Home/Geyser Installation
Geyser installation in Brackenfell done so that it is still dry the morning after. Every joint is pressure-tested before we pack up, the valve set matches the cylinder, and you get the details the City’s Water By-law expects you to report.
Give us the current size and its position in the house. We will quote the full installation in writing, with every part listed.
Electric cylinders, gas heaters, solar and heat pump systems, sized to the house rather than to what is on the van.
Horizontal or vertical, 100 to 200 litres, with a full valve set and drip tray rather than whatever the old one had.
Continuous-flow heaters, flued indoors or mounted outside, with the cylinders placed to SANS 10087-1.
Gas geyser installation →Roof collectors, collectors added to an existing cylinder, or PV to an element. The by-law standard for solar is SANS 10106.
Solar geyser installation →A heat pump alongside or in place of an element. Installed to SANS 1352, which the Water By-law names for heat pumps.
Pressure control, safety and non-return valves, vacuum breakers, and a tray drained to outside.
Moving a geyser out of a roof space or closer to the bathroom it serves, to shorten the wait for hot water.
Section 42(7) of the City of Cape Town’s Water By-law asks owners to notify the City when a fixed water heater, a heat pump or solar panels are installed or changed. It is a short clause and very few homeowners have heard of it, which is exactly why it tends to surface at the worst time.
The same by-law, in section 52, names the standards the work must meet: SANS 10252 for hot water cylinders, SANS 10106 for solar installations and SANS 1352 for heat pumps. When the house is eventually sold, the geyser is one of the first places a certificate inspector looks, and the question is simply whether it was put in to those standards.
So an installation is not finished when the water runs hot. It is finished when the valve set matches the pressure rating printed on the cylinder, the drip tray drains outside, the vacuum breakers are in, every joint has held under pressure, and you have the make, capacity, rating and date written down.
We hand over those details on the invoice so the notification is a five-minute job rather than a hunt through old paperwork. If you would rather we prepare it for you, say so when we quote.
Keep the installation invoice with the house papers. It is the document that answers the certificate inspector’s first question about the geyser.
Gas geyser installation in Brackenfell usually means a continuous-flow heater: the burner lights when a hot tap opens and goes out when it closes. Nothing is kept hot overnight, and a unit with battery ignition carries on through a power cut.
Where it goes is set by SANS 10087-1, the LP gas installation standard, rather than by where the old geyser stood. Put the heater in a bathroom and it needs a flue to the outside, plus ventilation that cannot be closed off. An outdoor-rated unit on an external wall needs no flue through the house.
The cylinders have distances of their own: at least 1 m from a door, window or airbrick below the valve, 2 m from any drain or manhole (LP gas is heavier than air and runs along the ground), and clear of the boundary by 3 m, or 1 m for a pair, unless there is a firewall. On a narrow side passage those numbers choose the spot, so we measure them before quoting.
Every heater also needs a minimum flow before the burner will light, so we check the flow at the furthest shower and size the unit in litres per minute. The gas side is then signed off on its own certificate of conformity, which our gas installations page explains.
Solar geyser installation in Brackenfell can mean three different systems, and the quote should say which one it is. Roof collectors can heat the water itself, pumped to a cylinder in the ceiling or rising into a tank mounted above them. Collectors can be added to the geyser you already have. Or photovoltaic panels can feed an element, which is solar electricity rather than solar water heating, and its wiring is an electrician’s sign-off.
The Water By-law names SANS 10106 for solar installations, and the City notification described above covers solar panels as well. On the roof that means collectors facing roughly north, close enough to the cylinder to keep the insulated pipe run short, and a valve set matched to the pressure rating of every part in the system.
A tank on the roof is heavy when full, so the roof structure is looked at before one is quoted. Cape Town also gets its rain in winter, which leaves the element carrying part of the load for those months. A good solar quote states how the element and its timer will be set, because that setting decides what the system saves in winter.
Every new joint held under pressure and dried off before we go.
Nothing added on the day unless you have seen and approved the price.
We phone the next working day to ask whether anything has changed.
The details your certificate and the City will ask for.
The total is the cylinder, the valve set, the drip tray and the labour, and it changes with size and position. We quote all of it in one written price after seeing where the geyser sits. Labour rates are on the plumber prices page.
A like-for-like replacement in an accessible roof is normally done in a day. Relocations and solar or heat pump work take longer, and the quote says how long.
Section 42(7) of the Water By-law asks owners to notify the City when a fixed water heater, heat pump or solar panels are installed or changed. We give you the details you need for it.
It depends on how many people shower at the same time rather than on the number of bathrooms. We ask a few questions about the household before recommending a size.
Both cut the electricity the geyser uses. The right choice depends on roof orientation, space and budget, and we will set out the options with prices rather than push one.
We remove it. If your insurer wants to see it after a burst, we keep it aside until the assessor has been.
The pressure control valve has to match the cylinder’s rating, and the vacuum breakers and drip tray are what keep a failure small. Our geyser repair page explains how those parts fail.
A geyser installed to the named standards with its valves and tray in place is one less item on the plumbing CoC inspection when you sell.
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Replacing a geyser in Brackenfell or nearby? Send the size and position and we will quote it in writing.
