Plumber in Brakpan

In Leachville, the City of Ekurhuleni plans to swap the sewer pipes that run behind the houses for bigger ones. Its 2022 heritage application for a new pump station says the 110 mm midblock pipes "will also be replaced with 160mm pipes to accommodate higher flows", and the new station beside the old one is designed to move 88 litres a second. A 110 mm pipe is the size most houses use for their own drain, so a municipal line serving a whole row of homes was no wider than one home's outlet.

Leachville is not the only name on the list. When the City took its draft plans to Brakpan in April 2025, the ward priorities included upgrades to the sewage pump stations in Minnebron and in Dalpark 1 and a sewer upgrade in Abbie Nyalunga Street. The draft capital budget named a Brakpan central sewer upgrade and sewers for Withok, Dalpark and Leachville, and sewer blockages were one of the three problems the City listed for the area.

Until that work is done, the old pipes carry on at their limit, and a sewer that runs full has nowhere to go but back up the drains that feed it. In 2021 the Brakpan Herald reported sewage spilling near Hofmeyer Street in Brenthurst, and the City said illegal connections had to be removed before the pump station there could work properly. When a pump stops or a main chokes, every drain upstream of it fills from the bottom.

1. An ordinary day. The City's sewer runs part full and the house drain empties between flushes.

2. The street sewer runs full. A stopped pump or a choked main fills it, and the sewage backs up the pipe into your yard.

3. Out at the lowest opening. A gully set 100 mm above the paving overflows outside, before a shower or toilet indoors can.

On one property, sewage rising from the street leaves by the lowest open fitting it can reach. Ekurhuleni's Water Services By-law plans for exactly that. A gully must be kerbed, or raised at least 100 mm above the ground around it, and it exists to let sewage overflow outside. Pave the yard up to the gully's rim, or put a shower on a floor lower than it, and the overflow chooses the inside of the house instead.

None of the street side is yours to fix. The by-law makes the owner responsible for the drainage up to the point where it joins the City's connecting sewer, and the City for what lies beyond. What you control is where the sewage comes out when the City's side fails, and whether anyone can look into your drain without digging, through an inspection eye that has not been tiled or paved over.

Find your gully and the inspection eye nearest the boundary this week. If the gully sits level with the paving or the eye has been paved over, have them sorted before the next sewer backup, not during it.