Tricky street leak fixed, eventually

Lucky for Watercare that, so far, this has not been a drought year. Hauiti Drive residents, in Warkworth, contacted the council-controlled organisation on November 25, concerned about the amount of water running down the gutter on one side of the street.

“It wasn’t exactly gushing out, but it was running 24 hours a day so it equated to a lot of water,” one resident said.

Coincidentally, it wasn’t until Mahurangi Matters enquired that the leak was finally fixed, 12 days after Watercare had first been alerted.

A Watercare spokesperson says the faults services team triages all reported leaks to ensure high-volume leaks, or those that pose a risk to people or property, are repaired first.

“As it was understood to be a low-volume leak with no customer impact or risk to property, we advised we would have a team on site within 10 working days. However, our crew was on site to assess the reported leak three days later. In this instance, the exact location of the leak proved difficult to find – likely due to the depth of the water pipe.

“Further investigations were undertaken using acoustic leak detection technology.

“When we were confident we’d located the source of the leak – underneath a driveway – we organised the repair work. This was successfully carried out overnight on December 7 and temporary reinstatement has been completed.”