Under pressure: Wellington Water’s battle to stay on top of leaks

Monday, 4 May 2026

A Wellington couple, unable to find a plumber to fix a leak on their property, have been threatened with cuts to their home water supply. They are now querying the behaviour of the city’s water guardians.

The pair, who asked not to be named, were initially informed of the leak by Wellington Water in June last year.

They employed a plumber to try to detect it. He bored a hole, reported back to the firm that hired him, and the couple heard no more.

The situation was explained to Wellington Water via a phone call. “It was a kind of ‘no worries’ response,” the homeowner said.

Meanwhile they continued in their efforts to get the original plumber back to sort the issue.

Then, earlier this year the couple were again contacted by Wellington Water.

In desperation they contacted the Master Plumbers, who recommended a local company.

They accepted a quote from that company on the same day a letter from Wellington Water arrived, notifying them that because the leak hadn’t been repaired in “a fair and reasonable timeframe” a “restrictor” would be installed on their supply if it wasn’t fixed within a fortnight. The devices significantly reduce the flow of water to a dwelling, allowing only basic needs.

“I had two conversations with Wellington Water staff about the difficulties I had been facing,” the homeowner said. “One acknowledged a clearly marked area that showed a plumber had been. It would seem those chats have either not been passed on, or [were] ignored.”

Restrictors can be installed in “special circumstances”, as outlined in Wellington City Council’s Water Services Bylaw 2024. These include where known leaks are not repaired; where excessive use is being investigated; and where water is being wasted.

In Central Hawke’s Bay, a bylaw allows the district council to serve an urgent “please fix” notice. If it’s not repaired the council can undertake the repair and charge the property owner accordingly.

Auckland Council offers a partial leak allowance to encourage people to repair leaks as soon as possible. Eligibility includes having fixed a leak within 21 days of receiving a letter or email from alerting the user to a higher-than-normal bill, or where a leak is fixed before the user receives that letter.

Money down the drain

Not that long ago, when The Post was recording its “leak of the week”, Wellington Water’s then chief executive Tonia Haskell said the organisation aimed to renew 20km of pipes a year.

In the last six months just over 1.2 kilometres of new pipe (wastewater and drinking water) was laid across the metropolitan region. This included 100 metres for drinking water and about 1104 metres for wastewater. At that rate, it would be thousands of years to repair the network.

Across the same time frame Wellington Water received just over 6000 reports of public leaks across the Wellington, Porirua, Lower and Upper Hutt metropolitan area, athough agency claims more than 1800 (around 30%) were duplicates, largely due to the same leak being reported multiple times or reports being lodged after the issue had already been addressed.

While more than 3,000 leaks across the network were repaired, figures show that getting the numbers down to a sustainable level ‒ in other words a manageable number of outstanding repairs ‒ remains a problem.

The backlog across the wider region hit 779 this month, well above its sustainable level of 325.

Wellington City Council, the biggest shareholder in Wellington Water and the largest population base, had a backlog of 936 leaks in early 2024. It dropped to 206 in January 2025, but is now back up to 341. Its sustainable level is 133.

A quick peruse of its faults and outages page shows why contractors have their work cut out. Over three days water mains burst in Lower Hutt, Naenae (where the pipe had been installed in 1945) and Waiwhetu, a rider main in Molesworth St, Thorndon, needed “urgent repairs”, and there was another sewage spill at Lyall Bay. And that was only the reported ones.

Wellington Water says the average labour cost to fix a leak is around $2800. However there was a caveat: “Calculating the average repair cost can be misleading because leak repairs vary widely in complexity and location, and a small number of high‑cost jobs can significantly lift the average.”

Still, when the full operational requirements of a repair are included - such as traffic management, site set up, materials, pressure testing, plant and equipment, reinstatement, and contractors - the average total cost per leak is about $4400.

In two months time Wellington Water will be no more. On July 1 Tiaki Wai takes over the guardianship of drinking water, wastewater, and piped stormwater services across the Wellington metropolitan area, including responsibility for day-to-day services like fixing leaks, maintaining pipes and responding to faults, and billing.

It will inherit not only around $9 billion in assets from councils but a $1.7 billion debt as well. It will also take on existing Wellington Water operational and support teams to “ensure continuity of expertise and services”.

While its draft strategy states no-one will have the water turned off because they are struggling to pay the bill, it’s a wait-and-see as to how the mega-entity deals with leaks.

Former Wellington Water chairperson Nick Leggett told The Post in October that while the organisation had been able to reduce its water loss across the region to about 37%, 46% of the water supply network and 60% of the wastewater network would require renewal within 28 years.

Wastewater was generally in the worst condition, with about 33% of the pipes at the end of their life and most treatment plants failing to meet compliance requirements and in need of significant investment or replacement‒Moa Point being the poster child for that.

The stormwater network was in comparatively better shape, Leggett said, though it also faced renewal needs, a factor clearly evidenced by last week’s devastating floods.

All of that that means a likely average of about 14.7 percent increase for ratepayers across all four cities for water over 2026/27, a substantial jump of over 28% in 2027/28 and potentially bills of up to $6800 by 2036.

Nationally, papers released last week reveal the expected costs of bringing the country’s three waters services up to scratch could cost $50b over three decades.