up flush toilet

[Bob Rufener]

Our son is considering buying a house that could use a second bathroom on the lower level. The house has a septic system and the sewer pipe is not below floor level. I would assume he would have to go with an upflush toilet system. I'm wondering if any Creekers have one of these and, if so, some +'s and-"s of the system. Also, about how much are these systems and is it worth the expense? Thanks for any help.

[Matt Meiser]

I don't have one, but I used to have a co-worker who jointly owned the family cottage with brothers, sisters, and cousins. They had one of the ones where the toilet mounts on top. He said it had been trouble free and saw pretty heavy use as there were people there nearly every weekend, sometimes a lot of people if multiple families were there. I'd asked because we are in a similar situation as far as the septic, though we don't need the bathroom until we finish the basement "someday."

[Joe Chritz]

My basement is plumbed with a sewage ejector and a pit. They are common items and I think I got mine from the BORG. It works well and if installed correctly will give many years of trouble free service.

An upflush is just a small ejector built into a toilet, apparently some can have the sink drained into them as well but I haven't used one.

The pit and ejector are easy to install. Just dig a hole, run the pipes into the pit and install the ejector and a couple pipes, one for waste one for venting.

Joe

[Joe Pelonio]

I did one at a previous home, in the basement. Dug a hole and bought a tank and sewage pump, like a sump pump but for solids, and as Joe said used a vent and a pipe to the sewer line nearby. I think the whole thing cost under $500 (excluding toilet) but that was 1990.

[Don Abele]

Bob, when I remodeled my downstairs last year I put in a full bath and laundry room. I'm on city sewer (after I converted two years ago) and my septic pipe comes in flush with the basement floor.

I installed a 55 gallon, heavy-duty plastic drum and a 1 HP ejector pump (rated at 50% continuous duty and 20 feet of vertical lift). It works very well.

Some words of caution though. My particular pump does not have a grinder (that almost doubles the cost of the pump). It'll handle "solid" human waste but doesn't like it when one of the kids flush a baby wipe down the pipes (DAMHIKT). Also, you MUST have an alarm system. If the pump fails and you keep flushing into it...:eek:...On my system I have an alarm that sounds at about 35 gallons (the pump normally comes on at about 20 gallons). The alarms sounds in the laundry room and bathroom alerting you not to use them any more. I wanted a battery back-up system but it cost as much as the whole system.

I got mine from a plumbing wholesale place and paid about $750 for everything (drum, pump, alarm, and all piping). If you can do general plumbing, you can install one.

Be well,

Doc

[Eric DeSilva]

My brother had an ejector system in the basement of his house in Boston installed by a reputable plumber. Musta had a defective pipe, however, because it, well, ejected sewage all over the place. The plumber was a stand up guy and fixed it, said he had installed them all over the place and never seen a failure like that. Then again, my brother still got stuck with the clean up.

So, low probability of failure, but seriously high ugly factor in the event of failure...

[Rich Engelhardt]

Hello,
We have what's called a back flush in our downstairs bathroom.
The outlet is about 9" above floor level.
That may work for what you need.

Ours ran about $500.

Compared to the new underpowered so called water savers (how can anything that requires being flushed three times save on anything?), it's worth every penny.

[Bob Rufener]

Thanks to everyone for the inputs. The barrel, pump system seems like a logical way to go. It appears that a sink, shower drain and toilet could be added with no problems. We may have to cut out some concrete for the drains. We were concerned this would be a really expensive item but it is not nearly as bad as we thought.