SA Affordable Housing March - April 2020 // ISSUE: 81 | Page 25

Compulsory standards
supersede municipal
by-laws
FEATURE
The PIRB is the
legally registered
board through
which plumbers can
obtain professional
status.
By Eamonn Ryan
A mistaken belief is that municipal by-laws overrule standards. Wrong:
compulsory standards supersede by-laws. There can be adaptation
around the soil and water conditions, pressure and such but the
standard makes allowance for these.
I
n discussion with the National Regulator for Compulsory
Specifications (NRCS), the Building Control Officer (BCO)
and his/her men and women are only responsible for
drainage and the sanware connections that dispose of waste
– that is, toilets and waste going into the sewer system.
To quote, “The BCO cannot enforce anything not allowed
for in the Act, Regulations and the SANS 10400 series.
Regulation A13 describes materials as: material used in the
erection of a building shall be suitable for the purpose for
which it is to be used.” Therefore, the SABS mark is not
prescribed within the National Building Regulations &
Building Standards (NBR&BS) Act.
Due to there being no requirement in the NBR&BS Act, the
regulation of brassware, piping in buildings, geysers, solar and
other such plumbing applications does not form part of the
BCO/Inspectors jurisdiction nor his role.
The risk in assuming that SANS 10252 and 10254 will be
policed due to the fact that they are referenced in SANS
10400 is the reason why there have been repeated requests
that such normative references be removed from SANS
10400. This is because, linking the requirements detailed in
the SANS 10252 and 10254 in SANS 10400 soothes the
industry into a false sense of security that some regulation is
being performed.
By normatively attaching such standard also forces the
custodian of this Act at Local Government level to have the
manpower with the requisite skills to police such. Regulation
Part P instructs the BCO “to regulate only drainage and waste
removal and the sanware applicable to removal of waste in a
building”.
It may be true that industry would be courting disaster
should they believe BCOs to be capable of policing all aspects
of the plumbing industry nationally. Hence the need for
NRCS’s assistance in developing the Plumbing Industry
www.saaffordablehousing.co.za
Registration Board’s (PIRB) programme of Certificates of
Compliance (COC).
However, plumbers should not be misled that they can install
non-compliant products just because the inspectors do not
have the power to inspect products like pipes, fittings, taps/
mixers and such. There are compulsory standards that exist for
each of these and this is where the PIRB comes into play.
THE ROLE OF IOPSA AND THE PRB
Herman Strauss of the PIRB explains that the PIRB is the
legally registered board through which plumbers can obtain
professional status. “One of the responsibilities imposed on
the PIRB is to monitor the work done by professionally
registered plumbers. At the same time, it has been a legal
requirement that all plumbing work needs to comply with the
relevant national standards. Leading from both these
requirements the PIRB COC and the auditing of these
certificates have been born.
“When a registered plumber completes plumbing work,
he issues the COC to the client. The COC is his declaration
that the plumbing work was done in accordance with the
legally mandated standards. After issuing the COC to the
client, the plumber needs to log the data of the COC on a
national database.
“The PIRB selects at random 5% of the logged COCs and
conducts an audit on the installation. The purpose of the
audit is to establish if the installation does in fact comply
with the legally mandated standards as declared by the
plumber. If it is found that some areas of the installation do
not comply with these requirements, the plumber is
informed and compelled to fix the non-compliances,”
says Strauss.
“This system holds plumbers accountable for the work that
they do and for the declarations they make through the COC.
MARCH - APRIL 2020
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