ADVERTORIAL 31
20 years of Speedfit in South Africa
By
Gavin van Heusden, owner and director, Speedfit Africa, edited by Megan O’ Connor
While living in the UK in 2001, Gavin van Heusden discovered Speedfit by accident – in 2026, Gavin celebrates Speedfit Africa’ s 20- year anniversary in South Africa.
While living in the UK, working in the software industry, I discovered Speedfit by accident in 2001. After hammering a nail through a central heating pipe during a home renovation, a frantic trip to a local hardware store led me to a Speedfit 15mm straight coupler. Back home, and a minute later, the copper pipe was repaired. I couldn ' t believe how easy it was, and I went on to use Speedfit wherever I could during the renovations.
Fast forward to 2006 and back in Durban doing renovations again, I noticed a few Speedfit fittings in my toolbox. I wondered if anyone sold this wonder-product locally, but after visiting several plumbing merchants, I found it wasn ' t available.
I contacted the manufacturer, John Guest, in the UK to express my interest. They had just appointed a distributor for the Western Cape, but that didn ' t deter me. I requested the KZN distribution and asked to visit their factory. The very next week I was on a plane to the UK, and I walked away with an agreement. It took a year to shift to the sole national distributor – and as they say, the rest is history!
The inspiration was simple: I wanted to introduce South Africa to the simplicity and reliability of push-fit plumbing technology, and partnering with the best in the world and inventor of push-fit technology made it an easy choice.
Speedfit in South Africa over the past twenty years The original vision was to make Speedfit available to the widest audience possible by partnering with the traditional merchant channel with the furthest reach for us.
20 Years
The 20-year milestone I started this journey to provide for my family and to introduce a great product to the market. Twenty years later both my girls are studying for their degrees. It’ s incredibly humbling to realise that a single plumbing fix in the UK eventually built a foundation that supports my own family and the families of my team. Then, to see such an incredible product take root in South Africa and grow to becoming a trusted and reliable product for so many installers is again very humbling.
The vision for the next 10 years Our vision has been shifting during the last few years in line with market changes. We’ ve been preparing and adjusting, but our core vision of being widely available in the market remains at the forefront of what we do.
To enhance our vision for the next decade, we’ re undertaking a complete IT overhaul to introduce new technologies and integrating AI into our company structure. We believe this will drive automation and efficiency so we can better serve the market.
The road for push-fit products is far from complete, and we will continue to work even more closely with installers and merchants in this highly competitive environment.
Thank you Thank you to the merchants and installers who trusted us when push-fit was still an unknown concept in South Africa. We have so many customers who still use Speedfit after 20 years. A massive, special thank you goes to my loyal team who treat this business like their own – especially those who have been in the trenches with me for years. This milestone belongs to all of you. PA
Like all good foundation stories starting in a garage, it has been a tough but rewarding evolution. Two decades ago, the South African market was heavily reliant on traditional copper piping, and there was natural scepticism toward push-fit polymer technology. We’ ve now evolved from a disruptive‘ newcomer’ trying to convince merchants and installers that push-fit is reliable, to becoming an industry standard in push-fit technology trusted in every possible plumbing scenario – it took 20 years to get here.
All images supplied by Speedfit Africa
We’ ve also evolved our product range over the years to include drinks dispense and pure water filtration push-fit fittings, warm water underfloor heating solutions as well as push-fit compressed air pipe and fittings and fibre optic fittings for the telecoms industry.
Like all good foundation stories starting in a garage, it has been a tough but rewarding evolution.
Speedfit’ s first ever use in the UK.
Speedfit Africa’ s values Speedfit Africa lives by five core values:
• Honesty and integrity
• Service
• Continuous improvement
• Ownership
• Protect Water As for what sets the company apart? HAVS: Holistic Added Value Services – for free. The company provides full installer training, plumbing and underfloor heating designs, on-site project support and a technical helpdesk. Building great relationships with plumbers along the way has been such a bonus when service is the driver.
July 2026 Volume 32 I Number 05 www. plumbingafrica. co. za