The century old water main no-one knew existed, until it burst
Friday, 3 July 2026
Last week we brought you the saga of The Post reporter Julie Jacobson’s battle to get a long-standing leak near her property fixed. This is what happened next.
OPINION: You wouldn’t think it would be easy to lose a water main. Seems it’s not difficult at all.
You would also expect that if a property was connected to said lost, but newly discovered, water main, and that main was about to be shut off and a temporary fix put in place the property owner would be informed. Seems not.
My street has had leaks for months. They have been reported to the council and to Wellington Water (now Tiaki Wai) repeatedly, by a number of people including me.
The latest was a small stream that ran through my property and into a neighbour’s. I was told it was a private leak, that I was responsible and I should get a plumber in to sort it . Which I did.
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Trouble is, it was nothing to do with me. But it took me crying on the phone, roping in a city councillor and doing my own research to find that out, and to eventually find the source of the problem.
Take a bow Google street view. A time-stamped image from 2019 showed a couple of blue marks on an old bricked section of a bank by the road below my house. Even to an untrained eye that usually means drinking water pipe.
A link to the image was duly forwarded to Wellington Water, who had previously suggested none of the leaks on the street were potable, and that it was unlikely the easement beside my section was for anything other than storm water or maybe sewage.
A flurry of activity ensued. Various people trawled the city’s online archives looking for any reference to a pipe in the location of the since-vanished blue lines. Maps were scoured.
And then bingo.
A “communique” arrived, with my local councillor Diane Calvert ‒ who has been on the case for weeks (and which I suspect is the reason the various organisations started cranking up the action) ‒ cc’d in.
“Wellington Water (WWL) have identified that the leak is likely on an unmapped 100mm cast iron watermain (circa 1925) that used to be the inlet/outlet to [a] reservoir, which was removed in 1967. At that point, the line dropped off any WCC maps and was last recorded in 1961.
“Water supply lines to X and X still run from this main, so WWL will arrange for new supply to these properties prior to decommissioning this old main.”
Meanwhile an update on Wellington Water’s Facebook page noted: “Residents on XX street assisted our crew in locating a very old (89-years), unmarked drinking water pipe today… which had a leak.”
What followed was straight out of the local government diplomacy handbook; a crew would be turning up to install a stop valve on the main and temporary connections from the affected properties to the actual main. Traffic management would be in place, and while the work was being done bottled water would be available for residents.
But, as always the best laid plans can go amiss. And amiss these did. While the crew were digging up the road they came across a secondary break in the pipe, sending a geyser into the air.
Because it was a “complex case due to difficulty locating the leak, the subsequent break and the absence of an isolation valve,” they would need to spend a second day on it.
Meanwhile, the property manager for the neighbouring house ‒ the one also connected to the forgotten, but still in use main, and whose backyard had been flooded ‒ had no idea any of this was going on, aside from some updates from me.
She contacted Wellington Water on Monday to inquire about progress and was informed it was a private leak and the owners would need to get it fixed.Square one, much?
I had hoped that by stemming the tide flowing through my property and into the neighbour’s the numerous other leaks along the street, which have led to slumping in some areas, might also magically disappear.
There are definitely drier patches but I suspect that six-plus months and many reports to WW and WCC later the remaining damp spots will continue to bamboozle the powers that be. Plus there’s still the question of a permanent new connection for myself and the neighbour.
Still, I believe their engineers are genuinely excited about the discovery of “my” old water main.
Postscript: Wellington Water (Tiaki Wai) has contacted me regarding reimbursement for the plumber I got in to fix what they said was my problem, but actually wasn’t.
And after my previous story I was contacted by the Utilities Disputes, a not-for-profit organisation that provides free and independent dispute resolution services for electricity, gas, telecommunications, and water complaints. Over the last five years the number of complaints it had received increased by 500%. It was contacted by more than 27,000 people in 2025, up from 21,000 the previous year, with the number of complaints it dealt with over 13,500 in the last financial year up from 8356 - a 62% increase.