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Question: Do VacuFlush toilets do any "macerating" of the material before it goes into the tank? Seems like running TP/etc. through the blender to puree it would make pumping out less likely to leave sludge in the bottom of the tank.


VacuFlush toilets do not macerate, which is why only quick dissolve TP is recommended for use in one. It's not necessary, however, to pay the over-inflated price for TP labeled "marine/rv"...it's just cheap flimsy practically-dissolves-in-your-hand-if-it-even-gets-damp TP repackaged. (I actually watch a SeaLand employee do that during a tour of their plant when I was a V/F distributor/dealer). Scott makes an institutional TP that's popular among boat owners. If your tender behind demands extra softness and strength, it needs to go into the trash (in a zipper bag) instead of the toilet. And NEVER NEVER NEVER flush a wet wipe down ANY type/make/model toilet!


Solid waste is actually about 75% water and is broken up by even manual toilets pumps so it dissolves very quickly in the tank. So unless you flush toilets directly overboard or dump the tank immediately after flushing solids, it really doesn't matter whether solid waste is macerated by the toilet OR an overboard discharge pump. In fact, manual and electric diaphragm pumps are very popular overboard discharge pumps despite not being macerating pumps.


--Peggie
 
I've found that my SeaEra will tolerate standard 2 ply just fine, although some of them will leave a little bit of fibrous material on the macerator blade which reduces discharge suction. I've been mostly using single ply that dissolves more easily to avoid it.
 
This is an insightful, well written description of the various toilets that should help in your selection.


I used excerpts from my book (see link in my signature), the title of which (my publisher's idea) is a bit misleading.....'cuz although it does deal with every source of odor on a boat and how to cure, or better yet PREVENT 'em, it's actually a comprehensive "marine toilets and sanitation systems 101" manual that explains the laws, describes all the types of systems and how they work, and will help you learn how to operate and maintain your system to prevent 99% of problems instead of having to cure 'em.



Thanks for giving me an opportunity to post a shameless plug for it! :)



--Peggie
 
If your tender behind demands extra softness and strength, it needs to go into the trash ....

Or just fold over the Scott's "septic safe" stuff a few times. We have a crew member who is a heavy per-flush TP user, and never a clogging issue.
 
Question: Do VacuFlush toilets do any "macerating" of the material before it goes into the tank?

Seems like running TP/etc. through the blender to puree it would make pumping out less likely to leave sludge in the bottom of the tank.

When you step on the pedal and open the ball, the built up suction in the vacuume generator and hoses suck the solid goodies, TP and liquid in the bowl through a 1" hole at the bottom the funnel. The pressure differential explodes the goodies as it goes through the hole thus macerating it.
 
ED McKiernan, president of SeaLand (now retired) used to say that the VacuFlush doesn't macerate, it "musherates."


--Peggie
 
When you step on the pedal and open the ball, the built up suction in the vacuume generator and hoses suck the solid goodies, TP and liquid in the bowl through a 1" hole at the bottom the funnel. The pressure differential explodes the goodies as it goes through the hole thus macerating it.
A tiny camera installed in there would be interesting for fellow travellers...linked realtime to TV screen display...:eek:
 
A tiny camera installed in there would be interesting for fellow travellers...linked realtime to TV screen display...:eek:

That is a Utube I don’t ever want to see...
 
Darn, I cant remember the name of a really great head that was almost as good as any RV head.

It was built with a toilet seat and cover that became air tight when closed.

The sea water intake had no pump or check valve , just a hose to a sea cock.

A hand pump was mounted nearby that pulled everything out when the seat was closed.

Only hassle was the British hand pump was not great , but easy to get to to repair.

I loved the concept so much I purchased a surplus WWII monel toilet , and an Edson 2 inch bronze pump .

The combination has never failed , or required repair about 35 years.

Only downside is no one makes an air tight sealed seat and cover for std sized toilets, so to use a fitted cover plate between bowl and seat, is used before pumping.

