Yoke Har Lee: Leak-buster keeps on plugging away

Christopher Withers with one of Aquatite's Wetwall devices for protecting shower walls. Photo / Mark Mitchell

About nine years ago, tiler Christopher Withers was asked to fix a leaky bathroom in Lower Hutt.

There was so much rot, he used a sledgehammer to tear down the walls. As a result, he breathed in spores that soon led to respiratory problems and two nights in hospital.

Over the next two years Withers often thought about how to solve a problem he frequently encountered - the insidious damage caused by leaky taps, concealed behind walls. In 2002 he began working at night to test his invention that works to divert water leaks, protecting walls and framing. He then started Aquatite with business partner Steve Jackson.

Twelve prototypes later, and after $11,000 in funding from New Zealand Trade and Enterprise in 2004, Withers eventually got his first product onto the market in 2006.

Aquatite now makes two products - the Wetwall Caddy and the Cavity Cup. Both are moulded plastic cups that are placed inside the wall cavity during construction, surrounding plumbing fittings so any leaks are safely contained, or diverted to the outside of the wall. The Wetwall Caddy is used in showers, and the Cavity Cup protects other walls from leaks caused by fittings such as exterior taps.

It has taken close to a decade to get Aquatite Enterprises to where it is. Until a few years ago, Withers was a tiler by day and an inventor/would-be entrepreneur at night. When he ran out of resources he sold part of the company he founded to entrepreneur Kevin Turley.

Aquatite recently sealed a distribution agreement with an Australian distributor, Collis Marketing Services, which supplies a range of homeware products in Queensland and the Northern Territory.

"We expect our sales to increase dramatically once the Australian launch of our product is under way," says Withers. "Our local sales are growing all the time now the product has gained wide acceptance locally. In Queensland, between 2000 and 3000 new homes are being built each week. Our goal is, within the next 18-24 months, to have a firm presence in Australia."

Queensland will be the beachhead for Aquatite's push into the Australian frontier. From there the company hopes to take the Wetwall Caddy and Cavity Cup to other parts of Australia and the rest of the globe.

The road to success has been rocky. Despite having a product that worked, Aquatite was faced with the challenge of creating a market because there was no onus on developers or builders to use the device.

"New Zealand is the only country in the world with an established building code where it is not a requirement to seal penetrations in wet area lining," Withers says.

The Australians have had such a code, so the Australian distributor believes the Wetwall Caddy and Cavity Cup will make a huge market impact. The first test shipment has already been sold.

Since 2005 Withers has been trying to gain some attention from the Department of Building and Housing (DBH) for such a code requirement to be established in this country. "The DBH had asked me to quantify the problem, and information supplied by the Insurance Council of New Zealand shows that payouts for problems related to leaks costs the industry about $30 million." The Council has endorsed Aquatite's products to help home owners reduce exposure to risks related to water leakage.

But a good product does not guarantee immediate converts. Although Plumbing World was Aquatite's first merchant, after an initial splash, the product hardly moved.

Withers says if he were to repeat this exercise, he would probably market the product to homeowners sooner. Because the company had limited resources, it concentrated on marketing to plumbers and builders. He would also raise more capital a lot sooner, so he could tackle the business development he wanted to do.

Withers reckons he has travelled up and down the country six times over the past five years. At times he had to sleep in his car because there was no money for motels.

He believes he has finally gained wide-scale acceptance for Aquatite's products. "Nine out of 10 people [in the industry] I talk to have information about our product which I attribute to the legwork we have done over the last five years."

He does not regret the more than over $250,000 the company spent getting intellectual property protection for his inventions in New Zealand, Australia, China, and US.

As part of a wider vision for Aquatite's global growth, the company will be looking at working with tapware manufacturers to incorporate the company's product into shower mixers.

It is a sore point for Withers that New Zealand has little in the way of help for small entrepreneurs getting started. "I knocked on so many doors. In many instances, we didn't qualify for any entrepreneur's grant because we weren't big enough. More money and support need to be given to the typical Kiwi battlers, to grow more global products."

He does not regret his decision to divest his shares to raise capital when banks could not lend him the money he needed to develop his business. "Kevin [Turley] is a great man. He recognised the potential of the company."

Aquatite's current New Zealand suppliers include Carters, Plumbing World, Mastertrade, Plumbing Plus, Placemakers and Mitre 10 and Mitre 10 Mega.

Although Withers has stopped doing tiling work, his wife is still waiting for him to finish doing up the bathrooms of the old villa they bought some years back.