Fitting an upstairs bathroom -cost? Saniflo?
In a property with no upstairs bathroom does anyone know what would the rough cost of a basic toilet/shower/basin Installation?
Also heard mixed reviews about macerator based systems and their reliability. Any practical experiences(!) appreciated.
Comments
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We wanted a downstairs cloakroom put in, it was too expensive and too difficult, once South West Water became involved, to join into the main piping so we had a Saniflo, it also connects to drain the water from our ensuite shower. It is much better than
I thought but I still worry about the grandchildren putting anything down it. Not sure I would want it as an only toilet. Our neighbours blocked when she was cleaning it and accidentally flushed the cleaning cloth, plumber had to be called.0 -
Cleaning cloth would not do any good in a mains drainage system either. Except it might have been Dyno-Rod if one was lucky, or local water authority digging up the street!
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My daughter lived in a property where a Saniflow had been installed upstairs for a previous disabled tennant and it was pretty temperamental and number ones advised only! Can't help you with the cost though - can you not install a regular loo? My upstairs
one has quite a long way to travel - to the wall via the back of the bath - then boxed in across a bedroom before it meets up with the downstairs one. When I bought the place in 1991 the "bathroom" was just that - bath and basin - no loo - that was outside!0 -
We have a Saniflo in an en-suite shower room (get us!
).......as Pippah says, we have a strict 'no number twos' rule, even though they are supposed to deal with that.Our first one had to be replaced, but appears not to have been installed properly.
Saniflo offer a guarantee of sorts, but use local plumbers to carry out repairs and, in our experience, will charge 'call out' fees and spurious 'it was difficult to access' fees when carrying out warranty work.
They have a poor reputation and many organisations won't use them because of high maintenance. That said, our replacement one seems to be doing fine after a few years, but isn't heavily used.
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It's difficult to estimate a cost without seeing the location and specification, are you building stud walls to seperate a section of a room off? Joiners, plasterers, plumbers tilers and electrician its going to add up unless you are into doing it yourself.
As for saniflo, yes they do work well if installed correctly. However they do make quite a noise when operating and will wake likely wake the rest of the houshold up if used at night. Reliability on the one I fitted was quite good, but when they fail they
are going to be full of you know what.After many years of good service mine failed and I took the decision to run a traditional soil pipe to the location rather than replace it. I suppose I should have done that first time round. My opinion is that is you want a bathroom or toilet in a basement
where it is genuinely impossible to use run a drain then they are okay.I understand the thinking of other posters who ban using them for 'number two's' but in reality the likely cause of failure is not handling solids but old age and shoving 'stuff' down the toilet that should't be there. I suspect there is a case for replacing
them say every seven years to mitigate the risk of failure when full, but the cost would make you weep.........a bit like replacing caravan tyres after 5 years0 -
Our friends installed one when they bought a run down property in France. The original toilet, no walls around it, was on the landing in solitary splendour, quite convenient I suppose! So they built a small shower room area including the saniflo. They've had to stick reminders to visitors above the saniflo about not putting anything down it other than loo paper and yes it makes quite a noise especially when used during the night.
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, I fitted a Saniflow Compact in our garden room(basement) nearly three years ago.Used every day as a normal 'loo'.The secret is (i believe) to have a large enough outlet/waste pipe.Mine is 60mm.Yes they DO make a noise when working on the effluent ,but be rest assured it ALL gets thoroughly mascerated.Stick to the instructions ,ie,NO panty liners/nappies/cleaning cloths etc.
Some high end luxury M/homes have a similar system as fitted in luxury boats/yachts called a " Jabsco System".They make a noise too ,BUT everything again is mascerated completly into the holding tank.
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We had one in the attic in our previous house. My OH put it in himself, making sure there were no sharp bends in the pipework, and my two sons (and their friends) used it for more then ten years without a single problem (Number 2's included). It never blocked, and we never needed to call anyone out to sort it out. He tucked the 'mincer' bit away behind stud wall, but easily accessible if there were problems, so to all intents and purposes it looked just like a normal bathroom.
Yes, it was noisy, but compared to the noise two teenage boys and their friends can make it wasn't a problem.
I can't tell you the cost, these days. even approximate, except to say that my Aunt left us £500 and we managed to get everything for two bathrooms from that (so you can tell it was a while ago!) Mind you, we did manage to buy sufficient tiles for two bathrooms for £20 - as a job lot 'bin end' so we shopped around for stuff!
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Thanks folks for all that info. It would be in an adjoining room to the bedrooms so noise (from the saniflo not the users) might be an issue to certainly factor in.
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