Basements, Attics and Crawl Spaces - Is it unusual for my sump pump barrel to have no pipes in it?

I have a four year old house in NY State. It has a floating foundation with cinder block walls and a sump pump put in by the builder. I had it home inspected prior to buying it new.

Strange to me, especially after reading about how foundations/sumps are done and looking at a neighbor's sump pump barrel, is that mine is completely sealed on the sides. Water apparently enters it only from the bottom. I see the openings in the barrel where the black perforated pipe would go but they are all sealed up.

Why would it be like this? Did the builder not put in the perforated black pipe before laying down the concrete foundation? Is that to code? Why didn't my inspector mention it?

This is not mine but it looks like this minus the pipe to the right on the pic:

http://www.checkthishouse.com/wp-content/uploads/sump-backup-pump-should-be-always-installed-above-the-regular-sump-pump.jpg

Can't say how your system was installed, but if it works, consider yourself blessed. Yes, the water has to get in there somehow, but the pipes don't necessarily have to be in the sides. That is the usual configuration.

Can't say how your system was installed, but if it works, consider yourself blessed. Yes, the water has to get in there somehow, but the pipes don't necessarily have to be in the sides. That is the usual configuration.Thanks for the post. In an unusual set of events I actually found myself in the county office today and the building inspector was there. Small town, so he had actually inspected the house. He couldn't remember exactly the specifics of my setup vs a neighbors but he felt like the fact I had a walkout basement was important; code is a little more giving on what is necessary regarding foundation drainage. My neighbor's house did not have a walkout. I really ought to check on some neighbor's basements that are walkout and see how theirs is...

That means that not all your walls are below grade, so the drain system may be deeper. Footers must be below frost line, and that is X inches(30" in our area) below the ground level. Drain systems usually run around the footers.

Similar to what Bill said, if that sump crock is catching the water from the footer drains on the walk-out basement wall, then it would be impossible to bring pipes into that crock through the usual holes. If you think of the footers along the walk-out wall being 3' deep, then the footer drains too would need to be 3' deep. My guess is the crock has a bunch of holes drilled in the bottom of it or some kind of filter fabric between it and the stone around the actual footer drains which allows the water to fill the crock from the bottom.

While it's probably not the best method, it makes practical sense to install it this way. The only downside I see is that if that crock has to fill with 10" of water before the pump turns on, then the footer drains would logically have 10" of water in them and the gravel surrounding them before the pump turned on. While that would provide for long run periods for the sump pump (a good thing) it would also mean that those footers are permanently submerged in water.

From a structural standpoint I would say that isn't optimal but as long as they are deep enough not to freeze it shouldn't cause any issues I can think of since the house was built on "floating footers" anyway.

Thanks, guys, this answers it :)

I agree, Shane, it certainly indicates that they would be 100% water-submerged all the time. Since my pit (as seemingly all of them) has a few inches of water on the bottom of it all the time, if we go horizontally outwards, certainly the footers and all that are constantly wet.