Automatic Litterbox Central

Greetings all,

The ideal location for my soon to be delivered CG120 is 15 feet away from the washing machine.

Obviously the pressurized fresh water is no problem, but has anyone extended the drain hose? The pump would not need any more vertical lift then regular, it just needs to run flat along the floor a little further.

Your thoughts?

JT

How far are you going up? I'm not sure the impeller on the Cat Genie hopper will make it that far and up. I'm not sure any has rated the "lift" range of the hopper/impeller setup yet...

You can git the same diameter hose from a marina shop. See my thread about the new hose.

I used a clean out trap and modded it to take the Cat Genie waste hose. I even shortened the hose to keep the flow at it's maximum rate. My setup is about half the height of the washer drain tube...so about 24" from the Cat Genie.

I'm not an expert, but pumps are rated with a given "head" height, which is the max height they can pump before the downward pressure of the water overcomes the pump's delivery pressure. Think of taking a water hose up a tower, eventually you'll reach a point where no more water comes out because the pressure at the base has reached the pressure delivered by the pump.

Unless it is an extremely long run, like 100 feet, I think you should be fine, since the vertical rise will be similar to a normal setup.

I have 12' of new hose I can hook up to my Cat Genie and see how well it performs...it's time fer a cleaning anyways. I'll be using the hose adapter from the "hook"...

One thing you might want to think about. For every inch of hose you have, you are going to have that much "sluge" sitting there in the hose. If you are going to use an extremly long hose, I would suggest that you slope the majority of it, from the back of the cat genie, to the drain, so that it drains out under normal gravity. Otherwise, you are going to have sludge sitting there in the hose.

I have placed a hook behind my cat genie, just a couple of inches above the drain height, and ran the hose up and over the hook, then to the drain; using the shortest hose length possible. This lets the majority of the hose drain out under gravity after the cat genie is done pumping.

The CG120 was delivered today!!!

I bought what I thought would be an excess of drain hose, 15 ft - turned out to be exactly the right amount to get to the drain.It is the clear hose with the braiding in it... Hopefully I can see the buildup if it is a problem.

I just used a garden hose, and the aforementioned clear hose and got it all done in a few minuets. Then fired up a manual cycle to put it through it's paces and check for leaks...

Scared the bejeebers out of me when the water came on for the first time... The garden hose was full of air and gave a loud wooosshh as it showered me in pellets. We laughed...

After that it was pretty uneventful, seemed to drain without any problems.

I will post back to this thread if it causes me any grief...

Jason

The hose is clear? Really? Wow...I guess Petnovations is kinda listening...

Got any piccies of the clear hose? Does it look anything like the one I posted about from the marine store?

The Cat Genie website still shows the opaque vanilla hose...

You misread...

I bought a length of clear hose to extend the drain...

Jason

JasonT wrote:You misread...

I bought a length of clear hose to extend the drain...

Jason

Doh... It happens.

So is it the same hose I posted up about?

It looks like this:

http://www.truco.co.za/Images/products/SB%20Hose/PVC/CR-00001.jpg

It is possible to kink it, but it resists it pretty good. I laid it along the wall nice and flat, and will keep an eye on it.

I will probably replace the whole length eventually, as not fond of the fitting reducing the ID mid length.

JT

I extended my hoses to a room next to my utility room, you can see my setup here: catgenie/topic3360.html

I've done a hose extension as well. I had a CG60 way back and gave up on it because our oldest cat of three cats refused to use it. She recently passed away and I decided to give the 120 a try. In this setup, I wanted to have it in the laundry room but the best place was actually on the opposite wall where the water and drain hookups are. So, I took the extra drain hose off my CG60 and connected it to the new CG120 drain hose to extend it around the side of the room.

From the CG120 the hose sits flat on the floor, all the way to the drain pipe on the opposite wall, then it goes up and into the drain. So far it is working out great and I don't think there are any pieces getting left in the hose, but I haven't specifically checked it. I did notice that when the pump stops that it does refill with some water, but after that really long spin at the end of a cleaning cycle it doesn't really fill back up with much of anything, and it seems to be clean water so that's okay.

I'm keeping an eye on the setup but so far looks good. If I feel like the run is too long I may switch it so that the drain hose actually runs through the floor of the laundry room through an existing hole into the basement where I can route it to the floor drain there. (That's where I had the old CG60 setup.) Not sure that'd be any good for the CG but at least gravity would pull it all out. I just have to make sure that the whole thing doesn't drain when the CG is trying to fill with water. If I end up going with this setup then I'll probably raise the hose a few feet right behind the CG to ensure this doesn't happen.

JasonT wrote:I just used a garden hose...

I wouldn't use a garden hose for the pressurized water. They're not meant to be under constant pressure for extended periods of time. There's a very good chance that it will bulge over time from all of the pressure sitting in it constantly and eventually burst, flooding your laundry room. I would use a reinforced rubber, or preferably a stainless-steel reinforced hose meant for washer hookups. They are meant to withstand constant pressure, without bursting over time.