Why does my house have a SaniFlo and is it going to be possible to remove it?

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Just bought a house. Originally bungalow with upstairs dormer conversion completed in 2011. It has SaniFlo for the upstairs bathroom (en suite and shower room). We knew it had them and thought we'd just have to see how they went and hopefully replace them at some point. One is fine but the other is terrible, blocked up three times already and as it's in the shower room means we cannot shower when it's blocked. Last two times it fixed itself (eventually drained) but this time has not done so.

What we want to understand is why was the SaniFlo put in in the first place, and is it possible to redo the bathroom (something we want to do anyway) to include a normal toilet? I had a builder round for a different job and mentioned it to him, he had a look and couldn't understand why the SaniFlo was added and not a normal toilet.

This is the bathroom layout, with a small access cupboard behind the toilet:

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You can see the SaniFlo pipe going off out to the back of the house:

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Comes out of the back of our house and is pinned down the side into our soil stack. The stack sits much further out from the rest of the house due to the fact there is a 1970s extension on the back of the property, and the drains were moved at that time (as evidenced by some old drawings we discovered). Offending bathroom window is on the left upstairs:

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Any ideas why the SaniFlo was added? My guess is soil stack too far away from the house? Any ideas on how to change that? We'd like to, in the future, build an extension to replace an old conservatory that would fill in this "nook" where the SaniFlo pipes emerge from.
 
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Too many 90° bends? I have just two bends on mine between the Saniflo and the soil pipe. Done in copper with bent/swept bends. Has never blocked up in nearly twenty years.
 
Saniflo is normally only used when there isn't a natural path to a stack or the waste has to be pumped uphill. I presume it would be the former with your install.

Yes, no real reason why a stack couldn't be incorporated but that all comes down to where your stack/drains are and what it would take to run a outflow to it.
 
I included a picture of the stack and the V pipes going to it in my post. Was hoping someone might be able to tell me if it seems possible.
 
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If you are unable to do away with it then either have it cleaned and serviced or replaced. The one in the photo is quite old and if taking waste from toilet, basin & shower then it will need a service at best, however on the plus side access to it looks good.
Running 4" pipe with a slope over distance is not always easy and can cost.
 
Without knowing where the bathroom is and what the path would be it's almost impossible to tell you.

Taking it as it is in the pic with the bathroom being the top left room and if an extension was to fill the space in front of that current extension, a main foul drain would need to created on the other side of that extension, as part of that work then a soil pipe could be run down the gable end from the bathroom and connect into a new chamber situated at that side of the building. What's in the extension currently would need to be considered to hook into that new setup.

That's all obviously down to what's round there and what the ground is like, where the main sewer currently is, can groundworks be performed to sink a chamber in and run a main pipe to the sewer etc. Loads to look at/survey, not something that can really decided remotely on a forum TBH.
 
In your picture of the outside - into what does the surface water drain?

The outlet pipe of the Saniflow doesn't seem to be well supported. I'll agree with questioning the number of bends - the straightest run possible really does help.

Do you have 2 toilets feeding into the saniflow unit. Where does the second one come from.

Is there 'Fall' on the total length of the outlet pipe so water drains away completely (there should only be ONE up outlet pipe - immediately above the saniflow unit).

How much toilet paper is going into the unit - maybe buy, install and use a 'Shattaff' (Douce). Also not widely known but one of the well advertised 'soft' toilet paper's causes problems due to its structure - the unit doesn't chop it properly. 'White mice' or similar are not being disposed of in the unit (but those items usually stop the macerator {cutter blade} from working).
 
I think you're right that it's probably old and not the best. Thing is, because it's the family bathroom and also the guest bathroom we really would just like to do away with it entirely. We can stomach the one in the en suite, as it's more powerful and also we know how to treat it. Guests + children can be more difficult to teach! I am wondering if we can maybe get an interim fix to last a few months and then we have more time to come up with a proper plan to remove it. I just feel like there must be a way.
 

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