new saniflo macerator not pumping high enough

I have just fitted a saniplus for a bath, basin & W.C.
The thing pumps constantly when full and doesn't get anywhere.
The instructions say it can pump 5 meters vertically, my vertical pipework is just slightly more than 5 meters including allowing for 45s & bends but surely cant be the problem.

Has anyone had this before? I want to get an engineer out, but with the pipework being slightly more than stated I can guess what they'll say.

The other thing is when I fitted it, I had to re-align the outlet inside the macerator itself, to make the unit sound like it was pumping properly, could this still be the problem??

Please help, and I promise I will NEVER fit a macerator again, and will start a movement to get them banned, or shipped back to France

I had a little problem with one which I needed to pump a kitchen waste up through the loft above. That was about three metres but it could hardly do it.

You will probably find it says "up to five metres". Thuis will probably mean the available head is exactly 5 m and not a mm more!

I dont know what you mean by realligning the outlet to make it sound as if its pumping! Maybe thats your problem?

Tony

i bet it is.
on avearge a 90 degree bend adds 10 feet to the difference in a pipe run
so for every 90 degree bend you have to reduce height by 10 feet

Also as mentioned it probably says up to 5m in head height. The question is how much will it flow at 5m

Pond pumps will say pumps up to x head, but if you then look at the pump flow graph yes it will pump to x height, but the amount of flow is considerably less than at say 1/4 of the max head height



look at this one i just borrowed

look at the green line

at 3 feet it pumps 7000 litres / hour, but at 12 feet it only pumps just over 1,000 litres an hour, some difference

You will either have to make a lower, "less bent" vertical run, or insatll a 2nd macerator halfway up, one feeding to the other, but thats not a good idea

now you know why plumbers etc hate them, and yours is not yet full of "brown stuff"


only other thing is diameter of pipe, is it as big as you can use?

What size discharge pipe are you using 22 or 32mm ? also whats the horizontal run as the longer the horizontal distance the less head it will pump to. And each elbow reduces the height by 50cm.

Jason

The entire run is in 22mm copper, the horizontal run is around 8 metres which should be fine as 10 metres is allowed when using a 5 metre vertical lift.

What is most annoying is not being able to rule out the 5 metre vertical run issue, after allowing 50 cm for each bend on the lift it works out at 5.2 metres
I was hoping someone had fitted one that had managed a 6 metre lift and that saniflo were just covering themselves with this statement, surely this must allow for pump ageing etc. like when the pump is reaching the end of its
life and cant manage to deal with the payload!

I had once fitted a sump pump for a washing machine that couldn't deal with a 3 metre lift, this turned turned out to be a faulty pump that was sorted when the engineer came out. I'll be ringing saniflo monday and hopefully this is the same problem, but I can just picture them measuring the lift and refusing to help, over 200mm.