Five low-effort checks worth running after winter — gully traps, outside taps, hot water performance, leak sweep, and stormwater drains before the next big rain.
Winter is hard on a plumbing system. Cold-snap stress, blocked drains, heavy hot-water use and waterlogged ground all leave a mark. Spring is the natural time to take a half-hour walk around the house and pick up the small issues before they grow into call-outs.
Walk the gully traps
Every fixture inside the house ultimately drains through an outdoor gully trap. Lift each grate, scoop out winter leaves and silt, and run water through to make sure each one is moving freely. A gully that has filled up will back-flow into the closest indoor fixture the next time the drain is busy.
Check outside taps
Frost can split brass and copper without leaving a visible crack. Turn each outside tap on, leave it running for a minute, then turn it off and feel for damp around the fitting. A slow drip from the wall plate is a sign the tap or feed pipe has cracked over winter.
Hot water sanity check
Run the hot tap at the basin furthest from the cylinder. Time how long it takes to run truly hot — over 30 seconds is normal, much longer than that suggests the cylinder thermostat is set low, the element is failing, or the pipework is over-long. Worth flagging now rather than waiting for the next family of guests in summer.
Do a meter read
Shut every tap and appliance in the house. Walk out to the water meter and watch the dial. If it is moving, water is going somewhere it should not. Most quiet leaks start small over winter and only show up after a few months of accumulated damp.
Inspect stormwater
Spring storms on the Kapiti Coast can dump 50mm of rain in an hour. Check downpipes are connected and clear, that surface gratings around the property are not silted up, and that any rain garden or soakage pit on your property is draining (rather than holding water at the top). A blocked stormwater system finds its own way out, usually through the back door.
None of the above takes long. Phone Tony if any of the checks turns up something you would rather not poke at yourself.