Glenn Olsson wants other Hastings residents to check their low pressure copper hot water cylinders. His was leaking for months before he noticed it, after the warranty expired. Photo / Warren Buckland
Glenn Olsson wants other Hastings residents to check their low pressure copper hot water cylinders. His was leaking for months before he noticed it, after the warranty expired. Photo / Warren Buckland
The mystery of what is causing Hastings water cylinders to leak has deepened, but investigators have ruled out one likely source.
Statistics show low-pressure copper hot water cylinders are about 20 times more likely to fail in Hastings than the rest of New Zealand.
According to 2018 census data, theentire Hastings District makes up about 1.7 per cent of occupied private dwellings in New Zealand.
But postcodes 4120 and 4122 (which represent most of Hastings' urban area) have been responsible for 34 per cent of nationwide failures and warranty claims in the last 12 months.
Sales of replacement cylinders within the postcodes - which include Flaxmere, Saint Leonards, Mahora, Raureka, Mahora, Camberley, Tomoana, Longlands, Frimley, Woolwich, Parkvale, Akina and Mayfair - have more than trebled since the 2016 Havelock North water crisis, which saw chlorine added to the city's water.
Warranty claims have also increased a similar amount in the same period.
Hastings District Council group manager for asset management Craig Thew said the council had conducted extensive water testing but had uncovered no potential cause for the issue.
But investigators did find that chlorine is unlikely to be the reason, Thew said.
"It is particular to a small area of Hastings, and given almost all of New Zealand has chlorine in the water and other areas haven't, in the main, seen hot water cylinder issues, it seems that something else that is hard to detect might be going on.
"We are broadening our discussions to a wider group of specialists to do our best to solve the puzzle."
Master Plumbers CEO Greg Wallace said earlier that evidence did not point to a manufacturer fault as the cause of the hot water cylinder failures in Hastings. Photo / Supplied
Master Plumbers CEO Greg Wallace said he still wants Hastings District Council to urgently get an independent assessor in to look at the water.
"We're asking for an independent report into the water quality issues that are causing hot water cylinders to fail."
Flaxmere resident Glenn Olsson's hot water cylinder was installed March 1, 2017, and had been leaking for months before he became aware around June this year, shortly after the five-year warranty had expired.
"It was leaking through the inlets, through the electrical," Olsson said.
"That is one thing that needs to be pointed out with these cylinders failing - how lucky it is that people haven't been electrocuted."
Olsson said he since decided to not buy another indoor hot water cylinder and instead spent more on an outdoor gas hot water heater.
Ruling out chlorine as a cause still left him and others affected wondering whether the cause of the issue was linked to another aspect of the water, or something else entirely, Olsson said.
"At the end of the day the ones that get penalised are the homeowners because they are the ones that have to pay for all the damage," he said.
Manufacturer Rheem added a warranty exclusion in March for any of its low pressure copper hot water cylinders (LPCU) installed in the Hastings District postcodes 4120 and 4122, citing "localised water conditions causing pinhole corrosion".
Wallace said earlier this year that the random corrosion points in the walls of affected Hastings cylinders, rather than "pitting" at the base or evenly spread corrosion, indicated that neither chlorine or a fault in the cylinder were causes.
Olsson said he would advise anyone with a hot water cylinder in Hastings to check them for signs of leaks, such as moisture around the pipes or staining, particularly underneath.
"More people need to be aware of the risks they are at now with these failures."
Olsson said he wouldn't want anyone else to go through the difficulty he had with insurance and dealing with the damage to his house.
