New Builds
Supply, waste and vent installed to SANS 10252-1 and set out from the drawing, with the wet rooms grouped where the plan allows it.
Home / New Installations
Plumbing installations in Alberton are won or lost on the drawing rather than in the trench, because the decisions that cost real money are the ones about where things sit relative to each other. We install new builds, additions, cottages and full repipes to SANS 10252-1, price them before anything is dug, and raise the metering question at the start instead of after the pipe is buried.
If you have a plan, say so and we will quote off it. If you do not, a walk-round and a sketch is enough to get you a real number, and both are free.
New pipework from the connection in, planned around your build programme. Replacing fittings in an existing room sits under bathroom and kitchen plumbing.
Supply, waste and vent installed to SANS 10252-1 and set out from the drawing, with the wet rooms grouped where the plan allows it.
Tying new work into an existing installation, including checking that what is already there can actually carry the extra points.
Second dwellings plumbed so a sub-meter can be fitted cleanly, which costs nothing now and a great deal after everything is buried.
Old galvanised replaced section by section or throughout, depending on where the restriction actually is rather than on which is the bigger job.
Valves arranged so a bathroom can be shut off without killing the house, plus backflow protection and pressure control as standard.
Pressure testing, the paperwork for any geyser or gas work within the installation, and photographs of what went in before it was covered.
Second dwellings are a normal part of Alberton life. The stands in the older suburbs are generous, there is usually room behind the house, and a cottage is one of the few additions that pays for itself. The plumbing for one is straightforward. The question that is not straightforward, and that almost nobody raises until it is expensive, is how the water gets measured and billed.
Whether a second dwelling can have its own municipal connection, or must be sub-metered off yours, or neither, depends on how it is zoned and registered, and that is a question for Ekurhuleni about your specific property rather than something a plumber should answer for you. What we will tell you is this: the physical arrangement that lets a sub-meter be fitted later is trivial to build in at first fix and genuinely awkward to retrofit once the supply is under a paved courtyard.
So the sequence we recommend is: ask the City what applies to your property, then have the plumbing set out to keep the option open regardless of the answer. A single isolating point where a meter could sit, the cottage supply run as its own branch rather than teed off the kitchen, and the branch sleeved where it passes under anything hard. That is a small amount of extra pipe and one extra valve while the trench is already open.
The same logic runs through the rest of a new installation, and it is the real argument for planning properly. The sleeve under a future driveway costs a length of conduit now. The point left capped for the bathroom you will build in two years costs a fitting. The isolation valve that lets you shut one wing off costs an hour. Every one of those is a trivial line on a first fix quote and a demolition job afterwards, which is why we would rather spend half an hour over your drawing than quote from a list of points.
One thing that is not optional in Alberton: pressure control on the main. This town's supply is managed with pressure reduction and overnight reservoir throttling, so a brand new installation starts taking a daily empty-and-refill cycle from the day it is connected. A pressure control valve turns that into a steady supply and protects every fitting, joint and geyser behind it, and we put one on new work as standard rather than as an extra.
Five things worth building in at first fix, even if you are not using them yet.
From the drawing, in stages, with the awkward questions raised early.
Points counted, runs measured, excavation assessed. Not a rate multiplied by rooms.
First fix before the slab and the walls close, second fix when the building is ready.
Every run recorded before it is buried, so the next person knows where it went.
The installation held under test and signed off before anything is closed up.
Cost, standards, sub-metering and whether to repipe the lot.
New work is priced from the drawing rather than guessed at, and the number is driven by the count of points, the distance from the existing connection, and what is between the two. Rock, a driveway or an established garden in the way changes an excavation cost more than any fitting does. We quote from a plan where you have one and from a walk-round and a sketch where you do not, and we do that at no charge.
This is the question that catches Alberton homeowners out, and it needs answering before the trench is dug rather than after the tenant moves in. Ekurhuleni's position on sub-metering and on separate municipal connections depends on how the second dwelling is zoned and registered, so check it with the City for your specific property before you commit. What we can do is install the plumbing so a sub-meter can be fitted cleanly later, which costs almost nothing at first fix and a great deal once everything is buried.
SANS 10252-1 covers water supply installations for buildings, and the National Building Regulations sit over the top of it. In practice that governs pipe sizing for the number of points being served, the isolation arrangement so parts of the house can be shut off without killing the whole supply, protection against backflow into the municipal main, and the pressure control that keeps everything within what the fittings are rated for. Work that ignores any of those tends to pass unnoticed until it does not.
Section by section, in most cases, and we will say so even though the whole-house job is the bigger invoice. Galvanised corrodes inward at a rate that varies along a run, so the section feeding the bathroom is often far worse than the one feeding the kitchen. Replacing the restricted section restores the house for a fraction of the cost. The case for a full repipe is when you are opening the walls anyway, when leaks are appearing in several places, or when the restriction is general rather than local.
Yes, and it is common. What matters is that the stages are drawn in the right order, because some things are cheap now and expensive later: the sleeve under a driveway, the isolation valve in a wall, the point left capped for the bathroom you will build in two years. We will map out which items belong in stage one even when you are not building them yet, because those are the ones that are painful to retrofit.
Deep enough to be protected from surface loading and from anybody putting a spade through them, which in practice means below the level where a garden fork or a paving base can reach, and deeper again under a driveway where there is vehicle loading. We also sleeve any run that passes under paving or a slab, because a sleeved pipe can be drawn out and replaced later without lifting the surface, and an unsleeved one cannot.
As standard, and in Alberton it is not a nicety. The supply into this area is managed with pressure reduction and overnight reservoir throttling, so a new house gets a daily emptying and re-pressurising cycle from the day it is connected. A pressure control valve on the main turns that into a steady supply and is the single cheapest thing you can put into a new installation to protect everything downstream of it.
Yes, and the earlier the better. The plumbing decisions that cost money to change are made on the drawing, not on site: where the wet rooms sit relative to each other and to the connection, whether the waste has the fall it needs, and where the geyser is going to live. Half an hour over a plan at the start regularly saves more than the whole plumbing quote.
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Planning new plumbing in Alberton? Send the details through and we will price it off your drawing, or off a sketch if that is all there is. Either costs you nothing.