The video, posted to Vimeo, shows the woman going into work at the Wellington Water building in Lower Hutt. Photo: Vimeo / Screenshot

Wellington Water has confirmed an employee is being investigated after they posted a video online claiming to have spent the work day "slacking off".

It comes as the beleaguered agency is desperately urging residents to conserve water this summer, while up to 45 percent of the region's water is leaking from ageing pipes.

The "day-in-the-life" style video was posted to video sharing website Vimeo and shows the woman going into work at the Wellington Water building in Lower Hutt.

Speaking in Mandarin, the woman said she had been working at home for two days "half lying down", which she explained was "actually doing nothing".

On her third day back after the new year, her partner made her go to the office because he was worried she would be fired, she said.

But the woman said she did not feel sorry for doing nothing at work so she took an hour coffee break and left early to open her mail at home.

Wellington Water said it was undertaking an internal staff investigation with the employee as part of the organisation's code of conduct principles.

The region's water provider says the video is not representative of Wellington Water staff, who are a dedicated team.

Meanwhile, water storage tanks are in hot demand in Wellington, and the council says deliveries should soon ramp up to meet the need.

Wellingtonians were warned they should have emergency water stored at their homes in the case of a shortage during a sizzling summer. The region has been urged to prepare for the possibility of an acute water shortage.

A queue of people waited hours in the hot sun to purchase discounted 200 litre water tanks at the southern landfill's Tip Shop on Tuesday.

There were 70 tanks available in the latest delivery, and everyone who queued walked away happy, council spokesperson Richard MacLean said.

"But we are now obviously subject to the ability of the manufacturer to build these tanks, or produce these tanks as quickly as possible. We're expecting a delivery each week, and hopefully if the manufacturer can scale up, then that will become more frequent."