In response to the article Water outages anger Fourways residents, more Fourways residents have spoken up about their water woes.
Residents have continually complained about water outages in areas ranging from Craigavon to Lonehill.
Briony French said, “Since moving into the Fourways area in June we have been subjected to water outages almost once a month. Water has been on and off for the last two, possibly even four weeks.”
Another resident, who wished to remain anonymous, complained about the water pressure in the Lonehill area.
The resident said, “For two weeks our water pressure has been a joke. Nearly every day our water has been off. And Johannesburg Water cannot be reached via phone. Two or more hours on hold and you just have to hang up. In Lonehill, on Turley Road and Dennis Road the water pressure is non-existent during the day.”
Andy Thomas, who complained of repeated water outages that lasted for days said, “I have to say that these problems would not happen if Johannesburg Water showed due diligence and spent the money on preventative maintenance. This would expose little leaks which could be repaired during normal hours, rather than catastrophic failure which results in a total water delivery failure.”
In response to these complaints Johannesburg Water spokesperson Millicent Kabwe said, “Johannesburg Water is working on a number of infrastructure upgrades across the city and this, at times, requires that water is shut down in order to work on the pipes. We have planned maintenance programmes and whenever we have a planned shutdown we inform the residents at least two days before the interruption of service. We also have emergency shutdowns due to burst pipes and other problems – in that case water is shut down without prior notice; because it is an outage that we didn’t plan for Johannesburg Water makes water tanks available for the residents to use.”
She added, “The pressure in the Fourways area is according to the standards and guidelines that Johannesburg Water follows.”
Jan Nel, manager at the plumbing service, Drain Surgeon said, “In most cases the problem of low water pressure after a water outage is a result of sediment from water reservoirs getting into the water pipes due to repair work being done on said pipes. Customers have two sieves that clear the sediment, one at the water metre and one at their pressure control valve. When the municipality works on the water pipes they sometimes block out the first sieve and this leads to reduced water pressure.”
