DESIGN: DEAR MR PLUMBER
25
The principle of exchange
An economy is based on people exchanging things of value.
We produce something, but it has to be capable of being
exchanged for someone else’s product. It is vital that each person
understands what their ‘product’ is. ‘Time’ is not a product.
By Vollie Brink, Pr Eng
I am always told by engineers that the company
doesn’t want their time, because the company
cannot ‘do’ anything with their time. The company
wants a ‘product’ – because a product has value
and can be sold.
You see, eventually it is all about ‘money’. The developer
wants to make money and therefore the developer
invests money to make more money. This whole process
affects the design and construction of the building water
services – but also what happens after the building has
been completed.
You and I can be passionate about what we do, but our
passion is driven and dictated by the ‘money’ factor. I
have had cases where the developer has bluntly said, “I
am not going to comply with SANS10400-XA in terms of
the conservation of energy. You shall only provide normal
geysers, so you are instructed to design a system which
does not comply with regulation, and if you don’t want to,
then I will get another person to design the system, or I will
get a plumber to do it.”
Sadly, there are designers and plumbers who will gladly do
it. I have seen a case, for example, where the design of a
water system was correctly done by a ‘highly competent
engineer’ whereas a ‘highly not-competent person’
was employed to do the installation. This person utterly
ignored the drawings on instruction of the developer, who
consequently ended up with a system that did not comply
with the regulatory requirements.
The sad part is that the apartments in the development
described above were sold to, and bought by, people who
were not aware of this situation: their hot-water piping was
undersized, not insulated, and other horrible wrong non-
compliant things.
A retired engineer told me that some developers now insist on
70% discount on fees, but still require a full-time design and
full-time supervision. Some developers want a design but no
supervision, this is all to save money.
I have seen a case where the design was done correctly but
the so-called specialist hot water system sub-contractor
ignored the specifications for the heat pumps and used
what he had in his store, which did not comply with the
specifications of the design. This specialist sub-contractor
does not exist anymore – and walked away scot-free!
November 2019 Volume 25 I Number 9
The question is, what can we do in this situation?
The National Building Regulations (NBR) consists, in the main,
of a large number of deem-to-satisfy rules. In all the sections
which are being used and applied as compulsory regulations,
they are in reality not compulsory unless the owner has
decided to apply the ‘deem-to-satisfy rule solution’ to comply
with the performance regulations.
There are people who keep propagating that certain
design manuals are compulsory, which they are not.
These documents were developed to guide the competent
registered designer, and it is written in such a manner
that the designer must apply ‘appropriate assumptions’ to
suit the specific project to make it fit-for-purpose, and it is
basically a ‘rational design’.
There are some people who just cannot comprehend this
simple definition and who want to ‘rule’ the design and
construction by means of these ‘design manuals’. A design
manual inherently allows the designer to make assumptions
on which the design must be based. For instance, it does not
give exact, fixed numbers for water consumption or quantity of
hot water to be generated. A regulation gives exact numbers
and is ‘thou shalt comply with it’.
Vollie Brink is one of the
industry’s longest-serving
wet services engineers.
He continues to serve on
SABS committees and
has been involved in the
Green Building Council’s
Green Star rating system.
Brink continues to consult
for various organisations
while enjoying a well-
earned retirement.
There is now a new trend whereby some municipalities try to
override the NBR by means of local by-laws and apply it as a
‘compulsory’ regulation. This is done because the municipality
is not delivering the services which it has to provide – and
then burdens the developers with having to deliver those
services at their own cost. This is grossly unfair and stifles
development in rural areas and even in the larger cities.
Consequently, there is a need for critical design information
to be communicated to the design engineers. To this end,
Saice (the South Africa Institute of Civil Engineers) has formed
a new ‘Saice/SABS Forum’ among its membership. The
objective is to get them involved with all the relevant SABS
technical committee and working groups; and as a platform to
communicate the information, and specifically critical design
information, which is compulsory; and even that which is not
compulsory but important and relevant.
There is a dire need for engineering input from engineers
on these forums, as in many cases there are people sitting
on these committees and working groups who really cannot
make critical engineering contributions.
I am looking forward to this all being implemented
‘asap’. PA
www.plumbingafrica.co.za