Complied by Megan O’Connor, with technical input from Gerrie Botha, IOPSA; Duncan Keil, UPP; and Patrick Gordon, Splashworks
On 11 March every year, we celebrate World Plumbing Day – a day of recognition for the essential role that plumbing plays in protecting public health, promoting well-being and improving quality of life.
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In this feature, we will delve into the themes of the World Plumbing Council, which created World Plumbing Day, by looking into four themes echoed by the Council. These themes will be addressed at the World Plumbing Conference 2026, under the theme ‘world-wide problems, global solutions’. In this feature we will explore the following four themes in the South African context, as well as SA-specific solutions.
- Skills development
- Supply and conservation
- Sustainability
- Safeguarding the public
Skills development
The use of unqualified people doing plumbing work in South Africa has been a persistent problem for years. In an effort to address the shortage of qualified artisans including plumbers, the Department of Higher Education, National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) and other funders collaborated to create funded programmes to educate/ train prospective artisans to become qualified. The challenges with these programmes are that they are advertised as a source of income given that there is a monthly stipend being paid to the candidate while studying, which many potential plumbers may opt for, as the ‘traditional route’ can be costly. This creates a situation where candidates are attracted to the programme purely for the income they can earn, as opposed to actually possessing a desire and passion to be a qualified plumber/artisan.
These funded programmes create a minimal throughput rate of students signing up for the programmes (for example, apprenticeship programmes) and actually ending up in the plumbing industry as qualified plumbers. This is because as soon as the funded programme ends, some students opt to join another funded programme instead of completing their plumbing training. This also leads to the conundrum of unqualified people doing plumbing work, where someone who has done some training – but not completed their qualification – may choose to offer plumbing services as a business, which can result in any plumbing work that he or she does creating more problems/risks than solutions.
Supply and conservation
Plumbers sometimes opt to use non-compliant products for their jobs because the products are cheaper – and in reality, the plumber whose services are cheaper will often be chosen by customers to do their plumbing work, over the plumber who uses compliant (and more expensive) products. Ultimately, it is the consumer who is negatively impacted by these non compliant products when the system fails – because of the workmanship and non-compliant products used, the consumer is jeopardised in that they have paid for something they are not getting. For example, a consumer wants a bathroom renovation, hires the cheapest worker who is unqualified and installs non- compliant products, and after the renovation the whole system fails, they now have no access to a properly functioning bathroom.
At the base of conservation and supply lies two questions: ‘How do we reduce water wastage?’ and ‘How do we reduce water usage?’ Although there are water efficient products available in the South African market, at the end of the day if you don’t have the right plumber doing the project he might not be aware of these products, and water is unnecessarily wasted. Furthermore, poor installation and lack of maintenance can also lead to water wastage, as evident in the infrastructure failures experienced throughout South Africa.
Plumbing students need to be targeted at school level. Diana | Pexels.com
Sustainability
In a 2023 Executive Summary by the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS), water losses of 40.8%, and Non-Revenue Water (NRW) of 47.4% were revealed. The report calls for “innovative technologies that require little or no water or recycled water”.1 This is where sustainability comes in, and ties with supply and conservation and infrastructure. The question surrounding infrastructure is ‘How do we sustain and maintain infrastructure?’
The current infrastructure cannot keep up with the current water demand, mostly due to urbanisation. Duncan Keil, UPP, gives the perfect example: “Ten years ago, you could have had a building that served as a business with 10 bathrooms. A few years ago, it was replaced by a hostel that now has hundreds of bathrooms, but the infrastructure was not upgraded when the hostel was built. The pressure needs to be increased to keep up with demand, but the water flow rate cannot be increased past what the infrastructure was created for, so we end up with leaks and burst pipes everywhere.”
Included in the issue of infrastructure is the treatment of wastewater. Currently South Africa gets its water from sources like rivers and dams. The water cycle is this: Water flows through the house, goes to the sewer and waste water treatment works respectively, and is then pushed back to the rivers and dams. And while the systems are designed to treat and filter rainfall water in the rivers and dams, they were not designed to treat sewage and remove contaminants – so consumers are left with unsafe and contaminated water, which affects the public. A recent issue that has arisen in the country is the spillage of sewage directly into water sources during flooding, and with no enforced backflow prevention in South Africa, there is not much that can be done about the issue.
