly to where the gutters are on the outside of the house).

I'm planning to dig a few feet down to reset the sump pump and re-grade the trench so that the water flows to the pump.

I'd like to then fill the trench so that the ground is level and the support columns are no longer in danger of being eroded.

If anyone knows what material (gravel, sand, more dirt...) to use, or if I missed anything I should be doing, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks!

GT

[pushkins]

You really cannot put anything "in" the trench as this will hinder the flow of water. The point of the open trench is to quickly take the water to the sump pit. You could line the trench with concrete, this would help with the erosion problem. Plastic wouldn't work as the water would go under the plastic.
If your worried about erosion around piers, then simply redirect the trench to a safer distance from the pier, usually crawlspace trenches to a sump pit are around the inside perimeter of the home.
If you addressing the origination of the problem, then the erosion in the trench will be a mute point.
As a note though, your entire crawlspace (not the trench) should be covered in a 6mil. layer of plastic , this will help enormously with moisture levels.

[creativemusicdc]

Thanks for the info!

The reason that I want to try to "refill" the trench is that it's gotten quite big due to the erosion... there's not really room to redirect the trench. It's about 16" deep and 24" wide at spots and runs 15-20' along the length of the house... so if possible, I'm looking at the option of starting the trench over again at a more reasonable size and then putting down the plastic.