It’s Been a Long Time Coming

From 2026, it will be illegal for any plumbing products to contain lead if they’re sold or installed in New Zealand (and Australia). The aim of this new legislation is to eliminate risks associated with lead exposure in our drinking water.

As highlighted by the recent Horowhenua poisoning incident, lead in drinking water can have catastrophic effects on community health.

Eliminating lead from plumbing products is a long-overdue law that we’re excited to see come in place.

Why Lead Should Be Avoided

It’s fairly well-known that lead is a toxic metal that poses serious health risks, particularly for infants and young children. Studies have shown that even low levels of lead exposure can lead to some of the following issues:

Cognitive impairments and learning disabilities in children
Behavioural issues
High blood pressure and other heart-related problems in adults

There are many more complications associated with lead poisoning, and the effects have been felt for millennia: the Roman Empire used lead as a primary material for their plumbing, and a large proportion of the population suffered from health conditions associated with lead poisoning.

It is suggested that Roman tap water could contain up to 100 times more lead than their local spring waters!

Remains of a Roman lead pipe, dated to the reign of Vespasian. It was customary to annotate the pipe with its installation date and owner.

Photo by Wolfgang Sauber, CC BY-SA 3.0

Be Careful Where You Buy Your Products…

There are limitations to the new Australia / NZ lead ban: we can’t control all imported goods, so anything ordered from popular online stores like Trade Depot or Temu likely contains unregulated amounts of lead.

These products will NOT have BPIR (Building Product Information Requirements). Jarvis will not install products from these suppliers.

All Sanitary plumbing and drainage products, including tapware (e.g. shower mixers, bath spouts, toilets) will all have a BPIR if they are lead free — you can learn more about the Building Product Information Requirements here.

It can be tempting to order imported products to fix up your own bathroom and save money, but we’d advise against DIY’ing your way into lead poisoning or criminal charges!

It will be illegal for registered plumbers to install products with lead. If you’re working with Jarvis we will need you to either purchase BPIR approved products or purchase your products and fixtures through us to ensure quality.

Some other perks of buying your plumbing products through Jarvis are:

Any warranties are processed by us, meaning peace of mind and no admin for you.
You receive the benefit of our supplier price reductions and pay less than retail.
Quality ensured. We will only supply products that we can stand behind.

If you have any questions, our team is happy to chat.

Get in touch