HEALTH AND SANITATION 33 speaker, he has also worked with organisations such as ASHRAE, LEED and the National Green Building Standard. maintainable plumbing system, designed to limit damage and simplify response during system failures.
Klein knows resilient buildings are possible because he helped design and build one more than four decades ago. In 1981, he worked on a 93m 3 home in Africa.“ We designed it to never need heating and cooling that was mechanical, and by definition, it had to be comfortable,” he said.
The bricks for the home were made from clay dug out of the site, and the home included rainwater catchment and greywater separation.“ That house has never had mechanical heating or cooling. That’ s over 45 years now.”
Resiliency through conservation In drought-prone areas, conserving water is among the best paths to achieving resiliency.“ Setting up your buildings to use the least amount of water possible makes it easier to go through droughts. If we want to be smart about it, we build in infrastructure to waste as little as possible,” Klein said.
While smart leak detection systems are valuable – and increasingly recognised by insurers – Klein believes physical design is even more effective. In 2008, while traveling in Australia with his wife and daughter, Klein noticed a consistent feature in every home in which they stayed: wet rooms were built an inch lower than the rest of the house and had visible drains.
“ If you have a central floor drain for every wet room and something in the wet room leaks, the water will go down the drain to protect the building. It’ s an insurance policy. I don’ t need a leak detection device; I need a big drain to absorb a big overflow of water. There are no moving parts; it’ ll work,” he said.
Klein referenced a home built by Larry Chauvin in Baton Rouge – a project on which he consulted and which was later featured on Matt Risinger’ s‘ Build Show Network’. The home featured an unconventional plumbing design, including the decision to eliminate almost all hose bibs from the exterior walls – Klein said there may be one or two for the outdoor kitchen. Instead, irrigation lines were kept entirely within the yard, separate from the home’ s internal plumbing. This approach helped isolate the irrigation system from pressure changes in the house and eliminated unnecessary piping routes, improving overall efficiency and reducing risk.
Additionally, the home’ s mechanical room was placed in the attic due to its central location. To prepare for when the water heater inevitably fails, they designed the room as a large‘ wet room’, complete with tiled walls, a sloped floor, and 7.5 – 10cm floor drain to handle water overflow. The municipal water line enters through a conduit beneath the house and feeds directly into this attic space, where all the home’ s valves are centralised. The result is a more resilient and
Making rainwater systems primary To Klein, rainwater harvesting systems should be treated as core infrastructure – not just green add-ons.“ We should be designing catchment systems to serve as surge tanks during storms and as reliable water sources during drought. That’ s not supplemental – it’ s foundational,” he said.
He pointed to Texas builder Darrel McMaster, who has constructed more than 100 homes that rely entirely on rainwater. Each is equipped with tanks ranging from 75 700 to 189 300 litres, and the systems begin collecting water as soon as the roof is installed – ensuring months of supply even before the home is complete.
“ No failures. No losses. Nobody ran dry,” he said. While preparing simply for average rainfall might seem adequate, the wide variability in weather patterns demands storage systems that can accommodate abundance and scarcity.
“ That’ s why you design storage,” he said.
Ahead of its time Klein also highlighted the work of Chicago-based landscape architect Marcus de la Fleur, who redesigned a house that was built in the 1920s.
“ It had a carriage house, an outhouse and rainwater catchment when it was built. And he renovated the rainwater catchment system and reconfigured the landscape so that during a 99-percentile rain event, no water made it to the street. Best I know of in the country,” he said.
Beyond reliability For Klein, resilience isn’ t about keeping things running 99 % of the time – it’ s about what happens when everything stops. True resilience, he says, means designing buildings that can still function when the power’ s out, the water’ s off, and the usual systems fail. It’ s about planning ahead, minimising waste, and making smart choices that keep people safe and comfortable in uncertain conditions. Whether through compact plumbing layouts, passive design or rainwater systems built to carry real load, Klein’ s definition of resilience is rooted in self-sufficiency – and in the belief that we can, and should, build for what might go wrong, not just what usually goes right. PA
July 2026 Volume 32 I Number 05 www. plumbingafrica. co. za