Very Exciting New Addition

For literally the last 12 months I have been troubleshooting a vacuum leak in my marine sanitation system, aka “head”. The system, called VacuFlush, uses a vacuum generator to create a vacuum between the pump and the toilet so when it is flushed, the vacuum sucks out the bowl contents and pumps it to the holding tank, not unlike the system on an airplane. The vacuum pump then cycles the process again and readies it for next flush. The process of building a vacuum takes about 20 seconds and makes quite a bit of noise. Located under the floor of the guest stateroom, the pump cycle will wake anyone who is sleeping in there. This is where the pump was located.

This VacuFlush system is original equipment and is 15 years old. I have performed routine maintenance on it over the years by replacing duckbills, bellows, O-rings, seals, and fittings that have cracked. It has been, until a year ago, trouble-free. Then during a cruise, a guest noticed the vacuum pump cycling periodically, and waking them up. I thought there might be a piece of toilet paper caught somewhere or that possibly the duckbills needed replacing. Until I returned home, we turned the head off at night so the pump wouldn’t run. At home I performed routine maintenance and it worked fine….until the next cruise. Once we started regularly using the head again, it would lose vacuum periodically. Again, we would shut it off at night. And again I would think I had the problem fixed by replacing another suspected seal or fitting. It would hold vacuum for days at the dock. But then with regular use on the next cruise it would lose vacuum and cycle. At one point it would cycle every 5 minutes. On the most recent Commodore Cruise that lasted two weeks, we would only turn the head on when we needed it, day or night. Despite my best efforts over a year I could not fix it. I decided to replace it with an upgraded and simpler system, the Tecma Silence Plus.

The Tecma system does not use vacuum and therefore there is no vacuum pump. It is an electric macerator head that uses positive pressure to pump the macerated bowl contents to the holding tank. And the system is all self-contained behind the toilet. Guests will no longer be woken up by someone flushing. This is state of the art in marine heads and I couldn’t be more excited about it!

The installation process first required removing the VacuFlush vacuum pump, toilet, and all hoses. There was a hose from the toilet to the Y-valve (allowing direct overboard discharge), a hose from the Y-valve to the vacuum pump, and another hose from the vacuum pump to the holding tank. Since I have never used the direct overboard flush, nor ever expect to use it, I elected to remove the Y-valve and associated hoses. Then the new toilet was fitted and one new hose was connected from the toilet to the holding tank. Very simple and elegant. Fiddler has two systems for emptying the holding tank: pump it overboard or use a pump-out facility at a marina. Pumping it overboard is necessary and legal in Canada and remote Alaskan locations, but in Washington all waters are in a no-discharge zone that mandates using a pump-out facility at a marina or a mobile pump-out service. No overboard discharge is allowed and carries heavy fines if caught. New hoses for the overboard discharge and the marina pump-out were fitted to the holding tank, which is fiberglassed into the bilge.

This is an excellent upgrade to Fiddler that will last a very long time and make cruising more enjoyable, especially for the guests!