How to Pump Poop in a Basement Bathroom

Figuring out how to pump poop in a basement bathroom is a hurdle that needs to be cleared with ease. In this blog, I’m going to get under the hood of how and why we used a Full Bathroom Grinder Pump to fluidize and eject whatever goes down the drain in our basement remodeling project. This could be handy information if you haven’t done this kind of thing before or just want to know why 900-square-feet of basement and a tiny basement bathroom is a 6-figure project. 

What’s in this ‘pump poop’ article?

A little background on basement toilets.

One of the hallmarks of basement remodeling in mid-century (generally anywhere between 1940s and 1960s) is that we’re usually building in underground spaces that were never intended to be lived in. There are generations of wires, nails, things to hang laundry, gas pipe going up to the kitchen, copper up to the bathrooms, doorbell and TelCo wires, oddball plumbing to be worked around. These areas were wet, musty, and meant to be pass-through zones. Even if they had a bathroom, it probably had a floor drain for washing the dog. Heck, I’ve seen basement bathrooms without walls. Just a toilet and sink in the corner of the room. (It’s what was called a Pittsburgh Potty.)

So this means that then we have to rely on systems and equipment in a different way in the basement. Gravity, for example. The stuff that takes your pee pee away in the rest of the house doesn’t work here. S_it literally has to roll uphill.

While other stuff has fudge factor (double entendre not intentional) and we can hide imperfections with caulk (column wraps, for example; trim designed to hide steel posts, flanges, beams and bolts that defy being wrapped), unique systems in unique applications simply have to work. Sump pumps–with back-ups–are one. Properly detailed insulation system that cannot allow moisture to become mold. And the sewage ejection pump. 

Pump poop? Yeah, it has to work well.

We used the SaniFlo SaniCubic 1 in our own basement bathroom remodeling project about 10 years ago to pump poop. Since I use that bathroom daily and I’ve never cleaned the pump until recently–something I found out you could do using SaniFlo’s descaler cleanser. Despite that, this thing has run like a hyper-local nuclear reactor. It’s quiet and it’s dependable. I don’t worry about it–and I worry about everything. 

We used SaniFlo’s SaniGrind Pro to pump poop in a recent basement bathroom project. The reason is simple. 

And, compared to what I know are less expensive, lower quality pumps that I’ve experienced in various customers’ homes, the SaniGrind Pro is at least 3-steps above. I can hear it run, sure, but it’s not knocking the paint off the walls or waking the neighbors. In fact, I like hearing it because it means that it’s working.

Pump poop…it might be the worst job In plumbing.

We were the contractors on a TV makeover show 10 years ago and our plumbers installed an in-floor unit and he said something that stayed with me to this day: DO NOT flush anything besides what comes off the TP holder, you, or the faucet down here. “Cleaning out tampons, condoms, etc., gum these things up and it is the worst job in plumbing. 

The SaniGrind Pro–and I almost don’t want to say this, but SaniFlo says it: Can handle sanitary products. However, if you were my customer, I’d jump up on my sawhorses to tell you that I wouldn’t risk it. Also, a “Flushable Wipe” is NOT a sanitary product. (I’d also tell you that I think they should be illegal, just like back pockets on pants with flaps and Velcro, but that’s for another day.)

SaniFlo is on the higher end of the pump spectrum. They–unlike less expensive brands–go out of their way to make sure they get and meet every certification there is to get. They also make sure, should it ever come up, that the unit is easy to work on. (And yes, we collaborate with the brand to create content, but we would choose their products even if we didn’t know them.)

SaniFlo knows that the inputs that go into a bathroom are what their customers engage with–dependable hot water, a click-lock vanity faucet, a blade-thin rain shower head, or, bluntly: the morning constitutional. All those experiences make us happy and we’re all inured to the fact that when what’s done making us happy and clean just disappears into the vast labyrinth of the waste infrastructure. 

How to prepare to pump poop in a basement bathroom.

We go into more detail on more conventional bathroom design requirements–from room size to Code required clearances to recommended clearances in our basement bathroom planning article. So in this article, I want to get into how to get the pump optimally placed. Each project requires a different level of consideration based on everything from ceiling height to available space to bathroom layout. 

Floor Level or Sub-Slab?

A bathroom pump can be placed on the floor behind the toilet and a special rear-ejection toilet can be purchased–SaniFlo makes a number of models for this, like the SaniAccess3–that is more for a half bath. 

For a full bath, the problem is that either the shower or toilet drain needs to pitch to the pump. If the pump is resting on the same floor those are on, we don’t get pitch. 

I have seen basement bathrooms where, to get pitch, the contractor went to Draconian levels of complexity raising either the shower a solid foot (fun when ceilings are already low). Or, and this was in a nice bathroom, raised the entire room. 

For my money, it is 1-million times easier to lower the pit beneath the slab. It sounds hard, but it’s not that hard. 

Tools and Materials

You’re going to need a jackhammer, aka breaker hammer. The concrete you’ll need to pulverize is like the Hoover Dam so nothing short of a 70-pounder will do. I think this slab was 5 inches thick–excluding the plop footings under the Lally columns that we framed the bathroom around. And 2 drywall buckets. The best way to get dirt out of a basement is carrying it out, two drywall buckets at a time. 

