synthie

Hello,
as the title says it looks like we're finally moving to Wellington in August! Yay us. We is my wife, 12 year old son and 45 old me.

We lived in Scotland, Gibraltar and Germany before but we're new to New Zealand and started jotting down a couple of general questions - some answers I could find on the internet, some are easier asked here.

1. Are the NZ electrical plugs the same as the british ones? That would make our life a lot easier.
2. When renting a house in Wellington - we're thinking Kelburn, Northland, Wilton, Khandalla, etc - is it usually permitted to drill holes into walls to hang picture frames, mirrors or wall cupboards? Are the walls actually strong enough to support a heavy mirror or kitchen wall cupboard as I see that most houses are made of wood?
3. We're trying to decide if we should bring our hoover, a dirt devil centrino. Looks like there's sites like Bunnings and fishpond.co.nz who stock filters but not ours - are there others and/or do you usually get spare parts like these easily in NZ or do you buy local electrical goods?

I'm sure there will be more questions, for now that's it. Thanks for your help in advance!

Thomas

Justcol

Morning
1) no plugs are different, but get some 4 way extensions in the UK and plug em into a kiwi adaptor.
2) no, it's not OK to make holes in walls, but check with landlord. Might be OK if you gill and repaint when you leave. If you hang heavy things look for where the Nog's are in the walls and fix screws into them
3) why not just bring a couple of filters with you. Or check with a vaccum specialist store like Godfrey's
http://www.godfreys.co.nz

Lisa Maree

I think if your vacuum cleaner is not readily available in NZ then you'd be best to sell it and buy new here, our moving agent person said to get the VC professionally cleaned if possible, customs will want to make sure its completely free of dust etc so with that expense in mind I'd flog it locally and allocate a few hundred dollars to buying a new one upon arrival.

Or if the filters last years then buy 10yrs supply and bring with you!

With regards to the electrical plugs, the main thing is the voltage is the same so while the plugs themselves need to be changed or used in a 4 way power board with one adapter in the wall socket at least you can use the items safely.

synthie

Justcol / Lisa,
thanks for the replies, that helps a lot.

I'd like to add another question:
4.) We just spent an hour+ trying to find out the school zones for intermediate schools. We found the educationcounts.co.gov site and the tki site (which doesn't seem to find anything neither school nor address. Is there a picture or google map overlay showing the catchment areas for all Wellington intermediate schools? When looking for places to rent we'd like to know in advance which school he'd go to!

Thanks!

Lisa Maree

I'm not sure if there is anything official available but where I live here in the UK the local real estate agents provide something like that! Might be worth looking on Trade Me to get a feel for the areas you like and the agents that service those areas and email them to see if they have that kind of information.

Lisa Maree

Is this useful... http://nzschools.tki.org.nz/

synthie

Lisa, contacting the agents is a good idea.

That link you sent is the one which I find problematic. For example a search for 'South Wellington Intermediate' gives no results.

MrsFychan

heres a list of all the schools in Wellington
Wellington schools » NZQA

it states the school type unfortunately you will have to trawl through them to find out where they are located

maquis

Definitely doesn't include all Wellington schools

I'm not sure that SWIS is zoned? Doesn't seem to say anything about it on their website. Perhaps just email them and ask?

This is a link to their recent ERO (similar to OFSTED) report, that will give a brief overview of the school (from a govt inspector's perspective):
South Wellington Intermediate - 22/04/2015 | Education Review Office

Stormer999

The big problem with replacement parts is that there seems to be no tie up with model identification between Northern and Southern hemispheres. With our printer cartridges and Vacuum cleaner filters (Vax) neither were the models or spares identifiable in NZ. Spares were found in Oz but under completely different codes. Obviously the parts being manufactured and shipped out of Asia were stocked under separate systems down here.

A Rush And A Push

Re the school zones, the tki website is meant to show them but it's a bit rubbish, I've never really been able to work out how to do it. Each school's website will usually have a map of their enrolment zone (if they are zoned). Usually undet the enrolment section of their website - a map of the zone and often a list of the streets in zone too.

Justcol

have you just thought of contacting the schools and asking

MOSO

This list may help. Generally school zones will be on their websites. A lot of schools around Wellington are full primaries (i.e. till year 8) and then the kids go to college in Year 9.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...lington_Region

synthie

MOSO, that does help a lot, thanks! :-) We'll can now look at them in detail and contact them if and when required. Cheers!