I've had two V/Flush toilets
One on my previous boat, and one on my current boat..and was a dealer for years...so I'm intimately acquainted with 'em. It's an excellent system, but SeaLand's claims about it need some qualifiers: Yes it CAN be flush with as little as a pint of water...in fact, unless you turn off your fresh water system at its main breaker, that's also the least amount of water it can be flushed with. However, it doesn't macerate...the vacuum is supposed to break up solids and paper...but they end up stuck to the hosese and the inside of the vacuum tank...and that's not enough water to rinse bits of paper and solids out of the system completely. Even if you let the flush water run longer, it's such a wimpy trickle that it the only way to really clean out the hoses and the vacuum tank/generator is to regularly--at the end of every weekend (before it has a chance to sit in the hoses and ferment), or every 2-3 days if you're a live-aboard--fill the bowl all the way to the rim with water a couple of times and flush. Their claims about amperage draw can be a little misleading too. Yes--it only draws 5-6amps/flush. However, that's for 45-60 seconds after each flush...and it doesn't take into account that the slightest drop in vacuum automatically turns the pump on again for as long as it takes to re-establish the prescribed 11-13 psi. Worn seals or duckbill valves in the pump, a fitting that isn't quite tight...or even a bit of paper caught in the dome in the bottom of the bowl can run the power consumption up considerably. The vacuum tank and pump--or combined vacuum generator--are large separate components that take up valuable storage space in lockers. Finally, it's only available from "authorized V/Flush Service Centers" at list or Iist + price...and if anyone else--including you--installs it, or does ANY work on it, your warranty is void...something that isn't true of any other toilet on the market. On the plus side, it's a simple, low water use, toilet that anyone from your 4 yr old to your 70 yr old Aunt Martha who's never been on a boat before can flush. But it's been around for nearly 30 years--since the '70s when it was the Mansfield VacuFlush--and except for combining the vacuum tank and pump into the optional vacuum generator to make it fit on smaller boats that have less room for the separate parts, nothing has changed except the price. I've always liked V/Flush, and I certainly would never recommend replacing one that's in good working condition...but there has been considerable improvement in macerating toilet technology in the last few years that make the V/Flush, IMHO, obsolete...and waaaaay overpriced.
