Plumbing Africa February 2019 | Page 46

44 PROJECT Booysens Magistrate’s Court: long-lasting and efficient When constructing government buildings, all by-laws and standards need to be considered, particularly if that building is a court. Completed in 2018, the Booysens Magistrate’s Court needed a system that would ultimately save on running costs and stand the test of time. By Warren Robertson The Booysens Magistrate’s Court was completed and handed over to the Department of Justice last year October at a cost of just over R240-million as part of the contract awarded to the Independent Development Trust by that department to plan, design, and construct new courts across the country. Building began in June 2016, and the building consists of 10 courtrooms, including one civil court, two family courts, and one child, domestic violence, and peace order court; administration offices; 15 magistrate offices; and 10 holding cells with a provision for juvenile males and females and adult males and females. The work included construction of 69 parking bays for staff, 54 parking bays for visitors, and an additional four parking bays per 100m² of office space on a 20 478m² property with a height restriction of three storeys and building coverage of 5 850m². Uhuru Wetu Consulting were the wet engineers on the project, taking charge of a system that, in addition to outfitting all the bathrooms, taps, and other basic February 2019 Volume 24 I Number 12 plumbing, also needed to offer a domestic water storage tank that could store two days of supply and a fire emergency water storage supply, all provided from the same sectional tank. “We have two water meters, one for fire and another for domestic water, at the entrance of the court. It therefore made sense for the sectional tank of backup and fire emergency water to be stored on that side,” says Uhuru’s Samkelo Tsabedze. From that tank the system uses Grundfos pumps to move water into Geberit Mapress Stainless Steel pipes, which were chosen due to the promised high level of protection against corrosion, and long-term tightness of fittings. These in turn feed into Geberit Mepla pipes, which are easy to install while also being inherently stable, flexible, and resistant to pressure and corrosion. A fire pump and a jockey pump are also in use for the emergency water needed in the case of a fire. “We didn’t have to worry about doing a water analysis, which, together with the ease of installation, meant our www.plumbingafrica.co.za