Vayu Restoration

Shower Sump Lid
By Capt. Wayne Canning, AMS
Shower sumps without a lid tend to smell from the stagnant water in them. A lid will help reduce these odors. The only problem with the lids the manufactures fit to their sumps is that they are screwed on. This is not really the best idea because a shower sump makes a good back up bilge pump. Most shower sumps do not have very high capacity pumps but let's face it if your main pump fails with a slow leak or you are in real trouble and sinking every extra pump helps.
Most shower sump pumps are on an automatic switch already so why not take advantage of this extra pump as a backup. The problem is how to keep the lid to reduce the odor and still be able to have the pump work in an emergency? My solution was to make a lid from foam sign board that just rests on top of the sump. This foam sign board is a plastic with a foam core that will float. I simply cut the board a bit over size and added some pieces on the edge to keep it in place. If the water gets deep enough to go over the top of the sump, the plastic top will float off, allowing water into the sump and the pump to do its thing. This also makes it easy to work on the sump as all you have to do is lift the top off, no screws to mess with. Ok maybe not a big deal but it helps.