Peter Huss promised me a water connection. We had already discussed by email about the water connection and as far as I was concerned I would have a gravity fed connection albeit, without much pressure. My expectation was I needed to build a small surge tank, plus a small pressure pump to ensure showers, toilets and the resturant could work.

When I arrived in 2013 to build my hotel/restaurant/spa, I found out that I was connected directly to the well pump which meant that during periods of electrical outage I got no water!!

Further more, as everyone was connected to the surge tank, the well pump would fill the surge tank with water used during the outage before I recieved water. All in all, any electrical outage meant I was the first to loose water and the last to get water back. Electrical outages here are in the region of 2-3 hrs on average. So I would be with out water for 4+ hours. During prolonged electrical outages I would be without water for 12 hrs or more.

Of course I can never ask my clients to go away or close my spa or restaurant when there is no electricity which is a common event here. So I had to study what to do. Due to land size restriction I didn’t go for 8000 gallons of hidden buried reinforced concrete water storage as the cost would have been equivalent to a well cost. So after appropriate investigation, I dug a well at a cost of $15,000 plus ANAM licensing. All in all, a significant outlay when all Peter had to do was to put in a generator backed up pump at the surge to ensure I had water which would have cost a lot less.

Further more, due to the electrical outages in the area I had to put in an electrical back-up but now the generator had to be sized to operate the well pump with is 3kw working power plus a 13kw start-up current. All in all, an additional cost of an extra $5,000 for generator requirements (10kw -> 20 kw) due to the lack of a proper water connection.

So, all in all, an additional cost of somewhere in the region of $20,000 plus ANAM certification (estimated at $3,000) and the monthly water license you have to pay to ANAM for operating the well.