CopyAnt Blog

19 November 2007

A Very Little Momentum

The new engineer seems much better. He'd sent me an agreement within three days of getting the house plans. Now that's what I'm talking about! The plans are still not finished but at least I feel like someone actually gives a damn about getting things done.

Now here's a trap for young players that I've come up with. It seems that some of the District Councils close off their files for the Christmas period (those of you outside NZ might not be aware but we close down almost completely for about 4 weeks down here - a combination of Xmas and summer holidays). This means that they don't take on any new work. So although we'd sent off our Project Information Memorandum I took the opportunity to pay the Consent fee pronto with the idea that if I'd paid they can't close the file! So hopefully once the drawings are finished they can be sent to Council and get acted on straight away...... oh it's all so damned slow!

In the meantime I've been busy on TradeMe. I bought a kitchen for our house and then went into a bit of a panic about where I was going to put the thing.... it seemed to have slipped my ming that I don't actually have a house yet! So after asking around to see if anyone had a spare shed we could use (turns out the point of a shed is that it's full of stuff all the time), I decided to buy a container. So we now have a large grey, rusty shipping container complete with kitchen up on our land. I'm not sure if I'm going a bit ass about face here but the kitchen was only $265 with and extra $200 for delivery so it seemed like a good deal - came complete with sink, taps and ceramic hob (which we probably won't use).

We've found a chap in Maungatoroto who installecd his own wormcast septic system and said it was easy as, so we're going to visit him and find out what easy really means.

I was at Peter Panyoczki's party on Saturday night and met a nice German couple who are also looking at water heating via a combination of solar and wetback. They mentioned that there are only 4 models of wetback heater that are permitted in the Kaipara District if you're under 10 acres. It's all to do with slow burning creates more particulates (smog). So I have to call KDC and get a list of those. Will let you know what they are.

I suppose the only other news is that we still haven't had the fencing done - Mangawhai time is slower than other places. The fencing guy was busy with fishing and a wedding so hasn't had a chance to get us the quote. And as expected when we went up to the land yesterday all our cabbage trees had been ripped out of the ground, branches broken off the tea-trees and nibbles taken out of lots of other plants. The tell-tale cow-splats reminded us once again of the urgency of getting the fencing down. In fact I'll go call the guy now!

Labels: Kaipara District Council, Peter Panyoczki, wetback, wormcast

05 November 2007

What to do with all the poo?

It's been a frustrating last month on the house building front. Progress is unbearably slow. We still haven't had the engineering input on the designs. In fact after this morning's phone call with a shockingly rude structural engineer in Whangarei, we don't have an engineer at all. I refuse to work with someone who says that listening to me whinging about the delay is not his job and that the length of time it has taken for him to call me back is not his problem. All I had asked was how much it would cost for him to do the work and whether there was any way of getting it done before Christmas as things had taken a long time to get to this stage!

I've been recommended to a different engineer so hopefully this one will have some people skills included in his repetoire.

So, while we've been sitting here waiting there have been other questions on our mind. We're getting the fencing done so that we can protect the huge haul of plants we got cheap at the local nursery's Labour Day sale, now they're in the ground. Fortunately it's been raining ever since we did the planting so things are looking good on that front.

But the big question occupying our minds at the moment is "What to do with all the poo?". Our land is not near any sewage system so it's up to us to deal with our own waste and I don't think the current long drop arrangement will get the sign off from Council. In my younger days I lived in a house with a straightforward septic tank. It seems that things are not so simple now and that we have options......

Aerobic vs Anaerobic
This refers to the bacteria that break down the poos and wees (and all the other stuff). Aerobic bacteria use oxygen and work quickly, breaking down the waste quickly and importantly with little or no odour. Apparently they're also tough little blighters and can put up with your usual household cleaners etc. The Anaerobic ones take longer to do the work, don't use oxygen and do produce smell. They're also delicate and don't like the chemicals.

So ideally you'll have the aerobic bacteria working on your waste. However, that means you have to get oxygen to them which I guess means stirring - which uses power..... and we're supposed to be building a low power use house.....

Ok, so what else is out there.

Worms
Sounds a little gross doesn't it - but it seems that the worms are happy to help with the bacterial processes. I know that these systems are available in New Zealand but can't find a local website about them so here's an Aussie website that gives you more detail on the process.
Wormfarm Waste
In some ways I kind of like the idea of worms chomping my poos and this system uses a lot less power than the more conventional ones - nothing if you have a hilly site so the waste flows in easily and just a little to pump it along if you are on a flat section.

Whatever system you use the end product is good water for watering the garden which is fine with me.

Funnily enough, I just met a guy who was wandering around the site next door and turns out he's the local wastewater system designer. How serendipitous!

19 November 2007

A Very Little Momentum

05 November 2007

What to do with all the poo?

Previous Posts

Archives