Look at some marine toilets. Some have a macerator without the pump. They are generally not very aesthetically pleasing for a home, tho.

https://www.hodgesmarine.com/dom9108836053-dometic-masterflush-7260-macerator-toilet-12v.html

Also for a standard home macerating toilet, there really isn't any reason you can't pump it down. Typically those exit through the wall behind the toilet, and there's no reason it has to go up you can just redirect it down.

Edit: 🙄

If you pump down, gravity and siphoning will prevent the check valve from closing of it is a flap style. It needs to eject into a larger vented pipe above pump level to prevent the siphon. An open check valve would allow sewer gas to enter.

Doesn't want to make things expensive or complicated.

Decides to just add bathroom.

LOL

I would hope he properly vents it and there should still be water in the bowl to seal the gases out.

This is interesting. I will be appropriately venting. Seems like that would be the only issue. Also looks like I can hide the box in the wall on some of the models.

OP is not just talking about going to 2", they are talking about going to a SHARED 2" line which seems particularly bad.

A 2" line is less than half the capacity of a 3" line. Add in a sink or shower or something else draining when you flush and you are going to have a bad time.

Edit: 🙄

If you can’t afford to do it right you can’t afford to do it at all. That toilet will back up it will flood and then you will have to demo out the basement ceiling to repair the damage. One way or another the work will have to be done.

Find your 3” or 4” line and do it right, pull a permit and have it added to the value of your house. It will make your home more valuable in the long run.

People that don't understand shit should not try to plumb their own toilet...

^^^^ This guy fibers

Macerators are a pain in the ass. It will break down more than a traditional toilet. Period. And be more expensive to fix. You CAN do what you’re proposing, but I’m here to tell you you shouldn’t.

I’m not sure it is as big of a deal as people make it out to be. A 2 inch line at a decent slope is in some ways better because the smaller diameter will have a higher water level and thus push the solids along better. Of course at the end of the day it comes down to code, get the proper permits, do it to code and you won’t have to scramble to find and engineer and pull stuff apart in 10 years when you sell and the buyers bank balks on loaning money on a house with unpermitted work.

If it’s under the floor, hire a pro.

Why add value to the house only to increase tax burden while living there?

Why not wait till the right time for the higher value to be recognized by an appraisal when selling in the future?

I’m not saying to not pull a permit, I’m saying to downplay the increased value.

In 2017 my realtor told me that adding a 3/4 bath to my 4br 1 bath house would increase the value by $3500

What's your water flow rate? Do you ever take baths? How many gallons does your toilet flush? What fixtures are being drained into OPs line? What's their water flow rate? Etc, etc. Yes, as you say, code is designed to make sure it works regardless of the situation, but nowhere in this thread is there enough information to determine whether something less than code is ok. Not to mention the challenges ever selling if a prospective buyer figures out this is an unpermitted bathroom that doesn't meet code.

If it involves liquid or electrical*

If you use a 2” pipe - you might need a poop knife more often that not.

Jokes aside - do the 3” - if you have any sort of code / COO that you need to follow should you sell the house you may have to do things right anyways.

It’s not as simple as just pulling the permit or adding the value right before you sell. The jurisdiction can make you open all the walls to verify sworn was done to code, impose fines, and if codes changed they can make you update the work to the new codes. Any good realtor will pull a history of work on a property so it’s not like you can sell your 2 bath house with 3 bathrooms unless it’s documented.

Yes, a macerator and pump will work. I'm building a restaurant right now and the city install a macerator pump along with a 2" line.

I’ve worked on tons of different properties and I’ve never seen a toilet plumbed to 2” drain pipe. I personally wouldn’t go smaller than 3”.

All the cities and counties by me make you get an affidavit signed and recorded by a plumber, electrician, engineer, etc (depending on improvement). So you can find unscrupulous “professionals” that will sign something just based on your testimony for relatively cheap. I know a few people that will do that but I’d never recommend them, cause that’d be a abdication of my professional duty IMO. Classic saying in my field is “there are engineers that’d stamp a dog turd for a buck”

Coming from a plumbing company that refuses to work on macerators. DON'T DO IT!

u/plumber_pete

It's literally against code to be smaller than 3" the flange is 3" you're not allowed to EVER reduce size in sanitary drainage.

I know. The reality is 90% of homes in the US aren’t to code though.

I think that assumption is a little high lol you need plumbing inspections to pass to grant occupancy in New builds

Idk man, water supply is pretty easy. You just cut it and throw the new stuff on. Electric isn't hard, but I wouldn't recommend diy for most people.

Out of curiosity could i ask why? I'm a plumber but I do mostly new construction so I never deal with them.

>who don't understand physics and shit.

Or in this case the physics OF shit.

>I know you typically need at least a 3" pipe for sewage

Just a little context on this statement, i.e. "at least" often a 4" pipe is problematic because it's too big and shit gets stuck to the sides and there isn't enough water flow with newer efficient toilets to fill the pipe and flush it out. So 3" is like the happy medium, rather than a bare minimum.

I have no idea about using a 2" pipe for this purpose so can't weigh in on that. What does the code say?

Yup

Yeah that $35 a year in taxes is a real killer.

If you flush a turd into a 2” pipe it will immediately block. Not only that, the toilet itself just will not flush

I don’t doubt it at all. lol.

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Composting toilet?

