New Consumer NZ Test Reveals Danger Of Unregulated Online Plumbing Products
Master Plumbers' concerns that cheap online plumbing products will not comply with new regulations to make drinking water safer have proven justified.
A recent test undertaken by Consumer NZ showed that one of six kitchen tap mixers purchased from a variety of retailers resulted in lead levels in the water higher than is permitted in the Australian/New Zealand testing standard.
Lead is a cumulative toxin, which makes ongoing exposure through drinking water a particular concern.
"No level of lead is acceptable," says Master Plumbers CEO Greg Wallace. "Young children are especially vulnerable to the toxin, with even low levels of exposure linked to learning disabilities and nervous system damage."
The tap mixer that failed was purchased from global retailer Amazon, which ships a wide range of product to New Zealand. This highlights the dangers of buying tapware online where the market is largely unregulated and unpoliced.
From May 2026, new requirements for plumbing products that deliver drinking water come into force, in line with an update to the building code. These products, which include kitchen and bathroom tapware, as well as valves and fittings connected to domestic drinking water pipes, must not contain more than 0.25% lead.
Master Plumbers welcomes the transition to lead free plumbing products in New Zealand but wants more to be done to give consumers confidence.
"We want to see compulsory 'lead free' marking being placed either on the product or the packaging of relevant plumbing products, to allow consumers and tradespeople to easily identify that they are lead-free," says Wallace. "It is the plumber installing the product who is held responsible, so installers should have a way to easily determine if the product is compliant."
Compulsory marking would allow for the policing of non-compliant or falsely declared products through Commerce Commission regulations. As it stands, the current building product information requirement (BPIR) regulations rely on self-reporting and do not have a proactive enforcement system in place-which is particularly concerning for the regulation of online retailers that may be importing international products.
Master Plumbers has been raising the alarm about lead in tapware for years. In 2018, the organisation commissioned independent testing of five tapware products sold in this country and found the level of lead leaching from one product to be 70% higher than the allowable limit in drinking water product standard AS/NZS 4020.
The full details of the test conducted by Consumer NZ are included in their online report and published in the latest issue of Consumer magazine.
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