Burst Pipe On the Common Property?

Actually, of the seven water leak problems on the common property, experienced over the last 23 years, there was only one case where a pipe could have been classed as "burst". This was a main line "T-piece", that was punctured by a sharp rock. Generally water leaks occur at valves, joints and termination connections.  That issue aside, I want to dedicate this post to what you can do when the water is switched off.

But before we get to that, let's just take a look at the historical responses to temporary water supply cut's; this being my motivation for writing this post. What generally happens is the trustees get bombarded with phone calls; which is understandable - people want to know when the water will be switched back on so that they can plan around it. But, what burns my butt, are the people who seem to loose all sense of reason.  We had one tenant on the last leak claiming it was her constitutional right to have water - Needless to say, the reply contained a statement implying yeah, mine too. By-the-way, the constitution says everyone has the right to 25 Litres of water. . . The average Rietvlei Park geyser holds 250 Litres of water.

Now that we have your rights sorted, lets explorer what you the residents can do about minimising the effects of no water supply:

• Switch off your geyser at the distribution board behind your front door.  
• Close the stopcock (tap) to your unit. (The stopcock is in the small garden outside your front door).

With the stopcock closed and the geyser switched off, you can now use the water in your geyser for washing. The geyser water is okay for making a cup of tea but, for drinking water, I recommend you buy  this from your local supermarket. Mainly because the geyser takes around 24 hours to cool down.


With the stopcock closed, you are stopping water from running out of the geyser through the incoming water supply pipe. In other words the water runs back due to the main line leak.