Guests are easily trained, "don't pee on the board" covers it all.

Many old crappy heads could be easily plumbed to this system, with the major cost a good hand pump.
 
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You're thinking of a Lavac, I think.
 
VacuFlush toilets do not macerate, which is why only quick dissolve TP is recommended for use in one. ... If your tender behind demands extra softness and strength, it needs to go into the trash (in a zipper bag) instead of the toilet.


OTOH, our electric macerating toilet seems like it'll chop just about anything... certainly a wad of premium TP, maybe even pencils (if for some reason one wanted to test). I'd guess the Raritan Marine Elegance would be equally aggressive when it comes to flushing paper.

-Chris
 
"You're thinking of a Lavac, I think."

You got it!

Now they sell it without a pump, so you can purchase a good one.

Not lowest cost but lowest maint , except for a RV head.
 
Darn, I cant remember the name of a really great head that was almost as good as any RV head.

It was built with a toilet seat and cover that became air tight when closed.

The sea water intake had no pump or check valve , just a hose to a sea cock.

A hand pump was mounted nearby that pulled everything out when the seat was closed.

Only hassle was the British hand pump was not great , but easy to get to to repair.

I loved the concept so much I purchased a surplus WWII monel toilet , and an Edson 2 inch bronze pump .

The combination has never failed , or required repair about 35 years.

Only downside is no one makes an air tight sealed seat and cover for std sized toilets, so to use a fitted cover plate between bowl and seat, is used before pumping.

Guests are easily trained, "don't pee on the board" covers it all.

Many old crappy heads could be easily plumbed to this system, with the major cost a good hand pump.
Was it Blakes Lavac?
 
Like I said, you have to have a good inverter system or generator when moving. The heads can be 120v or 240v. I have one of each. but like the 240v better, smaller wires, about 6-7 amps per leg. If you're on a lake you probably don't need the marine version. Toilet has a coated paper liner used each time. It carries solids or liquids below to the burn pot without spillage. The liquid is evaporated. The burn pot runs at 1000°F and cycles on and off as needed. So the power use isn't continuous. It consumes about 1 kw per cycle. So a small generator would have no issue running it. If you go to their website (https://incinolet.com), you can see the ash pan/burn pot. They have a parts section, but like I said, with 2 toilets in about 10 years, I have had no parts failure. Just the liners, about 7¢ a flush, last time i priced them.

All fumes/vapor passes thru a catalytic converter that is outside the electrical coils. The exhaust is thru plastic pipe, so the pipe temp is cool enough to go thru wood. My toilets exhaust 2 decks above on the flying bridge and exhaust to the side. It's rare to catch a whiff of burning, but if you do, it's a common burn smell, not sewage. The blower within the toilet is quieter than a usual bathroom vent. The ash needs to be removed about every 5-10 uses. It's clean, no smell, only light grey ash in a stainless bowl. Besides occasionally wiping down the toilet and seat, the only big maintenance chore is removing the blower about twice a year and cleaning the wheel vanes. The wheel is stainless and cleans easily or can be left to soak in a detergent solution.
I went to this toilet instead of a marine toilet because I didn't want a holding tank, considered a MSD treatment system, and was aware of all the no discharge zones being proposed when I bought my current boat. I decided to make 120/240v AC available all the time and that dictated the inverter and battery bank I installed. The boat came with 2 generators.

The times I've rafted with friends, people prefer to use my toilets over their own marine toilets, especially the women. There's no smell and almost no cleaning compared to a house toilet. When I'm on the boat alone, I have a urinal in the fo'c'sle, so no splashes to wipe up.

A lot of generators have a sensing circuit and automatically start when some appliance or light is turned on and shut down when the load is off. I don't use the sensing circuit because of the inverter. Everything runs thru the inverter. If power fails at the dock it switches over to battery. If the battery bank gets low, it starts a generator. Underweigh I have a alternator on the mains dedicated to keeping the inverter bank charged so I don't have to run a generator if the mains are running.

