36 PROJECT
The owners added an additional floor in keeping with the original design of cascading floors . Architecturally , the building has new cladding , facades , roofs over external parking and cladding over external plumbing ducts . The result is a completely transformed building in the most modern architectural design .
All images © Plumbing Africa | Rory Macnamara
Lower parking pipework .
The building has 80 one bedroom , one bathroom apartments , and 20 two bedroom , two bathroom apartments , each with fitted kitchens . There are two levels of undercover basement parking , with hot and cold-water plantroom situated in the lower basement .
The design team faced a major challenge in that the existing building had post-tensioned concrete floor slabs . As the position of the structural cables in the slabs were unknown , and the fact that many core drillings had to be done to accommodate the internal plumbing to fit the architectural design , the risk of damaging the cables was high .
As the cost to repair post-tensioned structural cables would have been extremely costly and time wasting , the client instructed that the vertical plumbing ducts were to be installed on the external façade of the building . Of primary importance was water saving and the owner invested heavily in providing for this .
Pipework for kitchen water supply and waste before roof cladding installed .
Measures included a separate wastewater drainage reticulation system serving wash basins and showers only . This wastewater will be connected to a future basement wastewater treatment plant where filtered and sterilised water will be pumped up to a roof level gravity tank where it can be used for WC flushing and potentially irrigation . The soil and kitchen waste system are separate . Initially both drainage systems connect at the western perimeter of the building before connecting to the municipal sewer . Clearly , significant savings of municipal water can be made .
Electronic water meters are provided with the relevant data collectors for transmitting the readings for billing and statistics . These are : a . Hot water usage per apartment b . Cold water for WCs has multiple water meters that measure each vertical toilet shaft of five flats below it . This allows the owner to gather comparative figures per stack of five flats . c . Total cold water to the building ( municipal check meter ) d . Total hot water usage e . Borehole water usage
Smart Meters – electricity and water Washington Mews uses smart meters for all electricity and water measurements and billings . Readings are taken every 30 minutes and consumption graphs are available on the internet .
Pipework in parking extended beyond wall to avoid possible damage to pipes by cars .
Early warning leak detection The building has its own bulk smart meters to compare consumption with the council meters record for electricity and water .
www . plumbingafrica . co . za @ plumbingonline @ plumbingonline @ PlumbingAfricaOnline September 2021 Volume 27 I Number 7