Soaked home headache for family

Nadia Dickson and her children Eiva, 5, and Nakitta, 2, in their home after a water cylinder burst at 2am. Photo / John Borren

An Ohauiti resident thinks the council should take responsibility for her water cylinder bursting and flooding her home early yesterday morning.

Lochinvar Pl resident Nadia Dickson was one of many Ohauiti residents left without water from Wednesday afternoon to the early hours of yesterday morning after a water main broke on Ohauiti Rd.

Water was restored just before midnight and when the water returned to full pressure at 2am, a valve on Miss Dickson's water cylinder burst and flooded almost her entire house. She heard the cylinder burst and when she got out of bed to see what it was, the carpet outside her bedroom door was wet.

"The whole hallway, three bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom and about half the lounge was flooded, and everything in its path. My lounge suite, my girls' new beds that I had just bought yesterday, their bookshelf just got ruined."

Miss Dickson said when the valve burst, she had to go next door to her landlords and wake them up. She could not get hold of any plumbers that early in the morning, so Miss Dickson had to resort to calling the fire brigade to help get the water under control.

Miss Dickson said she thought the Tauranga City Council should take some responsibility for the damage. She will be staying at her mother's house with her two daughters until the problem is sorted.

Council water services team leader Peter Bahrs said depending on how old the infrastructure within the house was, "things do give way from time to time". He said in cases like Miss Dickson's, he recommended people went to their insurers.

If the insurer determined damage was due to a council issue, the claim would be referred to the council.