Where does your urinal drain? To the Incinolet or to a tank? If it goes overboard isn’t that a violation? Back in 1967 or 68 I spent a weekend at a cabin on a lake in New Hampshire and they had a similar unit called a Destroilet! It worked just fine.
 
I have two Lavac heads installed on the sailboat. They are the simplest head in the world (except for a 5 gal bucket). The pump is the Henderson V, and is quite reliable (at least in the manual version). The head has no moving parts other than the seat and lid. Routine maintenance is - none. After 10 years I rebuilt the pump in the aft head, as it seemed to be getting less efficient. This takes about 20 minutes and costs $50 to replace all the working parts in it.

It can be installed so that the same pump used to flush is used to pump out the holding tank. On the aft head, I use the same pump to flush to the holding tank, flush overboard, or empty the holding tank overboard. Also, they are easily plumbed to flush with fresh water, if that's what you want. Mine are plumbed to allow either.
 
When we refitted 'Snow Mouse' we fitted two Elegance full size electric toilets and we've had to replace the 2 rocker switches, apart from that they're brilliant, quiet, effective, easy to clean.
Having lived on board boats for over 30 years with Jabsco manuals fitted and experienced the pleasure of overhauling them, removing scaled up exit hoses restricted so badly with calcium the toilet couldn't evacuate even last night's curry, we have for many years now used a simple method.
Buy some white vinegar, preferably 12% strength from the supermarket for a few cents, put a litre/quart in your kettle (to clean any scaling) after an hour tip it into the toilet bowl, flush until the liquid is just visible, leave overnight, flush in the morning.
Result ? Kettle and toilet cleared of calcium.
We do this every 3/4 weeks and have never had a problem since.
There are more drastic measures using hydrochloric acid but its nasty stuff to mess around with so we prefer the vinegar route.
 
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Having lived on board boats for over 30 years with Jabsco manuals fitted and experienced the pleasure of overhauling them, removing scaled up exit hoses restricted so badly with calcium the toilet couldn't evacuate even last night's curry, we have for many years now used a simple method.
Buy some white vinegar, preferably 12% strength from the supermarket for a few cents, put a litre/quart in your kettle (to clean any scaling) after an hour tip it into the toilet bowl, flush until the liquid is just visible, leave overnight, flush in the morning.
Result ? Kettle and toilet cleared of calcium.
We do this every 3/4 weeks and have never had a problem since.
There are more drastic measures using hydrochloric acid but its nasty stuff to mess around with so we prefer the vinegar route.

Uncloric acid mixed with water is fairly nontoxic and will dissolve calcium without harming metal parts.
 
You can buy 30% cleaning vinegar online if you don’t want to wait for the 12% stuff to work. Not as dangerous as muriatic acid but strong enough to do the job.
 
The admiral takes care of the shopping and the household management comes under her jurisdiction and she's careful with the money so we stick to the 50 cents supermarket stuff.
We move around a lot and getting stuff online delivered has to be well thought out in advance (if you ever have to work with the French postal system you'll understand what a work of art that can be). Sheesh don't start me ranting on French workers...….
For domestic systems hard water descaling we use an electronic de-scaler which actually works very well indeed with only trace elements in the kettle/shower head.
 
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I have 2 Dometic "Master Flush" electric heads on my trawler. They were OEM in 2007. I don't know what or whether previous owner did, but in 5 years I've had the boat, they have performed flawlessly with no maintenance required. [emoji1][emoji1][emoji106]
 
Marine Heads

Hello all;

For what its worth - in 2010 I installed 2 Raritan Elegance electric flush toilets (fresh water) in my 1983, 36 Nauticat & used them for 6 years without a problem. I sold the boat in 2016 and the new owner is still using them.