As a marine engineer we do this type stuff, it's not as bad as people are saying. Break down every 5-10 years. Plumbers feel this way because they only show up and fix the broken ones, I see them work year after year only needing occasional repair.

Dumb question but is a vacuume toilet out of the question? Those work really well for a long time.

When they break - and they do break - it's brutal. But if it's the only way to do it, it's not the worst thing in the world. You just need to be prepared to deal with serious disgustingness when it inevitably bites the dust. You also need a good leak detector on the floor near the macerator. I've been through 3 Saniflos in 9 years and I've switched to the Chinese knock offs from Amazon now - but I'm only a few months in, so I can't speak to whether paying 1/3 actually makes sense yet... This is with small kids, who don't always treat it the way it should be treated...

Converted my 2nd home into an Airbnb. I’ve replaced the macerator twice in two years

the cheapest way to fix your problem would probably be a post to r/dietaryfiber

Never do any work anywhere please. These ideas are beyond bad

Exactly

Plumbing codes change from state to state. What you want to do in a violation of code in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. In these three states you have to use gravity and a three inch pipe. You may only use a grinder pump to lift sewage from the basement. Even then the toilet will drain by 3 inch pipe into as pit that contains the grinder pump.

How often do you use it?

Daily by 2 kids.

Saniflo makes a “commercial” grade toilet. Expensive but might be worth it

Check out RV supply stores, they may have what you need, but then you will have to wire for 12v.

>A quick Google search brought up macerator pumps so I thought I'd post and get some opinions.

Macerator pumps are most commonly used for Up-Flush (or sub sewer main) toilets. They are expensive, and not an easy installation, especially if you don't have electrical close to where the macerating unit is going to be.

Yeah, I've had to pump out a unit to remove a bottle cap that a young kid flushed. It smelled worse than death, and I'm sure greatly reduced the life of the unit.

I've installed 3 of them now. It's a pain in the ass, and we have NEVER guaranteed the unit. I can't believe that someone would flippantly want to install one due to laziness. They should be a last resort.

I'm also amazed that OP is willing to try and take a shortcut when it comes to something that could literally flood your bathroom/house with shit water.

Are up-flush units not legal in those states?

Do your self a favor for when you sell the house. If no 2” Toilet line at that time then you will very likely have to put in the proper line.

You can use them only when it is required by elevation. Usually remodels, on new construction it is preferable to install a pit for ease of maintenance. The up flushes incorporate a tank above the floor. So when you go to fix the grinder pump you have a full tank of shit sitting in your bathroom. A pit you can install any place in your basement where it is convenient.

Whatever you do, it'd be nice to get a 1 year update if you don't mind. I wonder how it'll work out. But I will recommend you definitely use a bidet so nobody flushes paper

"Hey if I do this thing the cheap shitty way will the result be cheap and shitty? Or are the laws of physics different at my house because my money is the special kind that you don't have to spend on stuff that's not cool?"

That's how I'm reading your question. It is a stupid one.

Cope

That’s a bold assumption. At the time of building most of them probably were mostly up to their local codes. Did a few get through inspection due to bad inspectors, bad/lazy tradesmen, etc. Sure. But 90%?

I have a dumb question for you. Isn’t shit and piss just dumped into the ocean? Or is it stored and removed when ships dock? Seems your post indicates the latter which I find surprising for some reason.

Nope didn't say either of these things but hey thanks for the input

I didn't say I can't afford it. Just asking about a workaround.

Hey really constructive stuff, keep up the good work.

Yeah, I've installed a few of them in basement renovations. We've always urged folks to get the extension pipe so that the tank can reside on the other side of a wall behind the toilet.

The results could be shocking.

It was just an exaggeration. There is however a large portion of homes that are not up to code and that’s just part of reality. I’ve seen it with my own eyes even on brand new houses.

Yea, we have a lot of rules, man. Like if every boat did this in a port, it would be really unsanitary, so there's rules about when and where you can pump, but it all goes into one of three types of holding tanks, then pumped based on where we are, gray water can't even go overboard in Port because of detergents and soaps. In fact a type 1 marine sanitation device (also known as an MSD) with vacuum lines, the same overboarding centrifugal pump used to overboard, has valving and guages that run the poo water through whats known as an educator to build vacuum, we keep cigars on board just for finding vacuum leaks.

Marine engineers are a strange trive because of limited people on the boat, we have to be plumbers, electricians with power generation knowlage, diesel plants, boilers and in order to be competent were HEAVLY trained. I'm sure I'm just tooting my own horn but I like to think of us as maybe special forces of the trades, licensed in all and when we're not on the boat, we're always training, electronics? Networks.

It's dangerous to go deep sea and not have spare parts and rigorously trained engineers.

Sorry, not sorry. It's a fuckin dumb question.

I've literally taken shits that could answer this question. Empirically... not like by deduction.

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The company I work for is all residential service, some minor commercial work. The 2 or 3 times we worked on these was awful. Best way I can put it, imagine shitting into a garburator to break everthing down. Now imagine the garburator gets clogged. You clean the waste directly out of the garburator to unclog it. You do the exact same with macerators.

I have only seen my guys so disgusted that badly by one other thing and that was at a slaughterhouse that had cow ears stuck in the pipes.

I've heard some slaughterhouse horror stories, if it's anything close to that I'm very on board with your recommendation. Thx

Thanks