Best Battery backup sump pump

[slammer]

Looking to buy one of these units. Wondering whats out there and which one is best?

[rundrave]

I personally don't like the battery backups, I have good luck using a water jet pump that uses water to move water and requires no electricity.

Works great unless you really need to pump a lot of water fast and then it does more hard than good. They have their cons I'm just not comfortable enough to trust a battery backup for any extended amount of time.

[Surface Tension]

A water jet backup would work if your on a municipal water source.

Which is best.

Battery with higher storage capacity (amp hour)

Pumps with a higher GPH.

Backup with alarm. Why the alarm? We think of the backup for use in power outages. Along with that it could be the primary pump failed or isn't keeping up. Without the alarm you might not realize the problem till later.

Which is best for you?

[CAMAN]

I have a watchdog battery backup that has worked well with a couple of power outages we had. With that said after the rains last Thursday that had a 40 foot wide by 6 inch deep river running through my backyard up to the foundation that had water pouring into my sump and then a power outage, my backup couldn't keep up. Luckily I was able to get a generator and get my main running just on time. But if I hadn't have been home and noticed my backup not keeping up I would have had a really wet basement.

[Tom7227]

IMO the battery backup is useful if there is a pump failure but has drawbacks in times of power outage. If the power goes out for only a short time and then only if the water coming in isn't all that heavy. I have two pumps and one runs about every 3-5 minutes at about 20 gallons a time when things are really wet. I don't know how long a battery backup will last with that usage. Plus you have to make sure that the battery is good and at full charge and do that with some regularity.

I have a generator that will power both pumps and ran it for 14 hours when the power was out last week. There is no way that a battery system could handle all that.