OK, having bought over-enthusiastic amounts of horrendously expensive hose I now have the pump actually evacuating the cellar, not just recirculating water uselessly. A bit heath-Robinson but will do for now.
It’s voiding well away from the house wall, towards the down-slope of the garden.
Sump steadily filling from the direction of the outside drain though - it’s not raining, so my money is still on ground water.
On our other house the garden sloped down to where the drain started from, because it was blocked the water that it would take away with the water from the sump was going into the basement instead of away down the drain, I used an auger to find out where the water table was and it was about level with the drain at that point, so the drain served two purposes at that point.
It all depends where the water table level is on your ground in relation to your basement, at least now you can keep the basement dry till you solve the problem 
Like you I have found hose to be very expensive here.
Hard to say
This is us
Just behind the shed, along the 70m contour line there is water at the surface, not sure how much higher the house is than that point - 2-3m looking at the distance between the contours. The cellar goes down about 1m30 - so, within a broad margin for error (edit: and the fact that water tables aren’t flat but also follow the land as it rises & falls to an extent) somewhere between a few cm below the cellar floor to maybe 60cm below the cellar floor.
The hozelock stuff that I bought is on Amazon UK for £89 for 25m, or £3.59/m that’s actually more than Casto sell the 20m length (65,90€ or 3,30€/m). It’s even more than Casto sell the 10m length (3.79€/m or about £3.32).
I guess hose is just expensive, it didn’t help that it was a bit of a forced purchase so I had to go with whatever was in stock somewhere I could get to fairly easily.
Yes, my slight worry is frost - it’s going to be very vulnerable to freezing. Hopefully the fairly frequent discharge of water through the hose will keep it clear. Though I guess the worst that will happen is there would be a few hours that it doesn’t work.
We have a hose going from the well in the top orchard to the bottom moat/pond as at times we have to supplement the supply from the main moat, I just covered the hose in straw during the winter and mow the hay in once the spring arrives, once it gets wet it stays put in the winds.
Either that or just use 1m lengths of cheap split foam pipe insulation it costs cents, I did that at the other house using duck tape on the joints.
Without a heat source the hose and foam will all reach the same freeze temperature.
As long as there was water running through the hose from the pump, it never froze down to -6C in 4 years, without the foam it froze
I made a small wooden box for over the end of the hose to stop the end from freezing, practical experience 
Yes if the water keeps running as that is the source of heat sufficient to prevent freezing. Without a source of any heat it would freeze as it all gets to the same temperature.
Hence why I suggested it, a sump pump will during the winter and in Billy’s case will mostly be running and not have too much frost to contest with.
Better with than without.
What is the hose made of?
Whatever Hozelock make it out of.
It’s this stuff, mulltcouche type thing, I doubt it would split though.
Definitely what I’m hoping.
If it survives Sat/Sun night which is forecast at down to -5° I think it will be OK.
Grrr
Grrr because (per posts above) I put in a new pump, even checked it was working last visit but it clearly got stuck.
Moving the pump slightly and it sprang into life and the swimming pool has now gone apart from a couple of cm of water here and there - but water is still trying to fill the sump at quite a rate of knots.
Thinking forward… is there someone local who could keep a friendly eye on the pump when you’re absent…???
I used to do similarly for a neighbour, until he finally bit the bullet and completely rerouted the incoming water… which meant very, very deep drains being dug… aaargh.
Not since the neighbour opposite moved out and we haven’t really exchanged more than a bonjour with the new people. Our actual neighbouring property is now a gîte so no luck there.
In any case it’s not just keeping an eye - it’s dealing with problems if they arise - which might mean wading through a flooded cellar.
At least the rubber boots I bought last year came in handy 
Why not consider installing a second pump (for redundancy) and having both pumps feed into the main drain? Easy if you have sewer pipes in the cellar.
Yes I do know that its not permitted, but who is going to know?
It looks like your sump is a bit restricted on space if you have a standard float switch on cable arrangement? I had a similar issue (inherited) from previous work place so fitted a pump with a vertical moving float, sorry no picture at the moment.
Similar to this. VEATON 550W Automatic Submersible Water Pump, Max 11500L/H with Integrated Float Switch, Drain and Transfer Clean Water from Pond, Swimming Pool, Hot Tub https://amzn.eu/d/4AOcI5g
I’ve waded through their cave before now… but I appreciate it’s not a solution in your case…
Try to stop your house floating away and review the overall situation during a dry 2024… 
Very restricted - so it’s alredy a pump with integrated float switch which is the only sort that has a chance in that space.
Funnily enough a similar thought crossed my mind this afternoon - at least as far as a 2nd pump is concerned but I don’t have a good place to put one.
The plumbing is all a bit Heath Robinson at the moment (another reason I’d be reluctant to burden anyone with watching over the installation) - I was hoping I could route the outflow into the storm drains but it seems they don’t run where I hoped, however it would not be impossible to dig a trench to the regard in the middle of the lawn if necessary. A half hour job with a backhoe but only 20m so I could probably do it with hand tools easily enough - it would just take a bit longer.
Thankfully no danger of that
That being the case what went wrong?
No idea to be honest.
I half expected to be ordering a new pump when I first went down into the cellar.
But it sprang into life as soon as I moved it and it’s working at the moment.
Despite it having a better form of float switch it’s still clearly prone to sticking.
If you have the space it might be better to fit an outboard float switch such as this randomly found item.
