Lisab, as I understand them, water pressure back-ups don't just utilize pressure, they use lots city water to pull the sump water out by Venturi effect. This effectively mixes the clean and dirty water and leaves to copious amounts of water pouring out, which eventually goes to a storm sewer (of course, it is even worse they dump it right into a sanitary sewer). If it is a very active sump like Rusty's it would take a remarkable amount of city water to pump the sump water up 8 feet, if it could even do it. Doesn't that all that extra water contribute to straining the storm sewers, probably at the worst possible time (when it is already very wet/raining)? If many people use these and storm sewers are overwhelmed, won't flooding be that much worse? And, if enough people use them, won't the water supply be burdened? While the individual paying the water bill should care, I think the municipality should care, too. Rusty, is there any place downhill from your basement where you could drain your sump by gravity to daylight? It seems unlikely with the waterflow you describe, but, it would be the best solution by far if it were possible.

I'll answer part of your question by saying that RW DVDs become less reliable over time as you write over them. Since I presume these are important files that you want to save, rather than change all the time, go with regular, name brand, good quality, single use DVDs...they're cheap. One DVD typically holds about 4.7 GB, and I presume that you will be prompted if you need more discs, but I don't know exactly how this works as I backup on an external hard drive. You might wish to consider that option as you can get a good, large hard drive for under $80 and it will do all of this automatically for you.

Here's an off the wall solution. A friend of mine lived in an area where there were almost no power outages, even in bad storms. They've experienced maybe 4 outages in 25 years. However, if there was an outage, it might last only 30 minutes at most. In that 30 minutes, their sump would fill up and water would start flowing into the basement. The expense of a full fledged back up system wasn't that justifiable. He kept a oil drum crank handy just in case but wanted something less labor intensive. He was more concerned about the few times a hurricane might come through and, just something as an alternate course of action. We picked up a Xantex 2000 watt inverter with a 4000 watt surge capability, a marine battery and a small solar panel to keep the battery float charged. During one heavy torrential down pour, we put it to the test. We unplugged it from the power and plugged it into the inverter. It worked great for over an hour (when the rain stopped.) Just knowing he had an alternative was good enough for him. With a little more work with a relay, we could have made the system automatically switch over. The good part is, when the battery starts to run down due to long use, you just hook up jumper cables to a car or tractor and you're back in business. We also tested it on his pellet stove and it worked great. Of course this is an "un-packaged" UPS. The cost was around 175 bucks total. He has an area where he uses a hedge trimmer and needs 150 foot extension cord to get to it. He took the setup out to the location and used his hedge trimmer with it and needless to say, it worked great. I personally think running the extension cord would have been easier but I mention all the other uses as another example of the setups' capabilities where it can be applied to other emergency or short term uses as well.

chessie Is this a split system you are replacing or a package system? either way, I would go with HP with backup electric strip heat. why? you would rarely use nat gas backup based on your area/climate. obviously AC is more important than heating. and you do have reasonable electric rates. you also want a new system that qualifies for the HP HVAC tax credit of up to $1500. see below link for details on the tax credit. I can make a few recommendations if you like. IMO Here is a link that might be useful: Fed Govt Tax Credits for HVAC