Drains and sewers

Blocked Drains in Brakpan

Blocked drains in Brakpan are not always blocked on your side. Before anyone rods a pipe, the inspection eye nearest the boundary shows whether your drain is choked or the City’s sewer is full, and that decides who should pay.

Request a call-out

The boundary test. Lift the eye nearest the street before paying anyone to clear a drain. Graphic, not to scale.

Where a blockage shows itself first

Five places, and what each one points to.

One basin or shower draining slowly. The trap or the short pipe under that fitting, usually hair, soap or fat close to the outlet.

Only the kitchen sink. Fat and food scraps setting in the run from the sink to the gully.

A toilet that rises, then drains slowly. A blockage further down the main drain, past the point where the toilet joins it.

The yard gully lifting its grid. Either the drain below it is choked or the sewer beyond is full. The boundary eye tells the two apart.

Every fitting slow at once, next door too. The City’s side: a full sewer or a stopped pump station. Report it before paying anyone to clear.

Whose blockage

Full or blocked? The eye at your boundary answers it before anyone is paid

How Ekurhuleni's by-law splits a blockage between you and the City, and the quick look that tells you which side you are on.

Ekurhuleni's Water Services By-law draws the line at the connection point, the place where your drainage joins the City's connecting sewer. Everything on your side is yours to keep clear at your own cost, and everything past it is the City's. With a blockage in your own pipe you can report it to the City, which charges for clearing a private drain, or bring in a plumber yourself.

The by-law adds two rules few people hear about. If the City clears its connecting sewer and finds the blockage came out of your drain, the fee is yours. And if one drain serves two or more properties, the cost of clearing it is split equally between the owners, each of whom can be held to the whole amount. A plumber about to clear a blockage that could affect the City's network is also meant to tell the City in writing first, with its cause.

In Brakpan the street side fails often enough for this to matter. In June 2021 the Brakpan Herald reported a sewage spill near Hofmeyer Street in Brenthurst, which the City put down to illegal connections stopping a pump station from working. The ward's priorities for 2025 ask for the sewage pump stations in Minnebron and Dalpark 1 to be upgraded. When a pump station stops, the sewer behind it fills, and so does every house drain that runs into it.

That is why the inspection eye near your boundary matters. Lift its cover. If it is full to the top and not moving, the trouble is downstream of your property, and no rod pushed in from inside your fence will shift it: report it to the City on 0860 543 000. If the eye is dry while the house side backs up, the blockage is in your own drain, between the house and the eye, and that is a plumber's job.

The test only works if the eye can be found and opened. Eyes get tiled over, paved under and built on, and then the first part of a blocked-drain visit is finding one, which is time you pay for. The same by-law keeps rainwater out of drains altogether, so a downpipe emptying into a gully is worth moving even on a day when nothing is blocked.

Before you pay anyone to clear a drain, lift the inspection eye nearest the boundary. Full and still means phone the City; dry means book a plumber.

Where these facts come from

How drain clearing is priced

The visit charge on the phone, the clearing in writing, and nothing quoted for a sewer that is the City's.

Said on the phone

The charge for coming out. From what you describe, the plumber judges whether rods will do or a drain machine is needed.

Written before work

The method, the access point and the price.
If the boundary eye shows the City’s sewer is full, you are told, and no clearing is quoted.

What moves the number

How far down the line the blockage sits.
Whether an eye or a gully has to be found or opened first.
Roots or a broken pipe, which need a repair as well as clearing.

How a blocked drain is cleared

The boundary eye is opened before any rod goes in.

Say where it backs up

Which fitting, since when, and whether the neighbours have the same trouble.
The boundary eye first

The eye nearest the street is opened to see which side of the connection point the blockage is on.
Cleared from the nearest access

Method and price are agreed in writing, then the line is cleared from the closest eye or gully.
Run while you watch

Water runs through every fitting that was slow, and you are told what came out and what put it there.

Blocked drain questions, answered before the rods come out

Price first, then who pays when the City is involved.

What does it cost to unblock a drain in Brakpan?

That depends on where the blockage sits and how it has to be reached, so the clearing is priced in writing before it starts. The visit charge said on the phone is the visit charge on the invoice.

Sewage is coming out of my yard gully. Who do I call?

Lift the inspection eye nearest your boundary first. If it is full and not draining, the City’s side is the likely cause, so report it on 0860 543 000. If it is empty, the blockage is in your own drain and a plumber clears it.

Will the City unblock my drain for free?

No. The drain on your property is yours under the by-law, and the City charges a fee if you ask it to clear a private drain. A blockage in the City’s own sewer is the City’s to clear.

My neighbour's drain joins mine. Who pays to clear it?

Where one drain serves two or more properties, Ekurhuleni’s by-law splits the City’s clearing charge equally between the owners, and each owner can be held liable for the whole amount if the others do not pay.

Can I pour drain cleaner down it first?

For a slow basin it sometimes helps, but chemicals do nothing for a blockage further down the line. If you have used one, say so before anyone opens the pipe, because the water standing in it will be caustic.

Why does my drain back up every time it rains?

Rain is not meant to reach a drain at all: the by-law keeps rainwater and storm water out of drainage. Look for a downpipe or yard channel running into a gully, or a gully set level with the paving where runoff can pour in.

What is safe to put down a kitchen drain?

Water and washing-up. Fat, oil, coffee grounds and food scraps set in the pipe as they cool, and the by-law forbids letting grease or solids build up in a drain.

Does the plumber have to tell the City about a blockage?

Where a blockage could affect the City’s sewer, the by-law asks the plumber to notify the City in writing before clearing it, with what caused it. A blocked basin trap inside the house cannot affect the sewer, so there is nothing to report.

Often the next job after this one

Emergency plumbersSewage coming up inside the house is an emergency, not a booking for next week.
Leak detectionA cracked drain under a floor shows up as damp and smell before it ever blocks.

Tell us which drain is backing up

A plumber phones you back, says the visit charge, and asks about the boundary eye before driving out.

Brakpan and the suburbs around it

A plumber comes to the house. There is no shop counter to visit.

The Brakpan Plumbers

Request a call-out

Not in the index? Ask on the coupon; if it is close, the answer is usually yes.

Anzac

Brakpan Central, Brakpan North, Brenthurst

Dalpark, Dalview

Helderwyk

Kenleaf

Larendale, Leachville

Maryvlei, Minnebron

Sallies Village, Sherwood Gardens, Sunair Park

Tsakane

Van Eck Park, Vulcania

Withok Estates