By Tanya Olckers with technical input from Darryl Brainin from Burgess Plumbing
A prominent hospital in Gauteng decided to add rainwater harvesting to its facilities. Burgess Plumbing was on hand to provide the installation.
Filtration is an important part of rainwater harvesting. All images by Burgess Plumbing
Burgess Plumbing took three weeks to complete the project. The project involved the supply and installation of six 10 000ℓ JoJo tanks to be used for rainwater harvesting. Once the water is harvested it would be filtered and then go on to supply the clinic and various other offices and ablution facilities at the hospital.
“One of the challenges that the team faced was getting the water tanks over a 3m high building entrance and into a courtyard”
The reasoning behind the project was to harvest rainwater to be used to assist in water outages at the hospital and reduce their overall water consumption on a yearly basis. A hospital without water is, undoubtedly, a frightening thought, but a looming reality as South Africa faces a water crisis.
Installation meant having specially manufactured box gutters that were then installed on existing roof spaces. Burgess Plumbing supplied and installed 160mm drainpipes from these gutters to the prefilter. From there, the Pure Rain Technologies prefilter yielded 99% clean water into the tanks while debris, leaves and so on were washed down an overflow from the filter.
Six massive 10 000ℓ JoJo tanks completed with interconnecting pipework and shut off valves to individual tanks were part of theinstallation. Two vertical multistage VSD booster pumps were added along with two sets of 20” nanofiltration systems complete with water meters.
The municipal water supply to the tanks was fitted to a big boy valve. New copper pipework from the booster pump through to various bathrooms was used to feed toilets, urinals, showers and basins.
Six JoJo tanks were used in the system
One of the challenges that the team faced was getting the water tanks over a 3m high building entrance and into a courtyard – using the height of the delivery trucks to make the lifting process easier.
Pulse water meters were installed, and these are linked to a software system that the building manager has both on his desktop and on an app. This way, the total water usage can be monitored based on the amount of municipal water used compared to the rainwater that fills the tanks.
There is a meter on municipal incoming water and on the outgoing boosted water supply
The system is self-sufficient and ongoing maintenance every six months is done to check and replace filter cartridges and service booster pumps.
Due to the age of the hospital there was an old network of galvanised pipes – so connections had to be made carefully so as not to compromise the old pipework.
Suppliers:
- Burgess Plumbing- Main Contractor
- HMS Pumps
- Purerain
- Heunis Sheet Metal
- JoJo Tanks
