Installing Raritan Elegance

[larman]

I just purchased a Raritan Elegance, I am replacing a vacuflush system toilet. I actually have two vacuflush toilets in the boat. My plan is to keep the forward vacuflush and install the Raritan in the aft cabin. I plan on running new hoses to the tank. Can I simply attach the new hose where the previous (vacuflush) hose was?

[Comodave]

No, the previous hose will run to the vacuum pump, if I am understanding your question correctly. And one of the great advantages of the ME is that you can use 1” discharge hose instead of 1.5” so it take significantly less water to flush the hose clean. Also only use SaniFlex hose. It is the best hose on the market. Defender sell it by the foot. You can use a Uniseal to attach the new hose to the holding tank.

[Terry Wilkinson]

I’m interested in installing the Raritan Elegance in place of Vacuflush myself, are you doing it yourself?

Interested in how it goes, please let me know

[larman]

Originally Posted by Comodave

No, the previous hose will run to the vacuum pump, if I am understanding your question correctly. And one of the great advantages of the ME is that you can use 1” discharge hose instead of 1.5” so it take significantly less water to flush the hose clean. Also only use SaniFlex hose. It is the best hose on the market. Defender sell it by the foot. You can use a Uniseal to attach the new hose to the holding tank.

Thank you for responding. Would I put the discharge for the ME on the top or the bottom of the tank?

[larman]

Originally Posted by Terry Wilkinson

I’m interested in installing the Raritan Elegance in place of Vacuflush myself, are you doing it yourself?

Interested in how it goes, please let me know

Yes I’m doing this myself. Will let you know how it goes.

[Comodave]

I have put MEs in 4 boats so far. Absolutely love them. Best head on the market IMO. I always use 1” discharge hose and always use Raritan SaniFlex hose. On our current boat we had a Vacuflush head but it had a vacuum leak, as a lot of them do. You can spend a lot of time and money trying to fix the leaks. So we planned on putting in a ME when we bought the boat. Our Formula has the head forward and starboard and the holding tank aft and port so it is a long run to the tank. Formula had close to 50’ of discharge hose. I was able to run it somewhat differently and got it to 36’. The old discharge hose was 1.5” and I used 1” hose. To run the new hose would have required ripping up the galley to run the hose. The new 1” hose is 1.375” OD. So I got rid of the vacuum generator and tank and used the old hose as a conduit for the new hose. I cleaned the old hose and scoped it to make sure there were no blockages. Then I cut the old hose into 2 sections behind the refer. I ran the new hose forward from the refer and aft from there. 3 of us ran the 36’ in less than an hour. We used wire pulling lubricant and slathered it on the new hose liberally as we pulled it into the old hose. Worked absolutely great.

Then I used a hole saw to cut the proper size hole for the Uniseal plug. They work great. We have 2 12 volt batteries in the bow in series for our 24 volt bow thruster. I took power off them to power the 24 volt ME head. Close run for the wiring and with 24 volts I could use smaller wiring. Absolutely use large enough wire to get good voltage to the head. With 36’ of 1” discharge hose it takes 2 normal flushed to get the stuff to the holding tank. If you have any questions I may be able to help, or maybe not…

[larman]

Did you attach the uniseal plug to the top of the tank?

[Comodave]

Originally Posted by larman

Did you attach the uniseal plug to the top of the tank?

Absolutely.