WATER SUPPLY.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5496, 4 November 1929, Page 3

WATER SUPPLY.

KEREPEEHI BLOCK SCHEME. AN EFFICIENT PLANT. A very efficient co-operative water supply scheme has been installed by a group of soldier settlers on the newly opened Kerepeehi block, and they are now assured of adequate quantities of river water for their stock at what is comparatively a very low cost.

Instead of the common gravity scheme with low pressure and high initial cost for a water tower, these settlers have a force pump which will give up to 1801 b pressure, thus causing a saving in the size of mains as well as providing a more satisfactory supply. The pump is driven by a one horsepower electric motor, which is controlled by an automatic switch actuated by the rise and fall of the pressure in the mains. Thus when a farmer turns on a tap the pressure of air in a small tank at the pumphouse falls a few pounds and the motor is set going and remains going until the pressure is raised again to that to which the automatic switch is set. It is possible for the plant to maintain a pressure of 1801 b to the square inch, but as this is obviously far too high for ordinary farm use, the gauge has been set to actuate the switch at 801 b. When all the farms have been reticulated the gduge will be set at the. lowest pressure which will give an efficient supply. The present pressure of 801 b is sufficient to send a stream of water from an ordinary curved kitchen tap set in the roadside drain over the road and up to the telephone wires. The higher the pressure the greater- will be the amount of electricity consumed, and though the costs are now working out at only a few pence a day, a reduction can be effected by taking poweronly at times off the Power Board’s peak load period, when cheaper rates prevail. It is therefore proposed to have a time switch installed, and although this will mean the provision of storage capacity on the farms, this will not be a hardship, as it was always intended to instal drinking troughs and ball-cocks. , Another good feature of the plant is that the electric ihotor is of the single phase type, so there will not be the stoppages experienced by other pumping schemes on the Plains when the windings of motors have been burnt out through a stoppage in the supply on one phase. The whole plant is very efficient, and any group of farmers contemplating a supply scheme would be well advised to investigate its merits before deciding on the type of plant to have installed.