New head-Raritan Elegance or Fresh Head?

[Bill O]

One additional comment on the Elegance vs the Fresh Head bowl design. The Elegance has a much shallower bowl and in most cases isn't an issue especially if faced fore/aft. We were on a delivery of a newer Hylas 56 and heeled over, the bowl contents came sloshing out. Major clean up on aisle 9!
The bowl on the Fresh Head is steeper and we've never come close to having this problem on our boat.
Based on our experiences it makes looking at the fine design details an important consideration when making purchases. Before it wouldn't have crossed my mind that there was any possible issue w/bowl design.


Bill O

[skipper53]

How much more water goes into the holding tank with an electric head vs a manual toilet pumping just enough to clear the bowl?

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by Dougtiff

Having both manual and electric, my experience has been, the electric is easier to repair than the manual, my initial thought was, " it would be easier to obtain manual parts, other than the other", but in this day and age, one can pretty much have parts shipped anywhere on the planet.

Try to find a car with manual windows now.
Electric is really simpler and easier “cheaper” to install than manual, so crank up windows are like rotary dial phones.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by skipper53

How much more water goes into the holding tank with an electric head vs a manual toilet pumping just enough to clear the bowl?

Depends on how long you hold the flush button down, or how you program the Smart flush control.

If you just clear the bowl. That means the lines are full of the waste, so expect them to permeate sooner

[Dockhead]

I have had various Jabsco and Raritan toilets in various boats, and never loved any of them.



The Raritan manual toilet in my last boat was far better to use than the Jabsco manual ones I had in other boats, but mostly just because it had a lever on the flush pump, rather than the awkward push-pull handle on the Jabsco. In terms of reliability -- about the same -- both pretty flimsy. Good thing (maybe only good thing) about the classical Jabsco manual toilet is that they are so cheap, that you can easily carry a complete spare (or even two), and just pop it off and swap it in case of any trouble.



I currently have Jabsco electric conversion, the really noisy one, in my forward heads, and Raritan Sea Era in my after heads.


The Jabsco conversions have given various problems (used to have them in both heads), and are incredibly noisy, but they are heavy and robust, and you can empty the toilet separately from pumping water in. The unit in my forward heads packed it in last summer, and so this spring I replaced it. I chose to buy another Jabsco despite the various issues.


I have a Raritan Sea Era in my own, after heads. It is a cheap Chinese toy compared to the much heavier and more serious Jabsco. And it disintegrated itself once due to the very flimsy plastic parts flexing -- apparently common problem with them. Fortunately I had an entire spare unit on board (I had bought two of them intending to convert both toilets).


I can't recommend the Sea Era at all; the Jabsco is a much better piece of equipment, but it has its own issues and I can't really recommend it, either.



The Raritan Elegance may be better (it's certainly much more expensive); I don't know. But if it was designed by the same engineers who designed the Sea Era, I would be cautious.


As to electric vs. manual -- no comparison there. Manual toilet is much easier, like 10x easier to clog, and is much harder -- like 10x harder -- to flush all the way through so that you don't have calcifying waste standing in the lines. So hard as to be almost impossible to get crew to pump a manual toilet enough. Electric toilets are the best thing since sliced bread on a boat, IMHO, ESPECIALLY if you have non-sailing guests on board you suspect might clog a manual toilet. Electric toilets macerate everything BEFORE it hits the lines, so MUCH less likely to clog anything.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

. . . If you just clear the bowl. That means the lines are full of the waste, so expect them to permeate sooner

Absolutely. You need to pump enough through to clear the LINES, not just the bowl, or you're asking for trouble. Trouble in terms of (a) calcified lines -- urine and seawater reacting; (b) permeated hoses; (c) potential clogs if paper stands in the lines. Just don't do it. I think if you are using a holding tank very often, then you may like to arrange alternative lines without the anti-syphon loop, in order to have a shorter run to the tank, requiring less flushing to clear the line.


Another thing which everyone should do is to measure how much flushing is required to get the lines cleared. I did this by flushing with the boat on the hard, with food coloring in the toilet. Time the flushing (you will be surprised how much it takes) until the water came out clear.

[peghall]

Any manual toilet can move bowl contents up to 6' in the dry mode, so unless your tank or thru-hull is a lot further than that from the toilet, you can come close to doubling the number of flushes the tank can hold if you use the dry mode to move the flush, followed by about a quart of water to rinse the hose behind it.



You can do the same thing with an electric toilet that offers a choice of flush modes...if the toilet is one that only lets you pull in water and push out bowl contents simultaneously, you can get away with "short" flushing most flushes if you flush at least a bowlful of clean water once a day. Adding water the bowl ahead of solids (use a cup from the sink if your toilet isn't one that bring in water and hold it), not only leaves a much cleaner bowl, but also does it with a lot less flush water.


--Peggie

[sailcrazy]

We had a Model K manual, and just replaced it with an Elegance. We also included a fresh water flush in the change-over. It uses minimal water, seems to flush very well, has a significant power draw but for a very short period, is NOT as quiet as I had hoped, but significantly quieter than our older electrical conversion Jabsco toilet. I would have to recommend it as a money well spent!