Type of Loo on your boat

Tranona said:
two main choices are Jabsco or Lavac. The first is very basic, but is easy and cheap to fit and maintain. The latter is more expensive and some people find the simple suction method difficult to live with.
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Significant but not all that much difference in price: Lavac (inc pump) around £200; Jabsco £130.
And if you want "easy and cheap to maintain", get a Lavac: they last years with nothing more than an occasional mild acid de-scale. Jabsco has more parts than an outboard and will cost the difference in initial price in a single service. F'rinstance see recent thread "How long do your joker valves last." And the whole bl**dy thing is held together with self-tappers.

Do some people really struggle with suction? How do they eat spaghetti? ;)
 
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macd said:
Significant but not all that much difference in price: Lavac (inc pump) around £200; Jabsco £130.
And if you want "easy and cheap to maintain", get a Lavac: they last years with nothing more than an occasional mild acid de-scale. Jabsco has more parts than an outboard and will cost the difference in initial price in a single service. F'rinstance see recent thread "How long do your joker valves last." And the whole bl**dy thing is held together with self-tappers.

Do some people really struggle with suction? How do they eat spaghetti? ;)
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Not sure where you get your prices from. Jabsco are readily available from all major chandlers at £100, half the price of a Lavac. As for servicing. It is not held together with self tappers. The threads are moulded into the housings and if you are careful to locate the screws properly and not just bash them in with a power drill they work fine. A complete replacement pump is £60 and what many of us do is keep a spare pump to swap and clean /replace seals, valves etc at leisure.

I have both types, and although i admire the simplicity of the Lavac, I would not change a Jabsco if it was already fitted to a boat.
 
Hi blue,

At last we have a proper gentleman on the blog. Only chavs call it a toilet. It's a class thing. When I was at Eton (joke) we called it the bog...never the toilet.

It's easy to tell the officer class from the plebs......
 
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TQA said:
I have 2 Raritan PH II heads on my boat. I don't know how old they are but they could be original to the boat and thus 34 years old.

Still trucking and pumping the s**t.

Capn Fatty speaks highly of this model as well.

MIND YOU IF BUYING NEW SIT DOWN BEFORE PRICING THEM.
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+1. Our boat is 12 years old, we have had it 4 years. It has a Raritan in the heads which -I'm touching wood-has been the best marine toilet I have had experience of. We have a service kit on board but so far it keeps on pumping. No leaks, pretty quiet and easy to work. A spash of cooking oil every now and again is all the maintenance it gets.
 
Tranona said:
Not sure where you get your prices from. Jabsco are readily available from all major chandlers at £100, half the price of a Lavac. As for servicing. It is not held together with self tappers. The threads are moulded into the housings and if you are careful to locate the screws properly and not just bash them in with a power drill they work fine. A complete replacement pump is £60 and what many of us do is keep a spare pump to swap and clean /replace seals, valves etc at leisure.

I have both types, and although i admire the simplicity of the Lavac, I would not change a Jabsco if it was already fitted to a boat.
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I got the figures from a well-known on-line chandler. The search obviously was not as exhaustive as if I'd been buying.

Bash them in with a power drill? As if I would...and would that there were room to do so ;)

Obviously we differ, and that's fine...and long may your Jabscos work. A long thread a few years ago asking members to nominate their preferred loo cam out around 9:1 in favour of Lavac. Normally I'm in a minority, but on that occasion, not.
 
macd said:
I got the figures from a well-known on-line chandler. The search obviously was not as exhaustive as if I'd been buying.

Bash them in with a power drill? As if I would...and would that there were room to do so ;)

Obviously we differ, and that's fine...and long may your Jabscos work. A long thread a few years ago asking members to nominate their preferred loo cam out around 9:1 in favour of Lavac. Normally I'm in a minority, but on that occasion, not.
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I would be in the majority on this and choose a Lavac when I had the choice. My Jabsco came with the new boat in 2001 and did 7 season's chartering with the original toilet with only routine servicing. Five years later have just fitted a new pump and the old one is still good with a new flap valve and joker. Threads are still clear in the mouldings - and yes, people commonly take the top off with a power driver as the threads are long and it is easy to access. OK undoing, but not so good screwing in as it is easy to tear the threads up.

So based on that experience would not take a Jabsco installation out, but starting from scratch (as with the other boat) would choose a Lavac.
 
Having very little space to fit a holding tank, we've decided to fit a Nature's Head composting toilet, although we've yet to bite the bullet and get the wallet out! Does anyone have any experience of these? Although they have a fair number of cons (not least of all the price!), they do seem to solve the space problem on a smaller boat.
 
changeman said:
Never noticed any smell in France or Belgium. I believe the wastes quickly break down so not a problem.
The water is the usual dirty brown, same as the UK that has a strict policy on waste discharge.
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Very true, fish have no holding tanks and there are always lots of them. When I had a UK canal hirefleet there was nobody using holding tanks and the canal water hasn't changed colour since.

When we were based in Ibiza during the 70s the town drains all seemed to empty into the port and that certainly had an interesting smell in hot weather, however once out of the harbour the water was fine and clear.
 
What type of loo

We recently purchased a Dometic personal toilet for our 14 meter sailboat. This was made necessary as we now cruise the intra coastal waterway after 13 years of cruising the Med and west coast of Europe.
We have now learned that we should have started using the Dometic or similar product long ago. We bought the unit with the largest capacity flush tank and holding cartridge. We have learned how to use it properly so we don't have any leaking or smell. We will now buy a second unit and are in the process of sealing off the through hulls for both the fore and aft heads and are getting rid of both marine toilets. We will have a combined holding capacity for about ten days. We can dump the cartridge at any toilet shore side or at sea. We have no seals, valves, etc that require maintenance. When the units pack it in we will buy another as they are cheaper than any marine toilet. They use fresh water or sea water and are much more sanitary and cleaner and can be located where any marine toilet used to fit.
We are very pleased with our recent change and are completely clear of any regulations as we don't connect to the sea.
Enjoy the time that you would otherwise be fixing cleaning or maintaining your marine toilets.
Join the latest product availability and be green, or brown if you prefer.
 
Hi sun,

Nice sentiment, but it's not much fun emptying all that poo. I have a Porta potty but I have stopped using it especially when guests are on board. What a hassle, and it's always full last thing at night, when its raining!!
 
On my Albin Vega there is a fitted Lavac but the space is limited for comfortable use.I also use a thetford porta pottie which for N0 1 is the right height for use whilst kneeling,BUT I find it too low for err NO2 to this effectI am outing the lavac and creating a two tier base for the porta pot between the forward bunks.......a small alter can be affixed whilst in NO1 mode in dire straits..
 
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