New Build First Fix
Supply, waste and vent set out from the drawing before the slab and the walls close everything in.
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Plumbing installations in Hermanus have to suit the supply they will spend thirty years on: blended, actively pressure managed, and hardest pressed in the weeks when the town fills up. Specified for that, not for a catalogue.
Tell us the scale and the stage. A drawing with the fittings marked is the fastest route to a proper per-point quote.
Four of them are invisible once the building is finished, which is exactly why they get skimped on.
Supply, waste and vent set out from the drawing before the slab and the walls close everything in.
Sanitaryware, mixers and appliance connections hung and commissioned once the finishes are in.
A reachable isolating valve at every fitting and a layout that lets one wing be shut off without the whole house.
Incoming pressure measured at the property and a control valve sized to it, rather than fitted by habit.
Tanks and pump sets designed in from the start, so peak season and an interrupted supply are both non-events.
Certificate, a marked-up layout of what went where, and the isolation points shown to whoever will live there.
A plumbing installation is specified once and then lives with the consequences for decades. In most places that means specifying against a fairly ordinary municipal supply. In the Overstrand there are three specific characteristics worth designing against, all of them documented, and none of them obvious from a catalogue.
The first is that the water is a blend. Preekstoel treatment works combines De Bos Dam surface water with borehole water from the Table Mountain Group aquifer, and that groundwater is naturally rich in iron and manganese, to the point that Overstrand built a dedicated biological plant to strip both metals out. Treated water is delivered, but the network still carries deposit, and deposit collects at every restriction. The design response is not exotic. It is accessible strainers, full-bore valves rather than tight ones, and isolation you can actually get to when a screen needs cleaning in year seven.
The second is that pressure here is managed rather than simply supplied. Overstrand's own notices describe daily maintenance on pressure reducing valve setups, cleaning strainers, checking that shut-off valves are fully open, and flushing valves at low peak times. A network that is actively adjusted is a network whose pressure at your boundary moves. An installation with a properly sized pressure control valve at the entry point does not care about that movement. One without it passes every variation straight through to the cheapest flexible connection in the house.
The third is seasonal, and Overstrand has been unusually candid about it: low pressure in some areas will not be fully resolved in the short term, particularly during periods of high demand caused by the influx of holidaymakers, with old asbestos mains named as the permanent fix. That is a warning worth designing around rather than arguing with. Storage at the property, filling at whatever rate the network offers and feeding a pump, converts a peak-season pressure problem into nothing at all. It also means a burst main up the road is an inconvenience rather than a dry house.
None of these three add much at first fix and all of them are expensive to retrofit, because retrofitting means opening finished walls. This matters more here than in a static town: the Overstrand has been absorbing roughly five thousand new residents a year recently, so a great deal of what is being plumbed now is new. Specify the control valve, the accessible isolation and the storage at design stage. All three are cheap while the walls are open and none of them are afterwards.
On new work the mistakes are buried, which is why the rules matter more.
Line by line, so quotes can be compared properly and removing a fitting shows its saving immediately.
Issued while the job is still live, not chased after everybody has demobilised from site.
Every fitting gets a valve somebody can actually turn. It is the cheapest kindness on a thirty-year installation.
What went where, so the next person to work on the house is not guessing behind a wall.
How is a new plumbing installation priced in Hermanus?
Normally per point plus the specials. A point is a supply and waste to a single fitting, and it is a fair unit because it scales with the actual work. The specials are the geyser, the manifold, the external supply run and anything that has to be dug. All of it is set out line by line rather than as one number.
What is a plumbing point exactly?
One fitting: its hot and cold supply where applicable, its waste connection, and the isolation for it. A basin is a point. A shower is a point. Quoting per point lets you compare quotes properly and lets you see immediately what removing a fitting would save.
When do I get the Certificate of Compliance on a new build?
On completion of the plumbing installation and before the final invoice closes, which on a new build means before the builder’s final account. Chasing a certificate after everyone has demobilised is how these go missing, and a missing one surfaces years later at transfer.
Should a new installation here have a pressure control valve?
Yes, and it should be sized to the incoming pressure measured at the property rather than assumed. It is a small component that protects every flexible connection, cistern inlet and the geyser behind it, and fitting one at installation costs a fraction of retrofitting after the fittings have started failing.
Is storage worth designing in from the start?
On this network it often is. Overstrand has said plainly that low pressure in some areas will not be resolved in the short term during periods of high demand. A tank that fills whenever the network allows, with a pump downstream of it, means peak season and an interrupted supply are both non-events. Designed in, it is cheap. Retrofitted, it is not.
Where should the isolating valves go?
Somewhere a person can actually reach without tools, and enough of them that any wing of the house can be shut off without closing the main. This is the cheapest thing on an installation and the first thing that gets trimmed, and its absence is felt at every repair for the next thirty years.
Can you work from an architect’s drawing?
Yes, and we would rather. A drawing lets the points be counted, the runs be planned and the geyser be positioned before anybody is on site. Where there is no drawing we will mark up a simple layout and agree it with you before first fix.
What about pipework for a future extension?
Worth discussing. Capping a stub off during first fix costs very little; opening a finished wall to add one later costs a great deal. If there is a second phase in mind, say so at the start rather than after the plaster is on.
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Tell us the scale, the stage and whether there is a drawing. A per-point quote is quick to produce once the fittings are counted.