You’ll also need a digging bar, mattock, shovel and a strong will.  

Framing First

I suppose you could layout the trench lines you’ll need to break up before framing, but when it comes to carpentry this rough, I like to have as many knowns in place as possible. I could easily be swayed to do it differently, but I framed the walls first. 

And, because this is a basement, the bathroom backed up to storage space so we put shower pipe and pump pit in this space, not inside the bathroom itself. 

Break and Dig

Buckle up. You need to break enough concrete around the shower and toilet drain locations so the plumber can get his hands in there. Think 12 to 16 inches around and 16 inches deep so there’s enough room for a P-trap. Same with the toilet.

Let me stop here and say that this sounds like a crap-ton of work. It is, especially if you don’t flex these muscles all the time. However, this is where the benefits of a sublime bathroom begin their payoff. And it’s not that much work. For me, including hauling dirt out, 4-hours. 

Pump Pit

This assembly is a bit of a Rubik’s Cube. But, having lived with it for a decade in my own house, I think it is well worth the extra expense: ½-dozen bags of concrete and day or so in labor. 

The SaniGrind Pro is a 1-hp unit that can eject black and gray water from 25 feet below the sewer line and up to 150 feet horizontally. In my basement remodels, that’s 10x what I need. But it is exactly what I want. I DO NOT want a call back on anything. But on a pump failure, extra Hell, No. Fixing inferior units is ghastly. No thanks. No call backs for me. 

Pit Layout

In very rough terms, what works for me is that I dig a pit deep enough–here about 24-inches–that I can place a few inches of concrete and still keep the pump well below the toilet and shower outlets. 

Width here is easily 36-inches–roughly speaking, use a ratio of pump size to pit size of roughly 3:1. We need room for pipes, elbows, transitions and for hands to make all those things happen. We also need room to place vertical concrete so no ground water can enter. 

Base First

Once you’ve dug everything out, place the base on a 2-inch concrete slab. If in doubt, dig out another inch or two. 

Make sure the pump inlets are below the drain outlets. 

Place and plumb the pump, then form up the sides.

Forming Sides

Concrete is liquid, as we all know. So it needs forms to hold it back. In this pit, I used Luan plywood and various stops keep it stable. I want at least 2-inches for the sides. 

Cover

After I strip the plywood forms, I then build a cover using some shiplap or 1-by boards. At pipe penetrations I use 2-pieces–each with a ½ or so circle jigsawed to conform to pipe locations–to transition around the pipes. 

Check the video to see more detail. 

Consider the heart of the bathroom.

In the overall scheme of things on this big basement remodeling project, it’d be easy to overlook the Full Bathroom Grinder Pump selection we made for our customer. It’d also be easy to pocket some extra mark-up I could pocket by selecting a cheaper, uncertified, lower quality pump…I mean, it should last long enough that if it breaks it’s my favorite kind of problem: Not Mine. 

But that’s not what we want for our customers. Or for our own sense of fair play.

Other Features

So even though the other important features of this basement–the no-tile shower, stunning bath fixtures, and a no-drywall main room–jump out at the homeowners and their friends and family when the walk down the stairs, we’ll also be thinking that their bathroom experience will be attenuated every so many gallons of water by a subtle simple grind that makes civilized life in the basement possible. 

Other stuff, like column wraps around steel that was never in a million years intended to be wrapped, there is a fudge factor. For walls that aren’t framed dead parallel and square—like if you laid out the walls in dim light with barely a dependable control point to hook your tape measure.

Since basements were pass-throughs., they can be musty and wet as they weren’t designed to be in for long periods of time. Maybe a workbench and laundry. Storage for the ‘ole asbestos Christmas tree and other things that didn’t react to wet air and leaky walls, maybe. 

And even if there was a bathroom–I’ve literally seen them without walls–it was tiny and a pass-through for Dad coming home from the factory (or, for a spell, Rosey The Riveter) or for cleaning the dog and letting the water go down a floor drain. 

We’ve come a long way in basement living spaces and basement bathrooms.

But we’ve come a long way and more is possible for basement living. And by “living”, I mean comfortable, dependable basement living. The water coming in cease to exist, we just figured out how to manage it. 

Perimeter drains. Sump pumps (with back-ups in case the power goes out). Understanding moisture, vapor and insulation so we don’t trap airborne moisture in the wall system and so we can heat the place with minimal effort. 

I love basement remodels. I enjoy how far we’ve come space that either wasn’t meant to be lived in (think all housing up until the 1970s or so) or was intended as cool storage where liquid water came and went. 

And I also have a healthy love of plumbing. The work is so brutal it may be the most ironic contrast to the existence of modern civilization that there is. Plumbers (and the adjacent public works downstream) make a life without feces in it possible. 

It’s no wonder basement remodeling is a little tricky. 

Add to that a basement bathroom. Lots of new construction homes at the very least “stub out” a bathroom location. 

Got any pump poop questions?

We’re happy to try to help. Just send us a note.