Our Journey in Water Solutions

In July 2025 Craig and wife Christina, launched Viking Water Solutions, offering domestic, business and industrial services, from rainwater to garden irrigation and rural farm reticulation to commercial sheds. And much more. “My tagline is ‘strength in every drop’,” says the bearded man, who looks like a Viking of old.

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He can trace his ancestry from Scotland, through the Isle of Man, and up into the Nordic region. “Vikings had a good connection to the water,” says Craig. Craig and Christina had both worked for another water business, but lost their jobs, so started their own venture. Working with water is not new to Craig – he has been immersed in H20 for 15 years.

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He began in the dairy industry, looking at reverse osmosis systems that stripped everything out of the water, leaving it 99.9 percent pure. Next stop was working in water treatment for the New Plymouth District Council.

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“I already had the passion for water, but I really found it in that role,” he says. After a back injury while coaching roller hockey, he spent months recovering, then returned to the world of pumps, tanks, reticulation and filtration.

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Craig says people are becoming more interested in storing rain before it goes down the drain. This trend move stems from thoughts of hot summers, long dry months and the imminent installation of water meters.

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Domestic clients are now looking for fence tanks that blend into garden environments and hold liquid insurance for dry spells. “You can actually make it fit your space and it just gives you that extra bit of water,” he says.

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On the matter of taste, Viking Water Solutions can provide small under-bench filtration. “That's just to reduce the chlorine and get rid of the lovely earthy taste that we have in our water here in New Plymouth,” says Craig.

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“And water filters are one of those things that you do not want to defer or put off. Because what happens is, over the lifetime of the filter, all that bacteria and the nasty stuff that it catches can get oversaturated and then it will start releasing that back out into your drinking water. And the filter's not filtering anything.”

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The business can also provide whole house solutions. Craig can soften hard water, and design UV systems that protect families from the bugs that might come off a roof where possums and birds have been. To explain how this works, Craig says the size of a human hair is about 40 microns. By contrast, the filters he installs reduce particles down to one micron. This means a UV system can stop the pathogens from reproducing in the line.

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Craig is also passionate about sharing his knowledge. He teaches pump selection, farm water reticulation and farm dairy effluent hydraulics for the New Zealand Milk and Pumping Trade Association, taking his expertise into the classroom.

Across the Tasman he has been contracted for two days a week to support large chicken shed water dosing systems. But the biggest part of Craig’s overseas water work sits on a tropical island — Tonga.

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In late 2021, the Pacific nation was affected by the Hunga TongaHunga Ha'apai eruption, and subsequent tsunami on January 15, 2022. When the eruption happened Tonga’s power grid failed, taps went dry and fresh water was scarce.

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Craig travels there to help design and install solar bores that draw water up into nine-metre-tall towers. The tank then gravity feeds the water back out across communities. “If anything happens, it now means that we can still provide water to these communities,” he says.

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When in Tonga, it’s no island holiday for Craig, who works long hours installing and teaching locals how to install the solar water systems. “I am able to take all my skills and my knowledge over to Tonga, and help train these people over there, and bring them up to a level that they start having the skills and knowledge,” he says.

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Christina brings a logistics mindset to Viking Water Solutions. She grew up in Amersham in England and went on to work in film and television as a logistics specialist. This includes working on two Harry Potter movies, two in the Fast & Furious series and both Sherlock Holmes films.

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She now runs Persona costume hire and sewing alterations, plus manages the water company’s home-based office. Both are dedicated to delivering healthy and fresh water to homes, businesses, farms, communities and our Pacific Island neighbours.

“Water is the lifeblood of everybody,” Craig says. “So without it, we don’t have life.”