We installed a macerating toilet (also called upflush toilet) in our accessory dwelling unit so the tenant could have a personal bathroom without having to share. The location of this bathroom was far back on the property which sat slightly below the level of where the property’s sewage drain is. Therefore a normal flush toilet, which uses gravity to drop waste into the drain, was not going to get the job done. However, an upflush toilet uses a sump pump together with a “grinder” to break down solids and pump waste out thus making it a great solution for my bathroom location.
Most Bay Area home owners are not familiar with sump pumps due to homes not being built with basements because of the frequency of earthquakes. A sump pump is normally located in the basement of a home to pump rain water out of the basin which naturally collects at the lowest point of the foundation.
When making a decision about a property project, I always think of 3x things: cost, difficulty (to install), and maintenance. I thought of a few possible solutions for this bathroom:
| # | Possible Solutions | Cost | Difficulty | Maintenance |
| 1 | extend sewage to reach | high | high | low |
| 2 | install septic tank in ground | high | high | high |
| 3 | install macerating toilet | high | low | low |
| 4 | relocate the bathroom | tbd | tbd | tbd |
Cost
Extending the existing sewage back further in the property to reach the location of where I wanted to install my bathroom would have cost $2,000 to $5,000 labor plus material (copper pipes, water lines, PVC).
An upflush macerating toilet is a better option in my opinion than having to dig a giant hole in the backyard to install a septic tank which requires pumping out the waste regularly. Yuck. A septic tank for 1 bathroom is less than $1,000 however I did not like the annual cost of having to pay $200 to regularly clean out the tank.
I ended up purchasing the Saniflo SaniBEST: Macerating Upflush Toilet Kit (with Standard Bowl) from Amazon for $1230.
For this new bathroom, we wanted a shower, toilet, sink, and laundry. The SaniBest Pro has auxiliary connections for all these fixtures to drain water into its tank to be discharged.
Difficulty
The best part about an upflush macerating toilet is that there is no hole in the ground. Grey water is collected in a tank located behind the toilet and pumped out through the PVC pipes that connect back into my property’s main sewage.
Extending the property’s main sewage would have required more extensive PVC work that includes cutting a hole in the ground for a gravity flush toilet. A septic tank would have required digging a large hole in an accessible area for maintenance somewhere on the property. Not exactly a pretty sight to see a clean-out cover coming out the ground and then there is the smell.
Maintenance
Taken directly from the Saniflo manufacture’s website:
Saniflo products lasts about 10 to 15 years, if not longer. They have been tested for about 50,000 cycles, flushed 10 x a day = 3,650 flushes a year. As this was a standard test, it was stopped at 50,000 cycles, therefore they will last much longer.
Being a homeowner for over 15 years now, I have only changed toilets when remodeling a home so I am confident nothing will happen to the bowl. If my Saniflo 013 SANIBEST Grinder Pump, White ever has a problem, it will be easy to just replace the unit after 15 years of good use. I can only imagine how NOT fun it would be to dig up a septic tank and replace it after 20 years being under dirt while outside under the elements.
Noise
A few home owners have contacted me regarding the noise that an upflush macerating toilet makes. I made a couple videos of how much noise my upflush toilet makes when the toilet is flushed and when just grey water is being pumped. The pump noise lasts about 7 seconds and it makes less noise when its just grey water being collected through the auxiliary connections and being pumped out because of no grinder noise. Here is exactly my configuration:
- Saniflo 013 SANIBEST Grinder Pump, White
- Saniflo 083 Toilet Bowl Round White, One Size,
- Saniflo 005 White Insulated Toilet Tank Complete With Fill And Flush Valves, White
2 thoughts on “I Installed a Macerating Toilet in my ADU”
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Hi there, great article. I’m looking to do the same. Do you have a similar solution for the kitchen as well?
Thanks for the comment. For kitchens, if you are unable to install traditional gravity drain then Saniflo offers a lighter solution called Sanivite which discharges greywater from the sink, dishwasher, and/or laundry. The pump can fit under the sink space and is quiet with no blade activation.