Vacuflush trouble shooting

[Deano]

I have a 30 year old boat I’ve owned and lived on for 5 years. Changed duck bills during our delivery trip in 2015. Nothing maintenance wise since. I have no complaints. Just sayin vf systems are okay with me.

 

[Comodave]

Apology accepted and unnecessary. I enjoy a good debate.

There are a lot of new boaters joining TF looking for information, knowledge and tips from us seasoned boaters. I see too many on TF disparage a product or brand when the OP's question was aimed at resolving an issue. I am/was guilty of the practice too but have attempted to refrain from disparaging products when the OP is only asking for assistance.

If they ask for a product recommendation, then we provide our opinions based on our personal experience with that product. The new boater can make a choice based on our responses.

These new boaters, hearing us denigrate a product after they asked for troubleshooting assistance, question what they have on their boats and start imagining the worst.

I've had owners of perfectly operating VF toilets contact me to see if they need to replace their toilets because they read that VF toilets were obsolete, required annual maintenance, used too much water, expensive to maintain, leaks a lot etc etc. It would be a good opportunity for me to encourage the doubt and sell them another toilet, but instead, I reassure them and provide a few simple operating tips. And maybe sell them spare parts later.

Ok, I tried to give a bit on this. I apologized although I don’t feel that I did anything wrong. All you needed to say was apology accepted and let it go at that. But why did you have to go on and lecture me as to how I should interact on the forum? I guess that we will have to disagree, but please don’t lecture me on how to respond to someone’s post. Do you lecture everyone that breaks your rules or just someone who breaks your rules about VF, that you sell? If you don’t lecture everyone that responds in a fashion you don’t like then don’t do it to me. And I still don’t believe that I denigrated VF by saying I am glad that I don’t own one. Denigrating would be saying something like VF is a piece of junk. I said nothing like that. You say you enjoy a good debate, but apparently only with your rules.

 

[syjos]

Your VacuFlush history time line is a little off. When Mansfield Plumbing introduced it in 1978 (they spun it off, along with their entire marine toilet division, to SeaLand Technology in 1984), it was nothing short of revolutionary and for nearly 20 years the VacuFlush was the "only game in town" if you wanted a toilet that needed less than 1-3 gallons of flush water, could use pressurized fresh water instead of sea water, and drew less than 30-50 amps. It was--and still is--a very good toilet. But by the early 90s, macerating electric toilet technology improvements had made the VacuFlush obsolete. Ed McKiernan, president of SeaLand Technology(now retired) wasn't about to take that lying down and launched a massive ad campaign to build a mystique around it...for at least 3 years (maybe even as long as 5 years) every issue of every boating magazine had at least 3 ads touting as the ONLY toilet for discriminating boat owners for whom price was no object. He cut prices to boat builders to the bone to get 'em to offer it as either standard equipment or the only upgrade to their basic OEM toilets. And it worked: perception became reality for those who "had to have only the best."

So I strongly suspect that if you poll the current dedicated VF owners on this forum, you'll find that the vast majority are older folks who've owned them for 15-20 years and either learned how to use and maintain 'em long ago or have come up with an amazing array of work-arounds. While a small percentage of the problems with it can be due to a bad installation, at least 90% of 'em can be laid directly at the feet of newer owners who've just commenced to using it without bothering to gain any real understanding that it's unlike any other system or how it works...which may account for the reason why at least 75% of marine toilet problems are VF problems and which is what prompted me to write my "VacuFLush 101" piece.

-Peggie

As I stated in an earlier post, my experience is only with the PNW.

Vacu Flush did not become common here in large numbers until the early 90's. With Sealands advertising blitz, discounts and Seattle Boat Show Specials, awareness, acceptance and desirability took off. We sold kazillions of VF's in the 90's.

Boaters here still love their VF toilets and have learned to work on them. There are a few who have Macgyvered a fix but the majority make the correct repair.

Marine Sanitation in Seattle is the Dometic Distributor and holds annual VF training for dealers and technicians. They also do an excellent job providing VF assistance via phone or at the store to VF owners. They are very helpful and have kept customers VF systems operating by educating owners to the proper operation, maintenance and service.
They have a repair shop where customers can bring in their VF components and have repairs done while they wait.

I conducted Vacu Flush seminars around Western Washington in the 90's and 00's to train owners to do their own service and maintenance. I also covered proper VF installation parameters so attandees could survey their existing system for proper installation or if they were contemplating a VF purchase. I brought clean VF toilets and vacuum generators to the seminars, disassembled and reassembled them and had attendees take turns taking components apart and reassembling them.

I had an inventory of parts for sale at the seminars and did very well. I also took several orders for complete VF systems at each event. Those were the good old days!

 

[syjos]

Hi Simon

Looking fo some advice on some gear you have on Sandpiper. Did you get that pm I sent about 10 days ago??

Now back to our head thread

Sorry Joe, I missed it.

Will answer now.

 

[Alaskan Sea-Duction]

This last weekend (MY VF) I had a duckbill seized up in the closed position. When the pump came on, I had crap everywhere!! When the pump started, it pumped all the crap right up the center of the pump.

After cleaning everything with bleach, I rebuilt the pump as I always carry enough spare parts to rebuild both heads and the pump.

After I got it all back together, I turned it on and after about 90 seconds or so it stopped.

Wait what is that sound? The pump came back on. WTF? I could hear the leak. I moved the hoses and it stopped. Set the hoses down and I could hear it again. Pump cycled. I started to feel around the pump and found that the input hose to the pump was bent almost 90 degree. It was leaking around the clamp.

So I moved the mounting of the pump and took the bend out of the pump input. Leak stopped. Moving the pump also required moving the bilge pump and the tank macerator. Might as well rebuild the macerator too as I am already in deep sh$t.

 

[Drummer48]

I will probably be in contact with you regarding purchasing new duckbills. I'm getting quite an education on the VacuFlushs systems!!

 

[Portage_Bay]

Buy the tester!

OP here. Time to circle back and close this out. I finally listened to syjos and others to purchase the vacuum tester. It was a new yet faulty diaphragm or O ring. Don't know which one.

When this thread was current I had installed a new diaphragm, new duck bills, done the shaving cream test, checked all the hose clamps and observed the water in the bowl didn't drop. None of that solved the problem.

PO had installed on/off switches and we had two heads so just used it as and moved onto to more pressing old boat issues.

I found some time this spring to return to solving the vacuflush issue or rip it out and replace it. With a tester in hand I quickly isolated the problem to the pump. I put in new duck bills that did not solve the problem. I thought it had to be the pump body. When I took the pump apart I could not find any obvious problems. With nothing to lose I pulled the spare diaphragm and O ring out of the spares locker. Problem solved. The system now holds vacuum for days when the boat is not in use.

The parts don't have to be expensive. Ebay can be a good source.

Before anyone jumps to the conclusion that the faulty diaphragm or O ring were cheap Ebay knock offs. The bad parts came from Marine Sanitation in Seattle.

And don't assume a diaphragm problem will always show up as a leak. It almost always will, but not this time.