Has anyone given serious thought to retro-fitting with a modern pressure flush toilet?
A R,
By pressure flush, I suspect you mean vacuum flushing which is the standard on cruise ships for instance.
Sealand VacU Flush toilets are available for install in Foretravels. Steve and Michelle, the folks that made this forum what it is, have one in their coach.
The most knowledgable person in all of Sealand on VacU Flush toilets is Philip Covault of AER Supply in Seabrook, TX, a Sealand Marine Distributor. If you call Sealand direct for technical help in our region, Sealand will connect you to Philip for that assistance.
He is a wonderful resource on all things Sealand and has all the parts a pieces for Sealand toilets along with U-Line Ice Makers, Blue Sea, Cole Hersey, Ancor electrical supplies and many other items we use in our coaches.
Philip can be reached at 281.474.3276.
I suspect it is pressure flush from the point of view of the people side of the terlet ;o)
best, paul
If you have a floor plan that locates the commode anywhere but directly over your black tank, a pressure unit is necessary, for obvious reasons. This '02 came loaded with the Sealand VacuU Flush Magnum Opus TurboTurd 5000. It is a scary sound, believe you me, when you first use it. Hold on to your hat! They do not like altitude (we learned in Leadville, CO at over 10,000 ft elev.) and can be a tad temperamental with any sort of "debris" that may be left in the bowl. That said, we have had very few issues with this monster, and it is easy to clean and maintain SO FAR. There is a definite "sense of urgency" that I LIKE to see in a commode. When you hit the lever, things happen in a hurry. A previous coach we owned came outfitted with a Microphor electrically operated model that seemed to be very lackadaisical in the flushing department. Dollar for dollar, I would be totally satisfied with a nice china potty of the good, old mechanical variety ... perhaps with the sprayer attachment as a deluxe option.
To Rudy--Thanks for the source, but I am talking about a modern pressure flush such as you will find on the Koehler and American Standard web sites that have a pressure tank that gets triggered when you flush, uses about a gallon of water, and really cleans the bowl.
To Paul -- Yep, that too and I am one which I why I want something that will really clean the bowl.
I note on several web sites that the pressue tank can be purchases as a separate retro-fit kit and am considering doing that, installing it someplace convenient, and running it into the bowl.
Since I want to upgrade the water system seem like a good time to think about this stuff (of all kinds).
To Carol -- I too have the desire for a good old porcelen potty and one of my thoughts was to get one without the tank and the put in the pressure unit, or to see if one of the very small regular pressure units would work.
I thank you very much for you input about the TurboTurd, and since I spend a lot of time above 9,500 feet (in Woodland Park, CO) I would like to know how you dealt with the Leadville problem if you have the time.
Thanks
The issue with the Magnum Opus and altitude is that in thinner atmosphere it takes longer to build up the vacuum again after flushing and that it seemed to "leak" around the vacuum seals between flushes. The water would sloooooly seep out of the bowl and the pressure in the vacuum tank would be lost, so the pumping mechanism would have to run. I would wake in the middle of the night to the "chug-chug-a-chug" of the toilet pump. Close the bedroom door, get flashlight or turn on lights, "service mode" on the commode to keep the flap open, water, brush, check for some tiny bit of debris causing seal to fail, close flap, add water and flush. Wait. Seems OK. Turn off lights and go back to bed and try to fall asleep again. Come daylight inspect again and reapply a thin film of silicone. Really annoying! We thought we had a toilet issue, but when we moved to lower altitude, the thing miraculously "healed" itself. Now, it routinely needs very little attention. Since marine applications are very rarely found at high altitudes, I guess it is no surprise that these toilets work just fine in most applications. But they may not be happy in every location on the globe.
Carol:
Thanks, that is about what I suspected from the word vacuum. That was one of the reasons I was thinking about push rather than pull and hence pressure rather than vacuum. Besides, I hated vacuum powered windshield wiper blades.
Doing a quick search, it looks like these have a regular tank on the back as do a standard (gravity) toilet. I'd worry about the weight and mechanical robustness "bouncing" down the road taxing the mating surface/seal between the tank and the bowl and also risking the tank breaking free. Most residential toilets are designed with stationary applications in mind ;)
Not for the coach, but if you're looking at replacing a toilet at home, an excellent resource is the MaP testing (Maximum Performance) that's done every few years: CWWA - Free Publications (http://www.cwwa.ca/freepub_e.asp) There are some great, simple, gravity models out there (we have the Toto Drake EL here at the s&b).
Michelle