I was wondering how much it cost or how difficult it was to do if you did it yourself.
I’m looking to install a toilet in the basement next to the home office.
So long as there is a powerpoint nearby then no problem.
It is important to flush them at least once a day which may not be practical if it is in the basement
I don’t know how that works with holidays
I’m not sure it is legal to install such a thing in Switzerland. If I understand this system correctly, the chopped faeces (and paper) will be flushed out through any normal pipe, like the sink drain?
I would ask about this first, as even kitchen waste disposers (the thing that chops anything you put through your kitchen sink drain) are illegal in Switzerland.
“In Switzerland, the Water Protection Ordinance prohibits “disposing of solid and liquid waste with wastewater,”[10] and thus the use of kitchen waste disposers.”
I suspect what goes down the toilet pipes here goes a different way. (It is actually not allowed to flush food down the toilet either).
Found this on pro and cons and they also mention under point 8 that you need to check about the law in the community.
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There’s no reason at all that the waste could not be routed to a toilet pipe, but in many places they are not actually separated. I know that ours all go into the same sewer at a junction box a few metres from the house (which was damaged during some building work a few years back, which is how I know).
Looking at this another way, considering how it is recommended to get up and move around every half hour or so when sitting at a desk, is having a toilet on the next floor such a bad thing?
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It’s more for my parents to have their own private bathroom when they come to visit.
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I know two people who had one - in roof conversions in existing houses.
This was in the UK so regulations are probably different so I can’t comment on the legal aspects of having one here but they both seemed to always have problems with them and the rule in both households was to only ever use them to pee as they got blocked so easily.
Seemed more trouble than they were worth although at the time of installation, they probably were the cheapest and easiest option.
Good point. The toilet in my current job office is at least 50m from the desk. Maybe the motivation is not distance, but availability.
Anyway, there are sensors, grinder, pump, flow under pressure, electricity. Is there an alternate location where a complicate system is not needed? Gravity always works.
I had one in a house in the UK many years ago. Also in an office building.
The question is not “Will it block up/break down” but “When will it…”
Some of the previous answerers saying that the detritus goes into normal diameter waste water pipework (which is illegal here), may be slighlty misinterpreting the situation - actually the Sanflo is SPECIFICALLY designed to ALLOW the detritus to go through such diameter pipework, BUT that pipe must be installed specifically for that purpose and MUST empty into the foul water sewer. Doing it otherwise is pretty much illegal anywhere with hygene standards.
Based on personal experience, if you can possibly avoid it, avoid. If it’s your only solution, just be aware that they block/break more often than you’d like, at most inconvenient times, and most plumbers HATE fixing them, because it is literally the shittiest job ever.
Kind regards
Ian
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My mum had one installed years ago as it was the only way she could have a downstairs toilet in her house.
As others have said you had to be very careful with how you used it as it was very prone to blocking.
It was useful for her after her hip replacement as she didn’t have to go upstairs to the loo every time she needed a pee.
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I remember reading a lot of complaints. A landlord once foolishly installed one. Every time there was a new tenant, he’d need to do some repair as inevitably, they’d avoid instructions and start to throw cotton buds in there etc.
We have one in the holiday home in Italy. Don’t do it.
- You need to flush it daily to keep it from drying out and smelling
- if your poop is too hard, it jams
- if your toilet paper is too thick, it jams
- if you put too much paper, it jams
- if it jams, you need to take it apart - with the associated faeces and whatnot, clean it out, and reassemble… expect sewage pretty much everywhere
When we first got it installed, it lasted about a week before the family rule became: urine only. Then after a few visits/holidays, it’s just not used at all (the rule became: if it jams after you use it, you need to unblock it and then clean the bathroom floor… so no-one uses it).
I don’t know about the Swiss legalities, but the practicalities made it pointless for us.
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Sounds like a simple No Toilet Paper rule would suffice for the most part.
I’m quite used to this from various holidays around the world, and especially from sailing, and it’s nothing like as nasty as you might think to just have a plastic bag (we’d always take scented nappy sacks) to put your used paper in.
I had my doubts before, but I think I’m convinced now. No saniflo.
oh goodie, you don’t need to break the law here then.
My sister is staying with me over the weekend, she’s just spent a week in an old hotel in French Alsace. She said the rooms had been made soundproof because the en-suites all had these loos. I stayed in hotel in York about 35 years ago that had one in the en-suite and the racket was awful.
A friend has one downstairs off a utility room in her house, she says peeing only to anyone needing to use it 
No need for that tone, esp. since this is wrong. There is nothing illegal about saniflo.
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Just a thought - we have a loo in our basement - I don’t think it was originally there but was easy to install as the sewer pipe from the rest of the house basically runs right next to it in the floor so it just needed a short piece of connecting pipe, and a water supply of course.
Depending on where your pipes run, a real toilet may be not so difficult or expensive as you thought.
There are also composting toilets which are supposed to be low maintenance.
I would expect that if there were an accessible sewer pipe in the basement Phil would probably have already seen it. Depending on all sorts of factors, age, location, type, a lot of buildings may have their drain pipes completely enclosed within the floors and walls, or on the outside of the building, which used to be common in the UK, for example.