“Self-contained” certification in New-Zealand

6 July 2017 30 Comments

Traveling in New Zealand, that’s good, but doing it on a road trip with your own van, it’s even better. This country welcomes hundreds of thousands of tourists every year, and offers a lot of free parking everywhere for “self-contained” vehicles. It is a good way to travel at low prices, and enjoy some really great places !
As we chose this option, we decided to share with you our tips and tricks to qualify for self-contained certification, at least as we experienced it in 2017. This article doesn’t exempte to visit the official site:

 

https://www.nzmca.org.nz/certified-self-containment/

 

Unfortunately, the “self-contained” regulation tends to harden in the years to come, so it is imperative to learn more before embarking on any kind of plannification. Despite all the previous measures we had taken, some rules were not specified on the official website and asked during our passage in front of the “inspector”.

 

Here is the list of rules as we had to follow, imposed for an autonomy of 3 days:

 

Clean water : Clean water: 4L of clean water per person per day. Or, for 2 people, a can with a capacity of 24 liters. We chose to connect our clean water can to a small manual pump faucet, found in a specialized store, for the largest budgets you can find electric pump faucet. Special point not specified on the website, your water inlet pipe must be opaque.
We used 25L cans, which you can easily find for $ 25 each in any DIY stores, such as Bunnings, or Mitre 10.

We used a piece of garden hose for our water inlet pipe, much cheaper and just as good as an opaque plumbing hose.

 

Gray water : Gray water: A can of the same capacity as that of clean water, obviously, all the contaminated water must be able to be recovered. Special point not specified on the website, your gray water supply must be equipped with an air outlet that must lead to the outside of the vehicle, and must pass above the sink level.

Your cans must be secure thanks to rigid fixations.

 

A sink : more convenient to use your water isn’t it ? It must be connected by a siphon to your gray water can, and this connection has to be sealed. For those who wish to be able to move their can of gray water, like us, the difficulty lies in this connection which must be sealed and removable.
On the capacity side, there is no obligation, but for your personal comfort, make sure that the depth and width are large enough to be able to do the dishes or to fill a pan of water without difficulty.

For our sink, given the exorbitant prices practiced, we used a dog bowl  (tip found on pvtistes.net), which we cut out to place bung and siphon, and here did the trick.

 

A drain pipe : Your gray water can must be able to be drained without difficulty. To do this, it must be equipped with an opaque drain pipe of minimum 3 meters long that will connect it to a waste water tank. We once again used a garden hose for this purpose.

 

A rubbish bin : it must be equipped with a lid. Special item not specified on the website, your trash must be secured, at least, with an elastic tensioner to not fall during transport. No minimal capacity required.

 

The toilets : with a capacity of 1L per person per day, that is, in our case, a tank of 6 liters. They must be permanently accessible, whether your bed is pulled or not. Special point not specified on the website, your toilets must be secured inside a fixed and resealable box, and those to prevent them from falling and pouring down during transport.

We never used the toilet during our road trip, there are a lot of free pitches equipped with public toilets. In New Zealand public toilets are generally very well maintained.

 

Once you bring together all of these selection criteria, head to an accredited center in order to pass the inspection. You can find stores specializing in motorhome and mobile home that offers this service for 150 $.
For our part, we had the chance to retrieve the coordinates of a self-containment officer, they are volunteers from the New Zealand Motor Caravan Association, who pass the certification from their home. Normally this information is only available to members of the association, and to be a member it is necessary to count in the 220 $.

campermate

 

Your little vignette in your pocket, you are ready to go on New Zealand roads and all its free parkings ! To makeyour life easier, you can use mobile applications such as Campermate, Rankers, WikiCamps.
You can also find the list of locations on the site of the conservation department : http://www.doc.govt.nz/freedomcamping.

 

Good luck and have a good trip !