Emerald Falls Estate Subdivision

Solar-Systems

Water Bores

Internal Roads

Solar-Systems

The closest mains electricity is about 2 km from the Emerald Falls Estate subdivision. While it might be possible for new owners to share the cost of connecting to the grid, this will not be cheap. One quote was for $70,000 to connect one lot, which would be a lot cheaper if shared. To then bring the power from Emerald Falls road to where you like to build is an additional expense which will also be at least several thousand dollars. And you then will have to pay electricity bills.

There is a much cheaper alternative. We recommend stand-alone solar systems instead (but wind could be an option as well). Over the last few years solar has become very cheap and Mareeba claims over 300 days of sunshine. A 5.5 kilowatt solar system will cost less than $10,000.- (without battery) these days (after rebate) and that is fully installed!!!
Such a system will give you 5Kw of power whenever the sun shines. 
The average 4 people household uses 23.5 Kw/day, so 5 hours of sunlight will provide more than enough. And even in cloudy weather solar panels still provide quite a bit of energy. In fact modern MPPT regulators will significantly increase output in shady conditions.

A stand-alone solar system will also require a battery bank, so energy can be stored for cloudy days and night time use. The bigger the battery bank, the better, but also the more expensive, so a smaller battery bank and a generator might be an alternative. In the bottom image on the right you can see various battery bank sizes. By multiplying the 24 Volts with the Ah you will get their Kilowatt capacity. We would recommend to go for the biggest battery bank. A back-up generator-charger is likely to cost another $5000.-.

Even with the biggest battery bank, the 5.5kw system, and a back-up generator-charger, for $35,000.- you can get a stand-alone system which gives you a lot more power than the average household will ever use, and that is free electricity, without any Ergon bills!

A 3KW system with a 40Kw battery bank (24v x 1660Ah) and a back-up generator-charger will cost you about $25,000.-, and that is without the new Tesla Powerwall, and prices will fall further.

Depending on where you intend to build, a windmill might also be a very good option worth investigating.

Considering that you will not pay any electricity bills ever any more, this is a great investment. Additionally you will not have any black-outs or brown-outs and you can sleep easy knowing that you will be significantly reducing your carbon footprint by using clean energy.

 Water Bores

While Lots 1 to 4 and Lot 9 all have permanent waterholes and/or a creek on them, we do not recommend pumping water from those sources. Not only might they be insufficient (especially if more than one lot would pump out of the creek, but this would reduce the natural flow on which many animals and plants rely.

Instead we recommend bore holes. One of the neighbours has put a bore in and we have been told by the driller that he pumps hundreds of mega-litres each year from a depth of about 15 meters.

We have sunk a bore on lot 2 and it yields 4500 litres per hour, enough to irrigate 15-25 acres. The water is at a depth of 28m in the bore and it is very good water.

We have been told that bores should find good water at anywhere between 15-50m deep (depending on where on the lots). The cost for such a bore would be somewhere between $5,000.- and $10,000.-.

 Internal Roads

The internal roads on each lot are very basic tracks, which have simply be pushed by a dozer.
We deliberately put in only very basic tracks as some people might like it that way or would even want to not have an internal road at all.
Running a grader over these tracks would cost about $300.-/km (plus travel time to get machine there) and make them a lot easier to drive on.
Putting some pipes into gullies will improve the gradients and will cost maybe $500 to $2000.- depending on the size of the gully; some of the gullies will be usable as little dams and then the road can go across the dam wall.
Pushing a new road with a dozer would cost an average of about $400.- to 500.- per kilometer (plus travel time to get machine there).

In short maintaining and improving internal roads is probably a lot cheaper than you think. Please let us know if you want  to get any quotes from local earthmoving contractors.






For further information, to have any questions answered and/or to arrange viewing of the properties, please call 07-40937755 or 0499620260.