Joburg Water at work

Johannesburg Water is barely keeping its head above water, with hundreds of burst pipes across the city over the past few months.

The city’s ageing water infrastructure, which consists mainly of rigid asbestos cement piping that is susceptible to bursts, needs to be overhauled to end the continuous leaks. While an urgent project is underway to upgrade pipes in the northern suburbs, this brings little comfort to people who are often unable to flush their toilets.
Fourways Review is frequently contacted by readers about water outages, pipes bursting, and the time it takes to repair pipes and rehabilitate sites after the work is done.
To answer these queries, Johannesburg Water was asked to explain the process that was followed when a burst is reported.

Spokesperson Nombuso Shabalala said the north water depot located in the Zandfontein region dealt with Fourways and its surrounds.

“In February alone, 1 056 burst pipes were repaired by the north depot and another 729 were repaired in March,” said Shabalala.

She added 15 teams were available to deal with bursts, 13 operated during working hours and another two were on standby for after-hour emergencies. However, she said, factors such as vehicle breakdowns and absenteeism negatively affected their performance. On average, each team attended only four jobs a day.

According to Shabalala, a team typically consisted of a plumber and two general workers. Before a complaint can be attended to, teams have to follow a simple process:

• A pipe burst complaint is logged by a resident through the call centre, and a reference number is allocated
•  The complaint is automatically allocated to a data controller (DC).
• The DC continually checks for new calls and must attend to the call within 15 minutes and create a job order.
• The DC allocates the job order to one of the foremen.
• The foreman prints all job orders the following morning and gives them to the crews.
• The crews go to the sites and assess the damage to determine the material required. They generally return to the site the following day to complete the job, hence the 48-hour response time. Extremely urgent cases are done on the same day.

Shabalala shared the process for emergency repairs and major projects:

• In a case of a major burst, a first-response team will go out to close all the valves.
• Major pipe bursts require a tractor loader backhoe to excavate the site.
• Excavations may take 2–4 hours. Once the problematic pipe is exposed, an assessment of the material requirements is made.
• The crew leader tells the foreman what is needed.
• The list of requirements is sent to the central stores at the Zandfontein Depot. It may take up to three hours for the material to be delivered to the site.
• The team on site prepares the works area by ensuring conditions are safe and inspects the trench sides for safety.
• Repairs start once the material arrives and may require cutting and preparing the existing pipes for joining to the new pipes.When the work is done, the site is made safe.
• Reinstatement normally follows several days later. There should not be a delay of more than 15 days.

According to Shabalala, a major repair job may take a crew almost an entire day and when bulk supply lines required repairs, it may take several days and multiple crews.

Johannesburg Water urged all residents to bear with them, saying that the duplication of complaints further strained the utility’s limited resources.

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