Natural flow - waste water system. Any opinions?

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Kevvynz

11 posts

Geek

#270085 22-Apr-2020 20:40

We are in the planning stage for a 4 bedroom house on approx 8000 sqm section and need to get a septic system fitted. We want to be as sustainable as possible so definitely don't want a powered system, and ideally want to our grey water as we are collecting rainwater. We have been directed towards Natural Flow Systems who have a wormerator setup for the black waste and a 2 tank system for the greywater than we can tap into as needed.

Wondered if anyone out there has used this company and can give us some feedback before we sign on the dotted line?

kotuku4

484 posts

Ultimate Geek

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Lifetime subscriber

#2468384 23-Apr-2020 09:23

Just check your council requirements. Our council requires resource consent with engineers report, monitoring, certification, and ongoing review. And Building consent.

Engineer or council approved person will assess flows and ensure that the system, including treatment system/tanks and disposal area, bed or drip line field is sized correctly. Taking into account your water supply, peak occupancy of dwelling, soil conditions and situation of the disposal area. If you have restricted water supply you may need water reduction, lower water use taps, shower, front load washing machine, etc. And therefore lower flows and smaller system.

Site layout is import to fit the system in. Offsets from wells including neighbouring, other wastewater systems, buildings, boundaries, streams or wet lands, unsuitable slopes, gullies.

The secondary treatment wormerator can work well for normal use, follow instruction is away for extended time. They don't work well in holiday homes, with high peak usage and then no inflow for months at a time. With any on site system take care with fats and oils and cleaning and personal hygiene products.

Grey water is needs to be treated and disposed of to ground, covered by the same standard.

An on-site wastewater treatment system must meet performance requirements for construction and operation of the Building Code. If the system is designed to AS/NZS 1547:2012 On-site domestic-wastewater management, the requirements of the Code will be met.

As noted above, the Building Code requires that if a sewer is available the drainage system must be connected to it – but the local authority can provide a waiver allowing on-site wastewater treatment to be installed. Local authorities or regional councils may have additional bylaws controlling the installation of on-site wastewater treatment systems. The local authority should be contacted before you begin to design a system.

The sanitary plumbing connected to an on-site wastewater treatment system within the house must comply with the requirements of NZBC clause G13 Foul water.

Septic tank construction is covered by AS/NZS 1546.1:2008 On-site domes

BlinkyBill

1443 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#2468387 23-Apr-2020 09:31

I have a NaturalFlow system set up at my small 4HA rural property. It doesn’t require power and seems to work well. I’m not there that much and I do worry that the worms don’t have enough to do. And I only use Ecostore products into the system.

The system was installed by the previous owners, and I would say they researched the heck out of various systems before deciding on this particular system - they are staunch vegans and naturalists, and very environmentally conscious.

Adjacent to my property there is a vacant property, and the new owners are building. They are going to put in a NaturalFlow as well.

I have a nice bank that the field dispersal system is installed in - it’s about 50m wide.

So, I would recommend albeit I didn’t actually decide to install it. Much better than a septic tank, anyway.

I hope that helps a bit.

Kevvynz

11 posts

Geek

#2468780 23-Apr-2020 16:48

Wow @kotuku4. Thank you SO much for the info. Very thorough and much appreciated

Also, thanks to you @blinkybill as well.

RC not required by FNDC for wastewater so we're all good there. We have a moderate to steep sloping site (12-16 degrees) so plenty of room for the system + we can easily achieve gravity feed to LPED on the field drains.

Really like the idea of a passive system (as we're looking to go off grid) and this systemm appears to be pretty straight forward and low low maintenance (another plus).

Again, thank you both so much for your comments. Really has helped alot : )