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When a small leak broke out behind Paul Bozonie's suburban home on Friday morning, he thought it was almost amusing.
As that trickle turned into a torrent, blasting thousands of litres of water through windows and destroying much of his Sydney property, the humour quickly faded.
"We got up this morning to light running water down there, it was a small leak … they came and fixed it, and then all of a sudden, it blew again, and then it just started spurting out water everywhere," he said.
The leak broke out in a pipeline behind Paul Bozonie's property. (ABC News: Berge Breiland)
The major pipeline that runs through the southern Sydney suburb of Como burst about 1pm on Friday, shooting large amounts of water into surrounding homes and flooding the area.
Sydney Water said its network technicians were on site assessing the leak when the pipe burst.
It apologised "for the inconvenience caused", a spokesperson said.
The pipeline runs through Como and burst on Friday. (ABC News)
'I could cry, honestly'
Another resident recorded a video of the water blasting with significant force through a living room window, and gushing through the home.
The water continued to stream into homes in both directions until it was contained later that afternoon.
"What do you do, mate? I could cry, honestly," Mr Bozonie said, as he assessed the damage.
"It's just run all down the wall, the lounge is just saturated, our laptops are drowned over there. It's come through everywhere, I can't believe it."
His son Blake tried to help protect the home.
"I came down to check on my grandfather, and there was just water coming in everywhere, downstairs there, and it just kept getting worse from there," he said.
"At the start, we were trying to stop the water from coming in, or trying to get rid of what we could, but it wasn't long until you could see that we couldn't get on top of it. It was too much water for us to handle."
'We just rebuild'
Sydney Water apologised to affected customers for the "inconvenience caused". (ABC News: Berge Breiland)
Standing in his sodden living room, with water still dripping from the ceiling, Mr Bozonie said his main concern going forward was mould.
"Everything's so damp, it's in the ceilings, it's everywhere … it gets into the electricals, gets everywhere, so it could be quite a long journey now before we actually come back," he told the ABC.
But he said that despite the damage, he was still able to see the bright side.
"As we say that no-one got hurt, that's the main thing. Life goes on, we just rebuild."
Ageing water infrastructure
Professor Stuart Khan fears there could be more incidents of burst water pipes. (ABC News: Jak Rowland)
University of Sydney engineering professor Stuart Khan said a great deal of Sydney's water infrastructure was built from about 1950 to 2000, and coming "to the end of their life".
He's concerned the incident was an indication that urgent maintenance and replacement was needed.
"If we're not maintaining, if we're not continually renewing these 50, 60, 70-year-old assets, then we will see more and more incidents like this one," Professor Khan said.
Earlier this month, Sydney Water asked pricing regulator IPART for approval to increase water levies by 50 per cent by the end of the decade to fund an overhaul of the city's water infrastructure.
Professor Khan said that work was overdue.
"We need to see that expenditure of more than a billion dollars per year ongoing and that's obviously going to have a significant impact on customer bills," he said.
In a statement on Saturday, Sydney Water said the money would go towards keeping up with population growth and replacing ageing components.
"To support new and existing Sydney homes and the rapidly expanding population, Sydney Water is looking to invest more than $26 billion to address the growing demands on our water resources and ageing infrastructure over the next five years," a spokesperson said.
Sydney Water also said it was working to assist residents in Como with relocation and assessing property damage.