I bought a 1993, 34 Marine Trader in 2017 and installed 2 Dometic MF 7120 electric flush toilets (fresh water) in the spring of 2018. I have used them for the past 2 seasons without a problem.

The only reason I switched from Raritan to Dometic was price. The Dometic toilets are not as "attractive" as the Raritan one piece unit but the price difference was so great that I compromised a bit on appearance.

They are easy to install & maintain & worth every dollar extra they cost (in comparison to the standard manual pump marine head). Everyone who comes aboard my boat finds them easy to use.

Another bonus feature is that the sanitary hose for the electric flush macerator toilet is considerably smaller diameter and cheaper than the sanitary hose needed for a standard toilet.

Happy Boating!

Wally
 
Head

Raritan crown 2. Had two onboard for 26 years rebuilt each one once by swapping with Raritan for a rebuilt unit. Very satisfied! (just keep the ladies’ “things” out of it)
 
We have a Jabsco electric. It is very reliable but also noisy. A good friend has 2 vacu flush heads. One or the other is almost always broken. It has gotten so bad that the last few years he leaves the breakers off in the main panel. When you need to use the head you go to the main panel, flip the breaker, use the head, flush and then flip the breaker. The issue is that the seals in the toilet need servicing constantly. Otherwise they're nice because they use very little water.
John

Wow, you just describe my two Vac's
 
I have two 30 yr old Vacuflush heads. Five years ago I had to replace duckbills. Nothing else since. I have no complaints.
 
RV head

I installed an RV style head directly on top of a 30 gallon plasic tank. Used about a pint of fresh water each flush. Worked every time (gravity usually does). I mounted the tank with a slight aft and inboard lean to facility pumpout. Worked like a charm. The Admiral would use a dock hose through the head port and into the bowl at the end of the pump out to totally remove all waste and provide a fresh start. Didn't need any gauges as you could tell how full the tank was by looking while you flushed. Keep it simply, Stanley.
 
I have 2 Dometic "Master Flush" electric heads on my trawler. They were OEM in 2007. I don't know what or whether previous owner did, but in 5 years I've had the boat, they have performed flawlessly with no maintenance required. [emoji1][emoji1][emoji106]

Those are really nice heads. Larger pumps and macerator compared to a Tecma
 
I have used Jabsco electric “quiet flush” on both my Leopard 38 sail, and now on my Endeavour 44 Cat Trawler. They work well, but are more noisy than the name implies. Current boat has fresh water flush, which I recommend strongly. Much less smell, and not heavy fresh water use
Jack Hulse
New Orleans
 
Hi. After months of research I bought an airhead composting toilet. The Aussie dollar wasn’t great so it cost $1800 & $100 to have it fitted. I’ve had it since last November 1st. Extremely happy that it doesn’t smell...but...i’m On my 2nd infestation of bugs & I have NEVER left the lid up. I also experienced the swamp effect. The company have not been able to explain this. As i’m a young 63yr old, I do find it a bit back breaking unscrewing it every 2nd day to empty the urine tank. Cleaning it isn’t a great job either. Has anyone else got one? Love to hear your opinion.
 
Hi. After months of research I bought an airhead composting toilet. The Aussie dollar wasn’t great so it cost $1800 & $100 to have it fitted. I’ve had it since last November 1st. Extremely happy that it doesn’t smell...but...i’m On my 2nd infestation of bugs & I have NEVER left the lid up. I also experienced the swamp effect. The company have not been able to explain this. As i’m a young 63yr old, I do find it a bit back breaking unscrewing it every 2nd day to empty the urine tank. Cleaning it isn’t a great job either. Has anyone else got one? Love to hear your opinion.
You may want to try CruisersForum.com, sister site to this TF and is more sail focused. Compost heads are more popular there. Have seen various solutions for gnats including insuring adequate venting (should have a fan installed), having screens on the fan inlet/outlet, increasing amount of coco coir used, and using diamatious earth tossed in with the coir
 
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