I learned that regular maintenance to the sump pump is required the hard way, when I heard the noise of mine running during a time that it should be off. At that time I did some google searches and realized that this sump pump is not something that you can simply forget about.
This summarizes how different users explained their cleaning procedure:
- Periodically pour half a cup of hydrogen peroxide from each location, wait an hour and pour a gallon of water,
- Pour bleach/drano into the sink or shower drains,
There are several community members that strongly recommend against this practice because bleach hardens the rubber used in pipes and pump check valve
- Some users remove the plastic cover from the sump pump and wash the pump with powder cleaner (Ajax or Commet)
Personally I do not like the idea of using abrasives in the interior of the pump...
- Dishwasher soap (Dawn)
The users that mentioned it wash the pump with boat out of water, dishsoap seems bad for waterways
- StarBrite seasafe bilge cleaner
- Mixture of white vinegar and baking soda
I ended up adopting a routine that I execute every two months as follows: (1) visually inspect the pump without opening the transparent plastic cover looking for foreign debris, (2) pouring about a cup of hydrogen peroxide on the shower and a cup on the sink and flushing them without a gallon of water one hour after by opening the shower and the faucet. This is it!
If any of you recommend a different technique, please post here as a reply to improve our best practices database.