www.iFourWinns.com

Can anyone enlighten me what the vacu flush system is? My 238 has a toilet that I have to pump a button. Is that it or is there something else? I'm now wondering if I should up grade the Head!!

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Alexj



1995 Four Winns Horizon 190
OMC 5.0 RL

A Vaqcuflush head consists of a porcelain head but it's hooked to a small tank witha vacumn pump. The vacumn is used to evacuate the bowl to the holding tank. The nice thing about a vacuflush toilet is that it uses water from your potable tank as oposed to raw water. No raw water, no critters to make a stink.

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Jvalich
http://www.badcock.com

'04 FW 288 Vista "Mental Floss"

A Vacuflush head consists of a porcelain head but it's hooked to a small tank witha vacumn pump. The vacumn is used to evacuate the bowl to the holding tank. The nice thing about a vacuflush toilet is that it uses water from your potable tank as oposed to raw water. No raw water, no critters to make a stink.

_________________
Jvalich
http://www.badcock.com

'04 FW 288 Vista "Mental Floss"

Is the flush automatic ? No pumping?

_________________
Alexj



1995 Four Winns Horizon 190
OMC 5.0 RL

The vacu-flush in our 348 vista works by doing two things; enabled the pump and flap the pedal. The vacuum pump switch is near the sink, along with the fan and light switches. You generally don't leave the pump on all the time as it's a bit noisy and the pressure of a vacuum constantly against the seals isn't all that good an idea.

You use the toilet as usual and then just push down on the pedal to flush it. If you want a little more water in the bowl you can use your foot to raise the pedal slightly and it'll add water. The only 'trick' to using it is to release the pedal quickly. Let it "slam" the drain shut. Don't slowly raise the pedal. This sort of runs contrary to what people might think about using it. If you only raise the pedal slowly there's a chance the seal won't seat properly.

Then just remember to turn off the vacuum switch, otherwise it'll keep trying to maintain a vacuum and (hours later) eventually pull hard enough to make the seal leak. Most folks understand using it.

Generally when there's guests aboard I ask they let me know if/when they need to use the head and take care of the vacuum pump switch for them. Then just let them know to use ONLY the supplied toilet paper and put NO other trash down the bowl, pointing out some small bathroom-size trash bags in the cabinet below the roll of toilet paper. Sometime later I flush it again, flapping the pedal up hard, just to be sure.

Some folks might find it a bit 'uncomfortable' to tell people how to use the toilet. But if you don't, and it gets screwed up, you'll feel a lot MORE uncomfortable dealing with the 'mess'.

The most important things to watch out for are not putting ANYTHING other than normal human waste and approved toilet paper down it, and not overfilling the waste tank. If you use normal toilet paper it won't break down properly and it'll clog the tank. You do NOT want to have to deal with unclogging a toilet in a boat. If you let the waste tank get overfilled there's a chance it'll clog the paper filter. If the paper filter gets wet because of overfilling it won't let the system drain properly during the next pump-out. This can result in collapsing a hose or the tank. Again, not good things to have happen. If at some point you smell a really, really BAD smell coming from the waste tank vent line you may be dealing with a saturated filter. You probably do not want to risk pumping it out until you replace that filter (our boat came with a spare). I now keep much closer track of how often the head gets used and pump it out every time I'm at the fuel dock.

All of this is WORLDS better than using the old pump style. If you're presented with the option to go with the vacu-flush, TAKE IT.