Major iron bacteria problem in sump

[Buser]

Hi everyone.
This is my first posting. I to have a major problem with Iron bacteria. My house is only 12 years old. I have been dealing with this problem the last 10 years.
I think the grate drain system is my only option to.I would love to talk to Mrez about the System that he put in. If he could contact me I would really appreciate
it. Ronbusenbark@gmail.com.

[RPG]

I have a basement where the iron ocre laced water percolated through the floor, due to clogging one of the drain pipes. I've had contractor's out and they all state that it can't be snaked but I find that hard to believe. (they all want to sell me a sump system). I surmise that if I can snake the pipe and then maintain it with Oxi-Clean periodically, I might be ok.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

RPG

[BasementQuestions]

http://www.basementquestionsandanswe...ber/1552-buser
http://www.basementquestionsandanswe...ember/1554-rpg

As you can see from the posts Iron Ochre is in the outside soil and will be a constant maintenance issue. Adding more cleanouts and yes snaking can help but will also need chemicals to help the sump pump and lines removing the red slime.

[Jgarafolo]

So, many years later - gave up on the stenner pump. I would love to try something that regularly adds a small dose of iron out for me, but metered powder dosing mechanisms are too expensive. In the meantime -
I have found Zoeller pumps to be the absolute best pump available. I use the manual model N53 with an external switch. I use the Pro series USC3 switch. no problems. I just had one of the zoeller pumps seize on me. It ran 6 years at 15 second intervals. That's not bad- it equals roughly 126,144,000 cycles. when it seized it sounded an alarm and the second zoeller which had sat idle for 6 years kicked on and started pumping without a hitch. I have a replacement zoeller on the way.

As for the iron bacteria - I found a nifty way of cleaning the pipes really good. It does involve some work. I have a decent pressure washer. I bought a 100 foot sewer jet hose from cloghog.com (you can read how it works on the site). It pulled itself through the pipes and the iron bacteria didnt stand a chance. left the pipes extremely clean. Still not a cure. I have to do this once a year in addition to the iron out, but it cleans the underground pipes, and the sump discharge lines. I have cleanouts every 50 feet but i dont need all of them as i have a 100 ft hose.

the sewer jetter really helps with getting back to square one cleanliness wise. the iron out just helps maintain

[greenisland]

I too had the same problem but periodic cleaning with chemicals fixed my issue. I think it helps a lot if my problem was quite similar to yours.

[krausekl]

I am so glad I came across this forum! There is more information here about iron bacteria (or iron algae) than I have found anywhere else on the internet. We built our two story home (with basement) about 15 years ago. All was well (we have city water, so no iron bacteria there) for at least 13 years. About 2 years ago, we started noticing that our walk-out basement egress was filling with water after rain or storms, and we had minor flooding (about 1-2 inches) of water in our basement in the spring - coming up from the floor and drain areas - seeping through the cracks, and in unfinished areas of our wood style basement. Our sump pump crock is filled with dirt and rusty colored fragments, and we have a rusty discoloration at our discharge point. When this started happening, we thought it was due to poor maintenance of the tile connected to our neighbors pond ( it is a large wetland area - man made pond) next door. We live in a rural location, and own 6 acres of land, 3 of which are adjacent to the pond. After experiencing flooding in the spring and fall during 2014 and 2016, we had a contractor mention iron bacteria as a possible issue. We also put $3000 into a tile system with openings to treat the iron bacteria just two months ago. This spring despite lots of rain, we had no issues with water in our basement (which we attributed to the new tile system), until we had a flash flood in June. This time we ended up with 13 inches of water in our basement and major damage. It wasn't due to iron bacteria, but as a result of ditch backwash from the tile that ran to the ditch (as natural drainage) from our sump crock - that was not fitted with a check valve. So, as we prepare (now) to deal with the damage, we are struggling to understand how to deal with this stuff. One question I have is can iron bacteria gum up pea gravel? Or is it just that we need to clean out the sump area clogged with the iron algae and all will be well? Since we have a wood style basement, we have pea gravel instead of footings, and we wondered if that (iron bacteria in the pea gravel) was what was causing the water build-up under the house after sring flooding or heavy rainfall. We have not even begun to clean out the sump area yet - however it is clogged right now. We have never had our sump pump die out on us, but we did replace it once. Since we're not sure if the iron bacteria is a problem, I bought an iron bacteria test kit just to make sure we have it. The tile system seems to be working, but we will need to treat the tile regularly based on what all of you have said. I'm not sure I want to pour chlorine down the openings and since everyone seems to swear by the oxy clean I could try that, but how does it affect the environment? Is it safe? What about the iron out as well? Lots of questions, not too many answers to share yet as we are just taking our first baby steps with this problem. Would love any advice!