kiwiwoodpecker

Hi everyone
Not been on here for a while now but we as a family have been making some big decisions about our future.
We have decided to GO FOR IT and move to NZ.
We have had a stroke of luck recently and sold our house in uk after being on the market for 1 day!!!! We have also heard that as of 23 Sepember (TODAY) we have been selected form the pool and invited to apply for residence.
This is really,really,really good news!!Just thought i would share this news and get it off my chest. Now we have a whole load of things to do and we dont know where to start,but we will get there.

I have loads of questions going round in my head but one of them is what to do with our electrical items. Can you take your LCD televisions and other electrical items over to NZ and will they work if you just change the plugs on them?Also how long before you intend to move do you need to contact the removal people about moving?

Psychopandy

Hello and welcome back

Congratulations on the good news and the selling of the house.

I would suggest that you contact the movers asap to start getting your quotes in and getting them booked for when you have sold - depending on the chain you could be walking away in a matter of weeks. It shouldnt take long
As regards the electrical stuff - for the most part changing the plug or getting some extension leads and changing the plug on that instead should do. I believe some telly s are a bit funny and you could struggle to the thing tuned - thats what i've heard anyway.

Sorry i'm not an awful lot of help am i??

We are heading to Hamilton/Cambridge in January. Where are you hoping to head for? what job do you need?

All the best
Psycho x

Jan n Neil

All your leccy gear will work, your tv may have to be tuned thru a sky box but will work i think the only thing that wont work is your house phone, mobiles do if there unlocked


Neil

zummerzet_lou

House phones will work ... and as Jan and Neil said, your mobile will if they are unlocked.

The only questionable items are TV, DVD player and freeview boxes.

I believe newer TVs 'may' work. DVD players will obviously play your DVDs, but if you want to hire them from NZ DVD rentals you will get region problems.

Freeview boxes won't work - although we have freeview here in NZ, it uses a different encoding to UK freeview.

We brought most things with us - and some have new plugs, and some are plugged into UK extension leads.

HTH,
Lou

Rosiesue

We bought all of our electrical stuff except the telly (as it was pretty old). It all worked but we did find that if we had too many of our UK things switched on at once then one of the switches on our fuse box would switch off , which may just be due to the dodgy electrics in our house or it may have been a bit overloaded. It particularly didn't like the kettle.

Also make sure you bring plenty of multi-plugs as some things have tranformers so you can't switch the plugs over.

Jan n Neil

I don't think they have DAB radio here either (could be wrong, has been known )


Jan

lardyl

nope, although there is digital radio on freeview satellite.
And there is no RDS on your car...........which could come in useful in parts of Auckland!

As far as overloading electrical circuits goes - there are no 32Amp ring mains here, the circuits are commonly 15 or 20Amp radials, and there may be a couple of twin sockets on one circuit. So you will easily trip out a 15 amp circuit breaker if you run your kettle and say a clothes dryer on the same circuit. Best not to do that really and that can be done really easily if you run high current appliances on UK extension leads with NZ plug tops.

Plus avoid some of the cheaper travel adapters for kettles, etc as they might not have an earth connection ....... that can result in .... DEATH

NakiMan

Your TV will certainly work connected to the "Video out" and "Sound out" from a DVD player or from a SKY or FREEVIEW box.

It may or may not work for analog broadcast TV for two reasons.-

1 Broadcast TV in the UK is UHF, broadcast TV in NZ is spread across VHF and UHF.

2 Whilst both countries use PAL there is some issue with the sound separation

I'm told that most modern TVs can cope with this, but older ones may not.

DVD players will obviously play UK DVDs but will have to be set to "Region Free" to play DVDs bought in NZ. Most are either "region free" out of the box, or can be set so by a hack, usually via the remote. There's lots of info on how to do this available on the net.

Freeview boxes definitely wont work but they are fairly inexpensive here.

lardyl

Good post N-M, all I would add is that freeview via satellite might be an option too as the decoders are cheap on trademe at least and most homes have an old sky satellite dish. There are lots of programmes on there in good old standard definition although hi-def freeview via a UHF aerial is better if you have the monitor/TV to do it justice and a good aerial/reception.

Plus we get some Aussie TV (inc Champions League, ODIs, the Ashes) on sat now, and Prime, and a few other channels. A great improvement on 3 years ago when I had to make do with 3 and a half channels in the house.

News and current affairs on TV and radio are still pretty crappy though - sorry that I am an arrogant over-acheiving Pomm but I miss Newsnight, Today, etc, etc

alanmacc

Hi

And congrats on the house sale, as far as leccy goods everything should work here, we brought over an old LCD tv and it works fine, might pay to have your DVD changed to multi region though.

Telephones are ok as well out DECT phone works fine here so no worried there, if you have a PS3 you are ok fo rBlu ray as we are on the same code as the UK, mobiles just get them unlocked over there and your sorted.

No point in bringing your freeview with you as it wont work, same goes for your sky box wont work here.

Stoof

re the house phone thing - maybe not if it's digital... might work but it might be illegal.. more here : http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...=digital+phone

oh, and if you've got a PVR on mpeg 2 that's not going to work here... mind tivo is coming soon.... and erm, what else? oh, no experience of this, but one of the removal guys that gave us quotes said that if you can't get sound on your tv when you get here, try tuning to the 'belgian' frequency... the same as nz apparently...

Rosiesue

If you have a Tivo bring it with you. We bought ours in the UK about 7 years ago and have been using it here quite happily even though Tivo haven't launched here yet. We just download the program guide through the broadband internet.

Also if you have a Wii then that will work as NZ also uses PAL. However, we have found it cheaper to buy new Wii games on ebay and get them sent over.

lardyl

yep switch your TV over from PAL-I to PAL-B/G.

It works with our set and the user manual usually tells you what to do and what PAL standards a set can cope with.

Kiwiprincess

Buy a could of multiplug adapter board thingee.

Where you can plug in 4 or 5 items (or whatever) to the same board. Makes things easier when the things you are plugging in are things like alarm clocks, lamps and cell phone chargers. No point having separate adaptors for that.

kiwiwoodpecker

hi
thanks for all advice and good wishes. we are thinking of bringing the tv as only 1 year old and then most other items as well.
just another quick question or 2. Does your computer need anything special doing to it or will it work ok in nz and also a slightly wierd question i know but does anyone knoware laptops any cheaper in nz compared to uk?