General Specialties Flood-Guard for 2" Flood Drains

This is an essential item for my home. I highly recommend it. . I have had a 2" version for the last ten years in an outdoor basement stairwell. During that time, my only complain was that it was slow to drain in the forward direction (more on the later). The rubber finally hardened up and it stopped doing its job. I took it out and hoped my problem would magically be gone, but no. Time to buy another. This time, I modified it to increase the forward flow. I opened the three holes on top with a die grinder. But the most improvement came from removing about 3/16" from the long rubber. This allows the valve to open more. It still functions perfectly to prevent back flow, but allows much more volume in the normal flow direction. Again, highly satisfied with this item!

This thing is well made, not an ounce of plastic and it’s manufactured in Pennsylvania, USA. No reason to consider any other brands, this thing works! Have used the 2” model on PVC drain pipe and it’s stopped flooding every time.

It rained for 10 days straight and the ground was saturated. I have a drain in the basement adjacent to the air conditioner and water softener- both discharge into it. I also had a sump pump installed in the basement 6 years ago to take care of constant wetness. I thought I had everything taken care of the problematic basement until the rain came.... The drain had backed up due to the excessive rain and left a four foot radius of water around the drain. The drain pipe was not clogged up. The ground table was saturated and the water had no place to go but up the drain into the basement. So, I got online to see how to find out what caused this, and how to resolve the problem. I decided to use this product, which is very easy to install. I hope it never rains for days at a time like it did before, but if it does, at least I have taken the precaution to use this product . I will still clean out the drain pipe once a year and clean the flood guard every so often. So far, no water problems.

Basement drain without much slope, floor flooding regularly. Installed the flood guard and "voila," no more backing up onto my floor. I have no idea how effective it would be for big backups, but it has eliminated the 16-20 ounces I was seeing on a fairly regularly basis entirely. I did take the advice of another reviewer and purchased hex head screws to replace the ones included, which made it much easier to install because I didn't have to press down. Basically, the screws collapse the area between the two metal parts and expand the rubber to fill the drain. Until you do that, it just slips up and down in the 2" drain. Once installed, the mechanism is simple. An upside down cup slides up and down based on whether water is coming up the drain, closing off the drain to prevent backflow. It's been about a month, but no problems so far and I it works exactly as advertised. Also, it was also so cheap that if it ever stops functioning, I'll probably buy another. Update, 16 October 2016: stopped working and I took it out to figure out why. The valve, which is really just a piece of stainless steel running through a stainless steel hole, was frozen. I lubed it up with silicone grease, but it didn't loosen up enough for me to feel comfortable. We shall see...

This is a great option for what we needed. We installed the guard in a basement shower that had no back flush prevention from city sewer when the rains were heavy. This item solved the problem. Keeps the bad stuff out and works well to drain

Easy to install and quality hardware. This was a replacement for what was previously installed. It's very forgiving. Previous house owner incorrectly installed it and also the inside of the drain pipe has bumps/deformaties and yet it still worked for at least a few years. I put it in my basement drain that's next to the furnace and water heater. Pointers - use a large zip tie in the holes so its easier to positon the drain guard and tighten the screws. Slotted screws are used for a reason and not allen screws. The screw head slots give you a reference when tightening to expand the gasket. Tighten the screws a little each at a time to keep the pressure even and drain guard centered (1/2 turn each screw, then 1/4 turn each screw until they are all tight). Also my drain guard didn't work everytime the first time I installed it because the floater part was a tiny bit long and sometimes rubbing the inside of the pipe where my drain pipe curves. The drain would flood when a bubble bath drained. I cut 20% off the bottom of the floater, reinstalled and it works perfectly. The basement bath also has a drain guard and it works fine, but since I don't know how old it is I'll replace it. I'll probably replace them every three years even if they are working since its easy to do and cheap. Although I think they would last longer. I'll also spray some silicone lube on the floater metal rod once in a while which is easy to do since it's right on top of the drain guard.

Bought this backflow preventer 5 years ago. We have a floor drain for our kitchen ice maker which connects to a common drain line for two kitchen sinks and the dishwasher. When the common drain line clogs, water backs up out of the ice maker floor drain. I installed this backflow preventer to stop that from happening. Today we had a repeat flood event with water coming up throgh the backflow preventer. How did it fail and why do I say its guaranteed to fail? The design relies on a stainless steel pin that slides through an aluminum frame. Think of it as a bearing surface. If anything stops the pin from sliding the valve cant shut and the backflow preventer cant to its job.. When stainless and aluminum are immersed in water it results in galvanic corrosion turning the aluminum into aluminum oxide which is physically larger than aluminum. So the aluminum corrodes and swells and the pin can't slide throught the aluminum anymore. The valve is stuck open. Had they used the same alloy stainless steel for the frame all would be good. Note I own a number of boats used on salt water so I am no stranger to the problem of galvanic corrosion between dissimalar metals. Bottom line? Either replace this valve regularly or look for a more reliable solution. I am currently looking for a more reliable solution, if you have one please respond.

Please don't buy any other friction plug other than this. I installed one in the late nineties after many sewer backups and it's worked well. If I had removed it and cleaned and oiled it periodically (as recommended) it would still be working. Even at that, I removed it after a sewer backup a few weeks ago because a lot of lint and dog hair had clogged it and I broke the screws (they're stainless) because I hadn't removed it in 20 years. In spite of that I was still able to drill and tap new screw holes until my new plug arrived. I didn't have stainless screws so I was concerned with a steel screw rusting and breaking. My only problem with both was that I put them into a 2 inch pipe floor flange (2.375 in OD) and the threads were so worn and rusty I had to wrap a piece of rubber strip around it to give it a good grip. I couldn't find this type initially and purchased a stainless one from one of the local big box home centers. Whyle looking around I also found a bronze one from one of the local hardware supply houses. You'll see these on Amazon also. They have four screws instead of three. Looked good in the picture but both had similar construction. Instead of the screws being inside the fitting not touching the rubber the screws actually went through the rubber. The diameter of the rubber was a little under 2 inches, same as this one but, once I started screwing it down it kept getting harder and harder to turn the screwdriver because the rubber was pulling against the screws. This also resulted in the rubber not expanding by the screws as much as the rubber where the screws weren't. The result was like a rounded square. I tested it and the water gushed out the fitting. It would probably have worked if the opening was 2 inches exact but both were listed for 2 inch pipe. They both were also made from stamped sheet metal which probably might have worked if the design allowed the rubber to expand evenly around the fitting. The fitting above is made from machined aluminum with no thru holes from the screws. This prevents water from coming through the screw holes but is also why I had to shim it because the screws bottom out in the lower piece of aluminum. If they were through holes I could have tightened the screws more to allow for the worn threads. I know that because the old one I had to drill and tap were through holes and it tightened perfectly without the shim. All in all I prefer this design because it does seal and potentiol water coming through the screw holes. The only thing I've noticed (because I have a wierd drain that drains slowly) is that, although it blocks the water, the suds from the washing machine come out a little because they're not enough to move the float. This is the one to buy.