Enabling Plumbing for a Hard to Reach New Build on a Sloping Site

Located in Titahi Bay, Wellington, this recent project involved the redevelopment of a property into three sections — one retaining an existing house, with a new house constructed on each of the other two. The new homes are unable to access traditional drainage for the kitchen, bathroom and laundry plumbing fixtures due to their location below the council wastewater pipe located in the road above. To overcome this, the architectural designer specified the compact Sanifos 280GR Inground Lifting Station to effectively pump wastewater to the nearest drain connection on the road above.

“Both new lots are located below road level and cannot use gravity feed into stormwater and sewerage systems in the street,” explains project designer Stephen White of Design Club Architecture. “The only way for those to work is to have a pump system for sewage and a pump system for stormwater.”

Stephen was familiar with pump systems and had already chosen one from another company when a timely email prompted him to change track. “I’d already chosen another company when I received an EBOSS update email which had a case study on another project — a small house with one of the Saniflo SFA Systems,” explains Stephen. “I decided to look into it and gave Graham from SFA a call.”

In that call they discussed the project: how many people would be in the house, how far below street level it is, and how far bathroom and laundry fixtures were from the drain connection. “Graham confirmed that the Sanifos 280GR would achieve what we were after and more, and that it would also comply with requirements for Wellington Water Land Development Standards. That’s why I chose it.”

The Sanifos 280GR is a packaged Inground Lifting Station designed for small dwellings. It is an efficient solution where gravity reliant sewerage systems are not possible due to limited site access and site constraints such as property that slopes away from sewer infrastructure.

For Stephen, the compact size of the system made it an ideal choice for the project. “I compared the two systems and thought that the Saniflo SFA system was better because it's smaller — it has a smaller diameter chamber so it will fit in a lot more places, and vertically it’s the same height, and had the right capacity for the project.”

The specification and design process went well, with SFA providing all documentation needed for Building Consent approval from Council, and a second consent application to Wellington Water to connect into the wastewater system. “Saniflo SFA provided really good support which is what I needed as I had not used this product before,” says Stephen.

Installing the system was also quick and easy. “In one day the pump station was installed into the ground, and went through a test a day or so later — it all worked fine.” 

The testing also included a trial of the included alarm system — an audible alarm and light system which activates if there are any issues with the pump, so the owners know there’s a fault.

Ultimately, the Sanifos 280GR Inground Lifting Station was a smart solution for connecting the kitchen, laundry and bathroom to sewerage systems. And with the installation successfully completed, Stephen is already looking at the potential for Sanifos on other projects. “I liked it so much I want to do another couple of projects with this particular unit,” he says.