Macerating toilets

Never heard of macerating toilet in a caravan...... souinds like more moving parts than a Thetford, maintenance may be a mucky issue. We have for the last seven years used a Thetford and dosed it with 'home brand' version of Nappisan. The home brand version is one third or more cheaper than the branded option and has more of the active ingrediant Sodium Percarbonate.

We have found that the effluent 'self macerates' in the cassette pretty rapidly... never any 'lumps' in the discharge when emptying.... unless thay we very recently deposited.

If you get my drift!

John

Not in a c/van, but you will find you will need more water to flush and thinner toilet paper than your normal 2ply for the macerator to effectively shred up ,,,

Why bother chewing it up – lumpy or thin its all the same crap.

Did the person who suggested it say why, I couldn't think of anything worse?
You aren't serious are you?
Mascerating toilets are for yachts which have an unlimited supply of flushing water, no holding tank requirements such that you don't (easily) see the effluent when anchored in a mooring. I couldn't think of anythiing worse for a caravan.
IF you still want to pursue it member mesage me and I will pass on my old man's details for you to contact, he is a retired plumber who has owned yachts with those toilets for over 20 years and also has a caravan.

I thing it would be a waste of money for all the same reasons as posted on the Caravaners Forum.

Hi John
I've an AOR Quantum camper with mascerating marine toilet and think it's fine! They used to fit a vacuum type toilet but for some reason the supplier can no longer supply. Yes, the mascerating toilet uses more water for flushing but has its own dedicated 35L flushing tank. The waste empties into a 60L holding tank which is quite easily pumped out at dump points or can be offloaded into a portable 20L Fiamma container ( a few fills obviously!!) if needed. The 2 of us easily get a week's worth of use before it needs emptying rather than the 1 or 2(?) days from the Thetford type.
The only downside is that the mascerating pump is pretty noisy but in reality you only flush for a few seconds and at night the yellow can mellow until morning.
Hope this helps!!
Cheers
TG

The question to ask is why macerate at all.

The reason most boats use a macerator is because it is required to macerate the waste before discharging into open water.

My undertsanding is some macerate from the bowl into the waste tank and others macerate immediately prior to discharge.

Mostly it is illegal to discharge in port, in marine park areas and in enlclosed waters ( it was once not so)....so more boats have to hold more material......many boats when "outside" will discharge direct on demand...this may be why they macerate direct from the bowl.....some may also discharge by gravity from their tank.

So the first question to ask.......is do you want to run a large waste tank and pump out / drain with a hose or run a small tank and portable toilet and manually handle it.

then you need to look at the details.

how many dump points have a ground level inlet point?

depending on what you do and where you go you may not need to macerate at all and you may not need a pump at all, except to lift the flush water.

If you have a system like a construction site toilet, there is no macerator, no pump and the flush water is minimal.

more research required.
cheers

Hi John and Lyn,

I have an AOR Quantum but with the vacuum toilet. The newer Quantums have the macerator, as posted above. The main reason AOR use these types of toilets is that they have no chemicals and thus can be dumped in long drops and the like, unlike chemcal toilets which are banned, regardless of what type of chemical is added (due to compatability issues).

Most of the Quantum users of the macerator toilet are getting at least 4 days from the 85L tank, obviously depenedant on usage. They also have a portable container to be able to empty the main tank if parked up for a while (23L from memory).

If mainly using caravan parks and the like, probably just as easy (and cheaper) to stick with a chemical toilet, but if going off-road then chemical free toilets are the go IMHO.

Cheers

Captain

Many thanks for the replies re Macerating toilets.
Will stick with the cassette type.
John