Compiled by Mark Jansen Van Vuren
Business is good for plumbers who do solid work. Referrals still matter, repeat customers still matter and reputation is still everything. In that sense, the industry is healthy.
Supplied by Mark Van Vuren
But beneath that, there is growing confusion – and frustration – around one issue in particular: the Certificate of Compliance (CoC). Not because plumbers don’t want to comply, and not because standards don’t matter, but because the system around plumbing CoCs has become unclear, expensive and increasingly driven by market forces rather than by law.
If we read the building regulations and the relevant SANS standards, including SANS 10254, the requirement is straightforward: a Certificate of Compliance must be issued. There is no grey area in the law. It does not prescribe which private body must supply the certificate, which association a plumber must belong to, or where that certificate must be stored. It simply requires that a CoC be issued by a qualified person.
Yet in practice, plumbers are often told they must use a specific body’s CoC, belong to a particular association, and pay ongoing fees, or
their work will not be accepted – especially by insurers. This is where confusion begins, and where the industry starts drifting away from a clear legal framework into something fragmented and costly. Ultimately compliance is the customers’ responsibility, and in that, it is their duty to employ a qualified plumber who is in a position to issue a CoC.
A useful comparison is the electrical industry. To issue a statutory electrical CoC, an electrician must be tested in the category they register for, register with the Department of Employment and Labour, register as a contractor, pay annual fees and accept legal responsibility for the certificates they issue. The system is clear and statutory. The state is the regulator, and accountability sits with the qualified, registered person.
Now compare that with plumbing. In plumbing, the law requires qualification – nothing more, nothing less. But plumbers are effectively forced by insurance requirements and market pressure to join voluntary private bodies, buy CoCs from them, have those certificates audited, and have them stored by those bodies. Instead of a clean statutory system, we have a regulatory-by-proxy system driven largely by insurers and private structures.
This is where the cost question becomes impossible to ignore. A statutory electrical CoC costs roughly R120 for ten certificates – about R12 per certificate. A plumbing CoC, by contrast, can cost R150 or more for a single certificate. That is not a minor difference. It is a major structural cost placed on plumbers for doing work they are already legally qualified to perform.
The usual response is that plumbing CoCs are audited. That sounds reasonable – until we ask the next question: who audits electrical CoCs? Electrical certificates are generally not audited as a matter of routine. They are checked when something goes wrong, when there is a complaint, or when a homeowner challenges the work. In those cases, the cost of inspection is usually carried by the homeowner, unless the electrician is found to be at fault.
why is plumbing built around a permanent, prepaid, third-party audit system, while electrical relies on professional accountability backed by post-incident enforcement?
This leads to the core issue: can a qualified plumber not audit his own work and store his own CoCs? Electricians do. Engineers do. Many other regulated professionals do. Why are plumbers treated differently?
Is this system really about improving quality and protecting consumers? Or is it about managing insurance risk, shifting liability away from the state, and creating a paid compliance funnel through private bodies?
The insurance angle cannot be ignored. We all hear the figures – hundreds of thousands of geyser-related claims. Insurers are under pressure, and understandably so. But instead of building a proper statutory plumbing registration system, similar to the electrical model, the industry has drifted into a space where private bodies effectively act as regulators, plumbers pay per certificate, and compliance becomes a product rather than simply a legal duty.
The cost of this system is carried first by the plumber, and ultimately by the customer.
This is not an argument against standards. It is not an argument against accountability. And it is certainly not an argument against quality work. It is an argument for clarity: clear statutory regulation, fair and proportional costs, and professional responsibility backed by real enforcement instead of outsourced gatekeeping.
Right now, plumbing sits in an uncomfortable middle ground – neither fully statutory nor truly voluntary. The result is confusion, duplication and a compliance system that feels more like a toll gate than a professional safeguard.
Until that changes, plumbers will keep asking a simple but important question: are we being regulated for quality, or are we being charged for compliance?
My opinion will touch many nerves and sensitive points but that’s the intention.
