|
Setting up in Hilo
|
|
A part of moving to Hawaii, is setting up utilities such as electricity, water, sewer, trash, phone, cable, internet. Also cars need to be licensed and mail set up; all the things required to set up a new place of residence. The utilities are different on every island in Hawaii and even within the county of Hawaii on the Big Island The information here is based on our experiences of set up and use of utilities in Hilo on the Big Island, but the car licensing is state wide.
HILO UTILITY SET UP AND EXPERIENCES Here are a couple of notes and suggestions about setting up utilities:
Sewer - The sewer service for Hilo can't be set up until the water service is set up. Once the water service is set up you can go to the county sewer department (next to Checkers Auto Parts) with the account number given to you by the water service and fill out the paperwork. They bill you every other month; our bill is $27/month. Water - Water service for Hilo is set up at the Department of Water Supply for the County of Hawaii in a complex at 345 Kekuanaos Street in Suite 20. You must show a signed lease, photo id, and pay a $50 deposit. They provide you with an account service number to to set up sewer service. They bill you every other month; our bill is $25/month. If you live outside of Hilo and dependent on a catchment system for your water, be aware that Hilo and Puna do have droughts. The recent drought required many residents to call for water trucks and the wait can be weeks for a truck to come. I was surprised that in a rain forest, water might be an issue. The county has recently requested that residents, particularily on the west side of the island, conserve water. Just something to consider when planning for water. Electricity - In Hilo, HELCO is the electric company. HELCO is located in at 1200 Kilauea Avenue. The place can be very busy in the afternoon. Get there early, show your lease, photo id, and pay your $100 deposit. Be prepared to wait. We have been blogging about the expensive rate of electricity in Hawaii. Unlike the mainland, there is no gas service. Some folks get propane delivered in tanks for their stoves, but most houses are dependent on electric from HELCO. Although HELCO has been greatly supporting use of alternative energy and adding solar generated from homes and business to the distribution system, most of the electric on the Big Island generated from small disel buring power plants. The cost is high and will likely continue to escalate. Our efforts to cut back on electric have been frutiful. We reduced our electric bill by 1/3 (from $350 to $220/month) by replacing light bulbs with low energy bulbs and carefully monitoring our hot water heater usage. Prepare for expensive electric that will likely continue to escalate. Telephone - We picked Hawaiian Telcom for our local phone service. Their service can be set up on the phone or online. We kept our California Verizon cell service for now. Cable and Internet - We picked Oceanic Time Warner Cable for our internet service. We got high speed internet via their RoadRunner service. The internet is a big deal at our house, all of us are on it most of the day and night. Their office is located at 1257 Kilauea Avenue across from HELCO and in the Hilo Shopping Center. Trash - The trash companies in Hilo seem to be all local entreprenuers. We haven't seen any city or state service. We've heard that many folks take their stuff to the dump themselves. We use Leo's Rubbish service which picks up once a week although they will pick up more often. We've seen other trash trucks driving around, so rates and service may vary. The best bet is ask neighbors what service they use or recommend.
We reduce our trash by recycling what we can. Hilo doesn't have curb side recycling, so we take it over to Reynolds on Kilauea street. There is a 5 cent reimbursement (HI5) on most plastic and aluminum drink containers. Reynolds also takes all our glass bottles, which reduces our garbage volume. But other plastics are difficult to get rid of in Hawaii. We drive to the Hilo landfill to recycle cardboard, glass, and plastic. They have a booth set up to pay HI5 reimbursements on plastic and glass. The landfill has a setup to allow you to drive your car up and throw garbage in a funnel that drops it into a garbage truck below. They also have a place that accepts green waste as well as provides compost, a very wonderful thing when living on a volcanic rock. The landfill is located at the end of Leilani street on the airport side of Hwy 11. Another note: We noticed folks in Hilo drive their utility payments to payment boxes located in front of each utility rather than mailing them in. We wondered why this was so prevelant until we received a thankyou from a furniture store in Hilo to our house in Hilo. The letter had gone to Honolulu and back. We guess there is no local sorting in the Hilo Post offices and that everything mailed ends up back in Honolulu. So we usually drive our utility payments to the payment boxes. HILO MAIL SERVICES Post Offices
FedEx and UPS
There are also private mail services, such as PostNet at Prince Kuhio mall. We use them during holiday seasons when the lines at the post office are hours long. HAWAII COUNTY OFFICES Apuni Center has many of the Hawaii county offices. It is the place to pay property tax bills, sewer bills, get information about parks and recreation, investigate county land records and get building permits. To give you an idea of the offices in the Center, below is a photo tour.
Copyright 2008
|
