COMPLIANCE
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• the upsizing of the pipe is sometimes wrong;
• the pipes discharge outside not in a safe area; or
• the system is not balanced.
Many installations are insurance claims, and Shabangu
explains that common justifications for the errors
are that the insurance company would not pay for
the additional work, or the required quality of timber.
“However, a licensed plumber is required to do the job
the right way. The moment an individual plumber signs
a CoC, he/she becomes liable for the installation. They
are signing off that it is correct and to the standards –
if it is not for whatever reason, they become liable. On
the CoC they can note non-compliance.”
This means that if a plumber goes out to simply install
an element, but finds that the earlier geyser installation
was non-compliant, the plumber is required to go the
client and so inform him and offer to make it compliant
at his cost, or notify him that he (the plumber) will be
noting the geyser as non-compliant – and have the
client sign it. “Still, whatever work the plumber does at
that time has to be compliant – he can’t do something
wrong and simply note it as non-compliant,” she says.
Churchill Plumbers’ Sipho Motha ceremonially hands over the CoC to Mrs Lyann van
Greunen.
If a plumber does not make good the work within five
working days, he may be reported to the PIRB for
disciplinary action.
The system is continuously being modified to be more
efficient, as it is an administratively laborious process to
select CoCs for inspection, distribute them among the
various compliance officers and set up appointments.
IOPSA recently tweaked the system to make it more
responsive through tailored systems for each officer’s
region. It works faster and is more productive.
Another modification is to expand the range of
installations that the compliance officers inspect,
something which is conditional upon training. “For
now, we are assigned to only inspect geysers, but
we will gradually add to this with inspections of solar
heating and heat pumps as we qualify on each new
function, for homes and commercial properties.” This
will become exponentially more complex, she says,
as inspections may start to interfere with business
activities, especially in the case of restaurants where a
plumber may have to do additional work.
Kate, and Claitos Sithole, a qualified plumber with Plumbing Johannesburg, who
explained that he was from a different team to that which had done the initial installation.
Both site inspections were simple geyser replacement
installations, and neither job fully complied to the
relevant standard, particularly with regard to support for
the pipes.
Plumbing Africa, Shabangu and Churchill Plumbing met
outside the house in Nahoon Street at 10:00 and all
descended on Mrs Lyann van Greunen, who occupies
a garden cottage on the property and had recently
had her geyser replaced as an insurance claim. “I’ll be
checking that they’ve installed the geyser according to
the relevant standard, which is SANS 10252 Part 1 and
SANS 10254,” said Shabangu.
Following the inspection, Shabangu reported: “What
I found was a 150ℓ geyser only supported by two
114mm X 38mm timber supports, whereas the
standard requires 114mm X 50mm – although IOPSA
November 2019 Volume 25 I Number 9
Geyser connection at the Orange Street residence.
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