Where Napier City Council's pipes stop
Napier City Council owns and manages the wastewater pipework up to and including the lateral, the branch that runs from the public sewer to your property boundary. Pipes, fittings and faults inside private property aren't its responsibility. The owner arranges and pays for those repairs.
So a toilet that won't flush away, or a sink that won't drain, starts with a plumber or drainlayer, who finds the cause. If the problem turns out to be at the boundary, ring the council on 06 835 7579. It won't pay for the camera inspection or jet cleaning used to track the fault down. And nobody may lift a manhole lid, tradies included.
The council keeps delivering drinking water, wastewater and stormwater until Water Hawke's Bay, jointly owned by the Napier, Hastings and Central Hawke's Bay councils, is due to take over on 1 July 2027.
Napier facts that change a plumbing job
Manganese from the aquifer
Napier's water is drawn from the Heretaunga Aquifer, which carries natural manganese. Meeting the chlorine added since 2017, it turns into a black solid that can coat the inside of pipes. Tamatea, Onekawa and Pirimai get discoloured water more often than other suburbs.
Brown water: what to try first
Open the outside tap and let it run until it clears. Still murky after 15 minutes? Turn it off and ring the council. If it has happened before, run the laundry tub taps before a load of washing. Don't drink discoloured water.
A city that pumps its rain away
Around 75 percent of Napier relies on pumping to drain stormwater. The sewer is a separate network and isn't designed to carry rain, so roof and yard water should never find its way into it.
Fires and wetbacks
At the 2023 Census, 32% of Napier homes used a wood burner as a main heater, a little above the national 28.2%. The census doesn't ask how water is heated, but a cylinder heated by a fire has its own replacement rules: see wetbacks.
Check the licence before the van arrives
Licences are issued by the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board (PGDB), not the council. Ask to see the practising licence, as a card or in the PGDB app, and look at the expiry date and the trade it covers.
Then search the PGDB public register by the person's first and last name. A tick or green in the far-right column means a current licence; people whose licence has lapsed are still listed. Our licence check guide shows each step.
Where to go next in Napier
For a blockage inside the boundary, start with blocked drains or blocked toilets. Broken or root-filled pipes underground are drainlayer work, often found with a CCTV drain inspection. Across the region, see Hawke's Bay.
What we would do
Find out where the blockage is before you argue about who pays. A plumber or drainlayer can tell you whether it's inside your boundary or at it. Inside is yours; at the boundary, ring the council with what the tradie found. If the trouble is brown water rather than a blockage, try the outside tap first: the council puts that down to manganese in its supply. When the job is yours, tell us about it and an authorised Napier tradie who handles that kind of work can pick it up.