Kemptonians certainly had their fair share of water outages in recent months with the City of Ekurhuleni having to deal with nearly 500 broken pipes in Kempton Park in August alone.
From August 1 – 30 the City attended to 408 burst pipes and 87 reported as leaks, said Themba Gadebe, spokesperson for the metro.
Forty of these damaged pipes were caused by contractors.
Gadebe said the leading cause of the numerous burst and broken pipes was mainly ageing infrastructure.
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According to him the response time to major pipe bursts is 24 hours.
“The average time to repair is dependent on the availability of material, specialised fittings, equipment and also the environment where the pipe burst occurred, for example, underneath a road, pavement, trees and river crossings or hard rock/concrete.”
The Kempton Park water and sanitation depot has seven teams for repairs and maintenance. One team at a time attends to a burst pipe incident.
Gadebe said ongoing pipe replacements, valve maintenance and pressure management are carried out in order to maintain the infrastructure. This is an ongoing programme.
For the current financial year (2018/19) several maintenance projects are on the cards.
Valve replacements will be done in Kempton Park CBD, Glen Marais, Birchleigh, Birch Acres, Van Riebeeck Park and Isando.
Water pipe replacements have been scheduled for Aston Manor (Aberfeldy Street and Concourse Crescent), Glen Marais (Fiskaal, Rietfontein and Quinine streets), Birchleigh (Cloete, Henning and Essenwood streets and Pomona (Watsonia Street).
“The lifting of underground fire hydrants, valve markings (locating valves), pressure management (servicing of all pressure valves and maintenance and sweeping of sewer lines will be done in all wards,” Gadebe said.
