When the storm clouds roll in and the rains start to fall you want to keep your home protected. Your sump pump is crucial to removing excess water from low lying areas like your basement. If you are in the process of installing one or looking to add backup power, then you’ll need to know the power consumption.
Below we will discuss and test sump pump wattage, explain how to work it out for yourself, and calculate the total electricity required.
How Many Watts is a Sump Pump?
The average sump pump uses between 500 to 1500 watts.
The exact number depends on the size and model of your sump pump. For example, a smaller ½ horsepower uses a little under 500W, while a larger 1.5 horsepower pump draws well over 1000W.
The power consumption of a sump pump is directly related to the size of the motor. Usually, this information is listed in horsepower (HP). The more horsepower, the higher the wattage. 1HP is the equivalent to 750W.
How to Find Out Your Sump Pump Wattage
There’s 3 ways you can work out the wattage of a sump pump.
- Check Product Specification
The quickest way is to look at the sump pump’s specification. The watts (W) is usually written on a sticker on the base of the pump. If not, you can check the user manual or the manufacturer’s website for technical details.
- Use a Wattmeter
A wattmeter is brilliant for getting a live wattage reading and tracking total energy usage of any appliance. You can simply plug it into your sump pump to get instant information.
I used one to test a sump pump which gave a live reading of 558.4W.
- Wattage Formula or Calculator
If you know the amperage and voltage of your sump pump you can use this to find the maximum watt rating. Simply use the formula Amps x Volts = Watts. Or you can head over to the ‘Watt Calculator’ to work this out.
Sump Pump Wattage Examples
Let’s take a look at specific examples of how many watts a sump pump draws. Below is a collection of modern sump pumps with their listed power ratings.
| Sump Pump Model | Power Rating (Watts) |
| DEKOPRO Sump Pump 1HP | 750 |
| ReaseJoy Submersible Dirty Clean Water Pump | 1000 |
| SIP 1000W Submersible Dirty Water Pump | 1000 |
| Strongarm Submersible Pump | 800 |
| Draper 195L/Min Submersible Water Pump | 600 |
| Einhell Submersible Dirty Water Pump | 370 |
| Clarke DWP200A Sump Pump | 1500 |
| MEDAS Electric 3 in 1 Submersible Pump | 500 |
As you can see, the power ratings vary between different sump pumps. So you should take the time to check your own appliance.
How Much Electricity Does a Sump Pump Use?
You can use sump pump wattage to work out how much electricity it uses. Plus this can be useful in understanding how much it costs to run your sump pump.
A watt (W) is a measurement of power at a single point in time. A watt-hour (Wh) is the total amount of electricity used in an hour. For example, a sump pump drawing 750W would use 750Wh when running for an hour.
Electricity bills are recorded in kilowatt-hours (kWh). A kilowatt is simply 1000 watts. So a 750W sump pump running for 1 hour uses 0.75kWh.
Let’s say your sump pump runs for 30 minutes a week. This means a mid sized sump pump uses about 375Wh or 0.375kWh electricity a day. That’s 1.612kWh a month and 19.35kWh a year.
That’s an electricity cost of $0.24 a month or $2.90 a year to run your sump pump 30 minutes a week.
Of course, your exact numbers will differ from this depending on how often you run your pump.
Using a Sump Pump Off-Grid
One important addition to a sump pump is a power backup so it can still run in an outage. The power is most likely to cut out during a storm when the rain is falling hard. This is when you need your equipment to be running!
To install a backup you will require a power inverter and a battery.
To make sure everything runs smoothly you should check two things on this equipment – wattage capacity and total energy capacity.
Your inverter should have a wattage capacity of at least 20% more than your sump pump. This ensures it will be able to deliver enough power as they are never 100% efficient. To pump low lying water, it is best to have 1500W power capacity.
Secondly, you need to ensure your energy source, like a battery, has enough energy to run the sump pump for the required amount of time. As we already know, it could use about 750Wh electricity for each hour. This is the equivalent to 62.5Ah on a 12V battery.
How Many Watts Does a Sump Pump Use Summary
I hope you now understand how many watts a sump pump uses.
These water pumps can vary a lot in their power draw and electricity usage. It all comes down to the size of the motor in your equipment. When looking at products and specifications this is often listed in horsepower, so you might need to convert this number. Remember 1HP is 750W. If you’re looking to install a backup electricity supply then make sure your inverter and battery can handle the demands when you need it the most.
