Anyone any expirience with macerators for toilets?

[Dozymoo42]

We are in the middle of an attic conversion and are having an en-suite fitted soon our builder has suggested a “crusher” for the loo - I am assuming this is the same thing as a macerator or a sani-flo loo.

does anyone have any experience with these systems? Any pros or cons? Are they easy to maintain? Are they more prone to leaks? I have been googling but am looking for real life stories from people that have them.

We moved in to a place that had one and it's never been a problem - apart from when someone accidentally switched off the power switch to it and we couldn't tell why it wasn't working!

Only thing is it's very loud when you flush it, in the room that the pipe goes past. I don't know if that's unique to us or common. Sounds like a cascade of water followed by a grumbling whirring sound. But again not really a problem unless it's the middle of the night.

Thank you ☺️
do you need to regularly service it or anything? Just trying to weigh up any long term impacts.

Due to shape of the roof we have had to put the en- suite at the front of the house rather than the back where the waste pipe is so this is when the builder has suggested this as a possible solution. Just don’t want to fix the current problem but set myself up for issues in the future.

I have a Sani flo- and when I moved into my place it was the only bathroom. I then twice had issues where either the macerator blocked and then a few months later broke completely (about 8 years old). I’ve since installed a new WC on the ground floor in my maisonette where it can connect straight to the mains pipework, and now ask people to use that as the main toilet.

Now that I have a new macerator in the original bathroom it’s more reliable, but you do need to consider things like using thin and not luxury loo roll, and asking people to avoid putting anything down it. In a new place I would go with a macerator again if the alternative is a huge engineering feat, it’s not ideal due but fine as an extra WC as long as it’s not your main bathroom. If installing mains pipework isn’t wildly expensive then given a saniflo is probably about £1000 every ten years to maintain, it may be worth the investment.

My MIL has one upstairs in her bungalow dormer - she has now blocked up and banned anyone from using that toilet as its so prone to getting blocked up! Her and FIL have to manually sort the blockage - presume they do this themselves to save money as its happened so often. Twat FIL used to swear blind it was because some of us (with pointed looks at me and DH) were putting baby wipes or rubbish down the loo.. anyways once after cleaning it out and finding fuck all he had to concede it couldn't cope with simple toilet roll or poos so taped the lid closed.

They also used to have some liquid stuff that they'd pour in frequently to break down the loo roll. And had to use single ply!

No idea what type it is as it came with the house when she bought it.

We have two macerators one for a guest loo that we actually use a lot as our main downstairs loo . It’s absolutely fine zero issues . We have had it serviced when it made an odd noise and one day it will need replacing but 6 years in and don’t give it any thought .
They do make a noise when you flush but as they are installed where normal plumbing is challenging this doesn’t bother us at all .

Yep, make a noise like an express train when flushed, I always had to warn people who hadn’t used it before as they might have passed out with fright! And they do get blocked with ease, I would only use one as an Emergency Loo now.

We have one in our guest annexe which gets a fair bit of use as we let it on Airbnb. DH has had to unblock it three times. Twice was the same guests (a couple who stayed for a month and weren't working so it was just too much use) and once some idiot had flushed a sanitary towel. Otherwise it's fine for occasional use. It's fairly easy to unblock albeit pretty gross.

I’m surprised Piglet John hasn’t arrived yet….

I’ve had a macerator for the last 16 years. I wouldn’t recommend saniflo, they were rubbish. Uniflo macerators however are amazing. They’ve got a button which will pump out the tank so if you have to open it up you've got a clear tank to work in, they’re the quietest ones I’ve experienced (had saniflo and grundfos) and their technical support is brilliant. Oh and they’re very reasonably priced. I’m not affiliated with them in any way, just very impressed with their overall service!

You can’t put anything down a macerated toilet apart from toilet paper and waste water (no tampons etc) and can’t use bleach with them because they damage the seals. I use harpic toilet cleaner to remove limescale, it’s the black bottle which is macerator friendly, and every 3 months or so switch off the macerator and chuck the cleaning chemicals down the loo to give it a good clean.

Obviously I wouldn’t go out of my way to have one, but they’re a great solution and if you look after them they last for years.

ETA I only use luxury toilet paper, and have never had any issues 😂

We have one. I wouldn’t like it as the only loo. It sometimes smells bad so we do as PP said and chuck a load of macerator friendly chemicals down and let it sit in the macerator for a few hours. Didn’t know about the harpic black bottle though so thanks for that @MuchTooTired ! We’ve been getting the really expensive ones.

It would be a significant job to get the loo in question connected properly so we don’t have much choice really. Unfortunately the plonkers we bought from had a preference for concealed toilets, so the macerator is blocked off and we can’t access it without breaking through bit of wall!

Recently other parts of our house smell and I convince myself it’s the macerator leaking out somewhere but we haven’t seen evidence of such even when taking up floorboards.

We have one in the under stairs loo. No issues other than it is quite loud when you flush and it operates however you get used to it and we don’t notice it any more.
Never done any regular maintenance on it. There is a special descaler liquid you can use but tbh we’ve never bothered.
DH installed ours and if you are fairly handy at diy it’s not that complicated to install or remove for maintenance - assuming you have room around the toilet to do so - something to consider when installing.

We may have been lucky but our saniflow has been in the back of what used to be our office area for 20 years, never serviced, no smell problems, blocked once when wrong item flushed, never knew about special cleaning products. Noisy yes.

We had one, it was a Saniflo. Worked very, very well until someone put a tampon in it. We realised hours later we could still hear the motor churning away and investigated, so it wasn't that loud as some people report! We managed to fix the issue no problem (and it was clean inside, no poo to worry about) but I suspect I wouldn't have one again if I could avoid it, simply because you have no control over what other people put down them. There was a label stuck on the underside of the lid highlighting forbidden items like razor blades, condoms, nappies and sanitary stuff, but still people forgot.

In actual operation, it was really efficient and was massively valued as it meant I could have a downstairs loo, which I couldn't otherwise. So I wouldn't say never, but...

Mine has never blocked and I know the kids put reams of loo roll down there! No servicing and no special loo roll - it's a normal loo as far as I'm concerned ... I've probably jinxed it now... it would probably have been a decent model (ie not the cheapest) as previous owners did a good job of the renovation.

Thank you so much everyone! You have given me lots to think about so much easier with real life scenarios than reading just technical stuff on the internet !! 😊

We've got one in a basement shower room. It was installed about 7 years ago and there haven't been any problems. The property is now a holiday let and so we're dependant on guests not putting stuff they shouldn't down there but it hasn't happened so far thankfully.

Here I am

Consider digging a hole in the garden and using a bucket. Sooner or later you'll wish you had.

Oh dear! That bad eh?

We stayed at a B & B which had one and it was so noisy we were concerned we couldn’t flush it at night.

I now think that Air bnb should include toilet type in the details!