This is how "water-shifting" will work

LCBXX said:
Fscking around with fresh water-supply is not the same as fscking around with electricity-supply.

Desperately thirsty people are not going to sit around and wait for their turn to have water.
Click to expand...
You are right, the question is, where are they going to direct their anger?

If we go by recent history, I suspect we'll be hearing, "Shoet the boer! Kill the farmer", and they won't be marching to the root cause at Luthuli House.
 
Blackhand said:
You are right, the question is, where are they going to direct their anger?

If we go by recent history, I suspect we'll be hearing, "Shoet the boer! Kill the farmer", and they won't be marching to the root cause at Luthuli House.
Click to expand...
People will go where there's fresh water: Big Businesses/Corporates and the leafy suburbs.
 
Flanders said:
What is SOP with boreholes? Do you pump an amount to cover your storage up on the ground and then repeat when necessary? What is the normal sort of power draw associated with borehole pumps? Am I correct in thinking you'd need the borehole pump and then another regular +/-750W water pump (assuming you're not pumping uphill multiple storeys) to move it from storage to house?
Click to expand...
Don't know about borehole pumps but I've got a well with a submersible pump sitting 5m below the surface. It's 500w and controlled by a float switch in my water tank. When the tank is half the submersible pump turns on top to up the tank and then off when it's full. Not sure how long it takes but it's less than 30 minutes and does this cycle once per day.

From the water tank there's a 1.25kw jet pump with a pressure switch that feeds the house so it turns on automatically whenever a tap is opened.

Before my solar install I would turn the municipal water supply on to supply the house with water. Now it just runs.

The submersible pump has been running since July 2018 without ever coming out of the well so no maintenance on it.

I've replaced the jet pump once since 2018 with the current one running since 2020 without any issues.

I am connecting a second jet pump to supply another part of the property
 
AchmatK said:
Don't know about borehole pumps but I've got a well with a submersible pump sitting 5m below the surface. It's 500w and controlled by a float switch in my water tank. When the tank is half the submersible pump turns on top to up the tank and then off when it's full. Not sure how long it takes but it's less than 30 minutes and does this cycle once per day.

From the water tank there's a 1.25kw jet pump with a pressure switch that feeds the house so it turns on automatically whenever a tap is opened.

Before my solar install I would turn the municipal water supply on to supply the house with water. Now it just runs.

The submersible pump has been running since July 2018 without ever coming out of the well so no maintenance on it.

I've replaced the jet pump once since 2018 with the current one running since 2020 without any issues.

I am connecting a second jet pump to supply another part of the property
Click to expand...

Thanks. Did a rainwater collection jojo setup at our family property on South Coast in Dec. That uses a 750W pump to feed into the house when taps are opened. I think that's the icing on top of a full borehole setup.
 
LCBXX said:
People will go where there's fresh water: Big Businesses/Corporates and the leafy suburbs.
Click to expand...

They're already doing it.
In our area, there's almost not a day now that goes by where there isn't a water issue.

But it's much worse than that... the vargrants flooding the area now just chop a hole in the pipes when they need some water causing the system to leak godknows how many thousands or millions of litres before it gets fixed.

The entire system is now at breaking point. Almost nothing works anymore.
Keeping up with the area's Whatsapp group for logging issues is like reading a novel each night.
 
Last edited:
RonSwanson said:
Yes, just the CAPEX alone is very expensive for a 100m hole. I got a quote 3 years back, wasn't an exact figure because no-one could tell me the depth of the water table in my area, so basically a blank cheque. I do recall that drilling to 100m was cost prohibitive at the time.
Click to expand...
I have had boreholes at 2 houses. Both of them remained "untouched" for 10 years+ before I had to pull them up for maintenance. Both were heavily utilised
The 1st house I know the history for 40 odd years as it was the family home. I can recall 2 instances where we had to do maintenance.

