Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

So I'll be honest here. Like all pumps in this price range the EPS15 is not "professional grade" like the ad says. (Note the ESP25 is a lot stronger pump). The EPS15 is mostly plastic and average for the price. Selecting which pump to get comes down to which particular design and features do you prefer since most in this price range have similar flow rates and many even look like. You also need to consider a bigger pump if you need to raise the water more than about 9 feet high. Bigger isn't always better either, what we really need is more pressure so the pump can lift higher. Nearly all of these pumps have less flow as it has to lift the water higher and at some height, such as 10ft, 15ft or 20ft for some then it simply can't do it and it just sloshes around doing nothing. Ideally, I'd buy a pump the same size with HALF the flow of this and TWICE the pressure. That would work for nearly all installs but people look at the gallons per minute (at zero ft of lift) and what sells is the highest GPM. We really need to consider what will the flow really be after installed and it has to lift the water pretty far, and also ... will it run at all on 12V or does it really need almost 13V to run. On this one most of the construction is plastic including the impeller itself so don't try pumping anything except clean water as a pebble would not be good for it. The circuit board layout and construction is adequate but not very robust. For example it runs pretty hot when charging the battery even when charging really slow which can take days. Also, the pump itself is not strong enough in some cases as I'll explain below. I observed that the internal pump start relay mounted on the circuit board is pretty small and rated at 10 amps max. That's not the right part since the pump draws over 20 amps at startup and settles down to 8.7 amps while running. I wouldn't expect a 10 amp relay to last a long time when operated near max load like that. Considering they can get a 20 amp relay for about $2 more I wish they'd used a sturdy relay. Like most in this price range, there are no real strain reliefs to protect the wires and the AC transformer is the heavy style "brick" type with no voltage regulation and not much power (700mA trickle charge). That's why it says to allow up to 4 days to charge the battery. I prefer a newer switching type power supply rather than just a transformer. Those usually say 120 - 230V input is ok (since it's regulated) and they are light and efficient. The plastic bottom of the pump has many sharp edges, and the 1" barbed pump outlet is not as useful or easy to service as a standard 1" or 1.5" threaded connection. 1" seems a bit small for a sump pump so that may limit the flow some. Those items are typical at this price point and there was only one deal breaker as noted below I have 8 foot finished ceilings in my basement so it's more like 9.5ft if you look above the drywall ceilings. This sump is simply not strong enough to pump water out of the sump pit. At all. It's rated for it but it slowly pumps the first couple inches of water when the pit is over full and slows down to a stop as the water level goes down (as the total lift height goes up). It was losing ground after a while as water was slowly coming in from the drain tile at about 1 gallon/min. So I used my full size AC sump pump to pump it out, which takes about 15 seconds to empty the full sump pit. The ESP15 has a 25 second timer that shuts off the pump so even if it could lift water high enough (such as with a 7ft ceiling?) it times out before it's done in my setup. Once started, the timer stays on whether there is water present or not so the pump may run dry in some cases. Apparently this is ok by design since the timer is not adjustable. The total lift height in my installation is 10' 6" from the pump inlet up to the highest point where it exists the building but it just can't lift that high even with a fully charged, new deep cycle battery running at 12.8V DC. As an experiment I tried feeding the motor directly with a slightly higher input of 13.4 Volts DC using a precision regulated DC power supply with plenty of current capacity. The EPS15 ran a little faster but it still couldn't do it. Like most pumps it has a lot of flow when not lifting the water up very far - but a 720 gph rating at 10 foot of lift looks quite unrealistic from actual observations. If you have a lower ceilings with a lower total lift height under 8ft this unit may work fine for you, but I'll have to go with a stronger and more expensive pump to work with a higher ceiling. ************************ UPDATE: 5-4-2011 I bought the larger Wayne ESP25 instead and that's a lot better pump. It has at least 4x the flow at 10 foot of lift while taking the same power as the smaller pump. That one is quiet and uses a larger 30 amp relay vs the undersized 10 amp one used in the ESP15. The control box still runs a bit hot when initially charging the battery but at least now it's a full 2 amp charger that gets done a lot faster than the (700mA) one in the ESP15. It's a smart charger and it settles down to a single DC pulse every 10 seconds or so after the battery is charged. That's just to maintain the battery level, so it runs cool most of the time. ****2016 update**** The EPS25 did manage to overcharge and completely ruin 2 expensive batteries before I caught what it was doing. It tries to charge to 15.5V even on a full battery which eventually boils out all the water/battery acid from the battery. I had to run mine through an isotap variable AC transformer to lower the incoming power from a regular 120V outlet down to 100V to keep it from wrecking the battery. With 100V input on the mains it charges up to around 14V DC and is ok, but I realize most folks don't have access to the equipment to resolve the overcharge issue. I can no longer recommend either Wayne backup sump due to various design problems. Moving on to the original review: The ESP25 is a taller pump with a lot more capacity while the actual DC current draw is about the same as the smaller pump. It's a lot more efficient design and will be able to move alot more water per charge than the smaller EPS15. It draws about 10 amps current draw while lifting water about 10 feet high through 30 feet of pipe. I'll get a lot more water pumped per charge using the EPS25 since it pumps 4x faster and shuts off while the smaller ESP15 just ran until it timed out while doing very little. The ESP25 draws about 40mA to run the electronics when in standby mode. At that rate the battery would last for weeks so the only thing that will draw the battery down is the pump itself. Run-time Calculations: (I'm trying to be clear and brief but it's not that simple). In my setup it takes 15 seconds to empty the pit with the stronger ESP25 pump. So that's 15 seconds ON time x 4 times per hour at my location which is 1 minute total ON time per hour. Using the medium size 40 amp battery I have 4 hours total ON time to work with (40 amp-hr battery/10 amp load = 4 hours). With 1 minute ON time per hour - the 4 hour run time should last for days since it's off 98% of the time, but it turns out the large pump needs a full battery to actually do much. If your battery gets down to 12.5V it can barely pump uphill so this is not an ideal backup solution. Update 11-2014 *********** The original Wayne 40 amp-hr 12V battery failed after 3 years. The box says it's a high quality 10 year rated battery (with a 1 yr warranty) but even though it only came on once in 3 years the battery failed totally. The Wayne battery no longer has enough power to run the pump. I mentioned the battery within the sump pump review because both the EPS15 and EPS25 pump need full battery voltage of 12.5V DC or higher to be able to pump much. When the battery is 75% charged and still above 12V even the larger EPS25 can not pump strong enough to empty the sump even 1 time. They need at least 12.5 - 13V for it to pump much. I will eventually have to get a different backup system because the EPS25 overcharges the battery and wrecks it after about a year, and it's sized for max flow without enough pressure. That gives them high gallon/hour numbers at zero ft of lift but in real life having 2x the pressure where it still flows reliably would be better. I may add a small, slow but high pressure DC pump that only draws 2 -3 amps. That might be slow but it would empty the sump even on a low battery while the EPS15 and EPS25 need the battery at nearly 100% charge to do much.