Sustainable Land Development Today, May 2007

Toll Brothers’ turn to E/One wastewater solutions throughout New Jersey.

The project manager at Toll Brothers’ Wyndam Point development in Flanders, New Jersey, needed to resolve problems homeowners were having with their waste disposal systems.

While one company’s centrifugal pumps had been originally installed for all 98 homes at Wyndam Point, the sloping, rocky terrain at the site, with up to 24 foot elevation changes from the street to first floor, necessitated the use of a low pressure sewage system and pumps for waste disposal to a variable grade treatment plant at the development. Environment One (E/One) as contacted for a definitive solution. The plant was designed and built by Applied Water Management, but is owned, operated, and maintained by the township. 

Toll Brothers’ Wyndam Point development is a rural residential neighborhood surrounded by wetlands and bordered by the Turkey Brook River. The single family detached 3,100-square-foot- 4,000-square-foot homes have four bedrooms and three or four baths. They are clustered on half-acre to one-acre lots and valued at $649,000 to $700,000.

Problems with the originally installed centrifugal pumps began soon after homeowners occupied the dwellings. The manufacturer of the original pumps was not responsive to the failures at a number of houses. Replacements were needed on the ‘just out of warranty’ one year old units. That’s when Bill Merritt, project manager at the Wyndam Point community, decided to install E/One’s After Market Grinder Pump (AMGP). The pumps have now been operating for more than two years, requiring no service.

The E/One AMGP is a replacement grinder pump engineered to fit into virtually any grinder pump wet well. The all-inclusive design allows easy drop-in conversion and is ready to connect. It is a total replacement unit for all the troublesome components inherent in centrifugal pumps; including slide rails, pump/motor, float switches, piping and motor control devices. 

The E/One sewer system has become known for its reliability, minimal maintenance, low upfront costs, reduced operating expenses, and ability to be installed at any site, regardless of topography challenges. It uses an unobtrusive small-diameter two- to four-inch main installed just below frost line that follows the natural topography of the land. The E/One Sewer system with its GP 2000 grinder pump overcomes the barriers of low-pressure systems.

Grinder pumps push wastewater from the home to the central sewer or treatment plant through small-diameter pipes rather than a 24 inch main employed in conventional gravity systems. This avoids major excavation and invasive disruption of the landscape, lawns, driveways, and plantings – well suited for single-family homes. 

Another Toll Brothers development in Washington Township had similar problems with installed centrifugal pumps. The faulty pumps were replaced with E/One AMGP units. The results were the same, no service required on the AMGP replacements for the last two years.

Anthony Celli, Toll Brothers’ project manager at Woodcliff Lake Estates in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, also installed E/One 2010-93 pump stations. The pump stations enabled Toll Brothers to cost effectively utilize the remaining available building space and complete the project. The lots, located below grade, needed to pump waste disposal up to the town sewer lines located at street level. E/One’s grinder pump fit their need perfectly.

Woodcliff Lake Estates incorporates 25 homes on half-acre lots. Ground breaking was in the fall of 2004 and completed in August 2006. The single family homes in this upscale residential community range in size from 3,800 to 5,000-square-feet, have four bedrooms, three to four bedrooms, a three-car garage and sell for $1.4 million.

The hilly terrain and a treatment area located above the elevation of houses at Lookout Pointe, a Toll Brothers development in western New Jersey’s Hunterdon County, presented conditions that were ideally resolved with the application of E/One waste disposal pump systems.

The treatment plant at Lookout Pointe is located up, over, and on the other side of the hill from the home sites. The wastewater is pumped up from the houses and over the hill to the plant. The two inch pipe used to transport the grinder pumps’ effluent, sludge, bi-product not only saves on the cost of excavating and materials, but also results in considerably less environmental impact. Applied Water Management, a subsidiary of American Water, owns and maintains the plant. It designs, builds, and operates community onsite water and wastewater treatment plants which are decentralized and ideal for new and expanding communities. 

Lookout Pointe contains 82 acres that will hold 46 new single family homes, one town home with eight units in an existing farmhouse. In 2005, ground was broken for the project. Eleven homes are currently occupied, each on a ¾-acre lot. The 3,400 to 4,500- square-foot, four bedroom, three to four bathrooms, three-car garage homes are priced from $740,000 to $825,000. Lookout Pointe is located in the town of Clinton just off I-78. A 2008 buildout is expected.

Bob Levitsky, Toll Brothers Project Manager at Lookout Pointe explained the bottom line for his company.

“E/One’s grinder pumps are easy to get, easy to install, and easy to maintain. What more can we ask for?”

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