My sump pump never quite drainged right. I decided that the right thing to do was re-dig the hole, and put a new valve on it... I did this last weekend, but I figure that you might enjoy my tale of woe...

So, I get into the crawlspace.. which is a pain in the ass because I don't have good stairs to get down there.. after a couple hours I get the hole deep enough (20"), so I start trying to get some of the dirt out of the crawlspace... which involves taking 5 gallon buckets full of dirt out... and given that I don't have someone outside the hole helping, I have to rebuild the stairs to get out of the hole (had to rip them up to allow for digging)...

I started trying to place the bucket in the hole... which was OK, except that I ran out of drain rock (I just used some material that was in the crawl space).. so, instead of doing the right thing, I just pushed on... since I was worried about getting dirt in the drain bucket, I put one of my dirt removable buckets into the drain bucket... I finished filling the hole in, and then tried to remove the dirt bucket... stuck.

I spent about 15 minutes trying to rip the buckets appart, and then the whole thing (drain bucket included) poped out of the hole, and the hole filled in... f@#k!

So, I climb out of the crawlspace and try to separate the buckets... nothing... I ended up sawing, drilling, chisling, and smashing with a hammer to separate them... finally god them apart.

Climbed back into the crawlspace and dug out all the fill material... I placed the bucket in the bottom and filled in the sides... crap - forgot the tape measure... climbed back out of the crawlspace... got my tape measure, saw, pipe, etc... got back in, measured, hooked everything up... forgot the hose (I was going to test the pump)... go get the hose, bring it down in, turn it on... all is good.

So, I think I'm set... the new valve *seems* to have fixed the flow problem, and the new depth should make the water level be a lot more managable...