Catch-up Blog 5: Getting the services on – Water, Power, Sewerage (Jan/Feb 2017)
Another early start item, as we would need power and water to build, and septic waste would be needed when we move in to the house, so why not put it in at the same time we put on the other services? one trench all three services installed…
Great idea, but orchestrating all the moving parts was only possible due to the support of my father Bob and uncle Geoff, organising and supervising on-site while I was overseas working, thankyou!
Uncle Geoff recently retired from Unison energy, so was a big help with getting our power on; a new transformer and pole at the gate, power cable underground 150 metres up the hill to the house site, builders temporary switchboard etc..
Bob supervised the trenching and install of the waste system and effluent discharge field, the 30,000 litre rainwater tank, the electricity and the spring water reticulation. Many questions and he was on-hand to answer them, and to ask them.. at the right moments.
After researching waste systems the Naturalflow NF8000 vermiculture (worms) system looked like the one for us. Communication with them was professional and prompt, their pricing was competitive, the system had good reviews and best of all could be installed without power, running by gravity and worms alone! The worms would process the black water and reduce solids by 95% in primary treatment with an output high in nitrogen that we could mix with our greywater and feed to our trees.
For water, we needed to prepare for rainwater harvesting from the future house roof and also connect up the potable spring water (beautiful to drink) to the building site, the water tank (for topping up) and across the land for irrigation.
Aqualine Contractors in Hawkes Bay were referred by the Naturalflow team as their local installers, and as a bonus could do all the trenching including power and water at the same time.
Vern Bishop and his family at Aqualine did a great job pulling all the elements together, supplying the rainwater tank, the pipes and taps and trenching everything, so good that we had them back again later for building site preparations, but that’s another blog post..
Rainwater tank installed
Aqualine trenching