Patrick Gordon stresses that water is too cheap and too readily available, so it is not being treated as the valuable resource that it is. With the population always growing and the water supply remaining the same, we are constantly exerting more stress on an already stressed resource. The population needs to be educated about the value of water.
Safeguarding the public
Ultimately, this all comes down to safeguarding the public – the use of non-compliant products as well as poor maintenance and workmanship of plumbing systems can result in sewage entering the water source and contaminating it. Contaminated water can cause Cholera, Typhoid, Hepatitis, and have Legionella (if the water system is incorrectly installed and the water temperature is incorrect) and E-coli, all presenting serious risks to the consumer and contributing to poor water and sanitation systems within South Africa. Although the country has a Consumer Protection Act, the lack of enforcement is leaving consumers vulnerable.
The solutions we must focus on this World Plumbing Day
First and foremost, enforcement of laws, bylaws and the South African National Standards (SANS) is critical to address the vicious circle. “You can have the best laws in the world, but if they aren’t enforced, they are meaningless and serve no purpose” says Botha. Collaboration between the local authority and industry is a possible solution to the enforcement issue – the industry has the experience, skills and knowledge, which when paired with an educated and upskilled local authority work force, can eradicate non- enforcement.
Enforcement is needed in terms of infrastructure, where police and inspectors need to ensure that all buildings – new and old – are compliant to SANS and have CoC’s where required. Enforcement also needs to be in place to not allow non-compliant products into the country at all – ultimately, they should not be available as an option to the plumber. With enforcement comes liability, and when plumbers are faced with liability in terms of using non-compliant products, the much-needed change can happen.
Next, the skills issue needs to be addressed. Ultimately, this involves creating a desire to be part of the industry and qualify as a plumber. Plumbing students need to be targeted at school level: “Everybody wants to be an accountant, lawyer or doctor because that’s where they believe the money lies, but that’s not the reality. Not everyone can be that. There are people who work better with their hands than anything else, and that’s who should be targeted to have a desire to become qualified plumbers. Educate people from school level about what plumbing and the trades are about, as well as the career paths and opportunities available – that will attract the right people to the trades who have the desire to become fully qualified artisans,” says Botha.
Contaminated water can cause cholera, typhoid and hepatitis. Steve Johnson | Pexels.com
Keil adds that education surrounding awareness of skills is also important. Consumers should be taught the risks of using ‘the cheaper guy’ and non- compliant products, as well as how these factors could end up being dangerous and costly in the long run.
On top of creating a desire to be a plumber, work-place experience also needs to be integrated into current training options. If plumbers are taught theory and practical work at the same time by multiple teachers then out-of-the-box thinking can become the norm, instead of provoking anxiety as it currently does with students who have only learnt the basics of theory in classrooms. Similarly, training centres can offer some of the more select designations’ skills, such as heat pumps and backflow prevention, so that more specialised learners can enter the industry.
The removal of non-compliant products is also a vital solution. To prevent water wastage, non- compliant products need to be removed from shelves and stores, so that they are out of the system entirely. The sale of non-compliant products is motivated by money when it shouldn’t be – the goal/ purpose of products used in plumbing systems should be the safety of the public/consumer and the environment, and there needs to be an awareness created around this. Ultimately, this ties back to enforcement – there should be an enforcement method for non-compliant products to be removed from the shelves, which does not exist presently.
In terms of sustainability, South Africa can adopt the wide range of sustainability products and systems available, such as:
- Rainwater harvesting
- Filtration systems to make water safe and potable
- Boreholes
- Underground water / storm water management
- Recycled waste, where mini wastewater treatment plants are installed on properties
- Water-efficient products like taps, mixers and shower heads
- Solar-powered geysers and heat pumps
“Plumbers shouldn’t make things work. It should work according to the proper design of the whole system. If plumbers are self-regulating in terms of compliance, creating an industry in which everybody insists on the minimum standard being the correct way and not cutting corners, then there may not be so much competition,” concludes Gordon.
Reference:
- National State of Water Report 2023-Executive Summary 1.pdf