My neighbor recently had one installed. Fully installed with pumps and storage jojo's ended up costing him about R120k . It was about 60m deep if I recall
 
Flanders said:
What is SOP with boreholes? Do you pump an amount to cover your storage up on the ground and then repeat when necessary? What is the normal sort of power draw associated with borehole pumps? Am I correct in thinking you'd need the borehole pump and then another regular +/-750W water pump (assuming you're not pumping uphill multiple storeys) to move it from storage to house?
Click to expand...
Get your water out the ground tested so you know what you are working with. That will dictate any needed filtering/ water enhancements needed

I filter through a filter as it pumps into a 10kl tank . Effectively filters down to 1 micron.
There is a 1.2kw jet pump that pumps to the house from the tank. Comes on when needed. It has a preasure tank attached to minimise pump activation.
That goes through a 3 stage filter ( 1micron/carbon filter / activated carbon ) to the house. Got presure reducers inline so that the house piping is not over preasured.

All the pumps needed are on my solar system so Eskom is not an issue
 
rvZA said:
It is indeed. But, it is the circumstances we find ourselves in. Be positive and live around it... we will survive and well will get out on top.
Click to expand...
But what if you dont?
 
This morning there is a very small stream of this strange looking colourless and wet stuff dripping out of my tap.

I had to go and google it to find out what it was. Apparently most people call it water.
 
SlowInternet said:
This morning there is a very small stream of this strange looking colourless and wet stuff dripping out of my tap.

I had to go and google it to find out what it was. Apparently most people call it water.
Click to expand...

Thought you were going to say sodden cobwebs.
 
SlowInternet said:
This morning there is a very small stream of this strange looking colourless and wet stuff dripping out of my tap.

I had to go and google it to find out what it was. Apparently most people call it water.
Click to expand...
An interim solution is to install a tank to buffer irregularities in supply. When you get the colorless stuff, fill the tank, use from the tank, keep it topped up when there is supply. Welcome to the third world.
 
Oldfut said:
An interim solution is to install a tank to buffer irregularities in supply. When you get the colorless stuff, fill the tank, use from the tank, keep it topped up when there is supply. Welcome to the third world.
Click to expand...
We've been without water for roughly 46 days. My plan is to try and get a 5000l tank.

We have been fetching water from someone with a borehole every 2nd day. I have to say that that borehole water is much cleaner than our municipal tap water.
 
SlowInternet said:
We've been without water for roughly 46 days. My plan is to try and get a 5000l tank.

We have been fetching water from someone with a borehole every 2nd day. I have to say that that borehole water is much cleaner than our municipal tap water.
Click to expand...

46 days?!

What broke?
 
Priapus said:
46 days?!

What broke?
Click to expand...
Rand Water and our useless ANC run municipality. They were blaming each other. The water intake pressure here must be between 550-600kpa and it never goes above 300kpa.

Some areas received some water during morning and we got nothing. My suburb gets water from a tower reservoir which can only get water pumped to it as soon as the ground reservoir is at least 40% full.

That never happened because as soon as water starts filling the ground reservoir the other people use all of it, for which they cannot really be blamed because everybody is suffering.
 
SlowInternet said:
Rand Water and our useless ANC run municipality. They were blaming each other. The water intake pressure here must be between 550-600kpa and it never goes above 300kpa.

Some areas received some water during morning and we got nothing. My suburb gets water from a tower reservoir which can only get water pumped to it as soon as the ground reservoir is at least 40% full.

That never happened because as soon as water starts filling the ground reservoir the other people use all of it, for which they cannot really be blamed because everybody is suffering.
Click to expand...

Can they not just shut the reservoir until its more than 40% full?
 
Priapus said:
Can they not just shut the reservoir until its more than 40% full?
Click to expand...
That is what everybody suggested but they are full of excuses.The municipal engineers have different views than some of the private engineers.

So many private businesses and persons with knowledge have offered assistance free of charge but no response from municipality.

There are business men who offered to contribute financially to try and resolve the water issue.

I think there are about 4 reservoirs that service our town. The one where we get from has the most problems.

Apparently there is also an unnamed factory that draws water with permission from the municipality from our reservoir.
 
Water shedding in effect from yesterday.

1000015467.jpg

And we didn't have water during the day because some dumb cnut forgot to turn all the valves back on. Still don't have anything, and it's due to start again at 21:00.

Welcome to the next catastrophic failure in critical infrastructure. For those who still have water, enjoy it while you have it. Need to start prioritising that fscking borehole now...
 
It’s not just infrastructure collapse - it’s also the tenders that go out for water tankers fuelling corruption.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X