Emergency Plumber
Burst pipes, a geyser into a ceiling, sewage backing up. We prioritise emergencies and tell you a real time rather than "on our way".
View service →Home / Franschhoek
A plumber for Franschhoek, over the R45 from our base in Paarl. Emergency call-outs, blocked drains and the CCTV camera inspections that finally explain why the same drain keeps blocking, plus geysers, leak detection and the careful sort of work that old village properties need. Price agreed before we start.
Tell us what you need and we will come back to you with an honest, upfront estimate and a real time window.
The jobs the village actually calls us out for, from a burst pipe at seven in the morning to the drain that has been blocking every winter for years.
Burst pipes, a geyser into a ceiling, sewage backing up. We prioritise emergencies and tell you a real time rather than "on our way".
View service →The camera that finally shows you the oak root in the clay joint, marked above ground so the repair is dug in one place.
View service →Jetting, descaling and drainage services for kitchens, toilets, sewer lines and the gullies that flood every winter.
View service →Acoustic and thermal tracing for old, thick-walled properties where opening a wall to look is exactly what you cannot do.
View service →Geyser repair and new installation, electric, solar, heat pump or gas, done to standard with the old unit taken away.
View service →Low-disruption commercial work scheduled around service times and check-ins, with maintenance planned for the quiet weeks.
View service →There is a call we take from Franschhoek more than any other, and it is not really about a blockage. It is about the fourth blockage. The drain gets cleared, it runs beautifully for a few months, and then it backs up in exactly the same spot, and after a few rounds of that people stop wanting it cleared and start wanting it explained.
The explanation is usually roots. The older village properties are drained in clay pipe laid in short lengths, which means a joint roughly every metre, and Franschhoek's streets and gardens are full of mature oaks and poplars looking for exactly the sort of water those joints leak. A root finds a joint that has moved a hair, gets in as a thread, and grows into a mat that catches everything passing. Rodding cuts the mat back. It does not remove the tree and it does not fix the joint, so the mat grows again on the same timetable. That is the cycle, and the only thing that breaks it is seeing which joint it is and repairing that one metre of pipe.
The other thing about working here is the buildings. A lot of the village stock is old, thick-walled and quietly beautiful, and often still running on galvanised supply pipe that has rusted narrow from the inside over forty or fifty years. On a property like that the wrong approach is to chase a leak along a wall opening plaster as you go. We trace acoustically and with thermal imaging, mark one point, and break out only that. We are over the R45 from Paarl rather than around the corner, so we schedule Franschhoek work in blocks and give you a proper window instead of a vague morning, and for genuine emergencies we come as fast as the road lets us.
Our base is in Paarl in Lemoenkloof, so Franschhoek, Simondium, La Motte and the estates along the valley are all within our normal patch, along with Val de Vie and Pearl Valley on the way through.
What matters when the nearest plumber is not actually in the village.
We tell you when we will actually be there, and phone if that changes.
The price is agreed before we start, and the drive is not a surprise line on the invoice.
Clay drains, oak roots and old galvanised pipe are what we do all week.
The smallest opening we can make in an old wall or a village garden, then patched.
What Franschhoek homeowners and businesses ask us most.
We do. Franschhoek is over the R45 from our base in Paarl, so we are not around the corner, but we are a good deal closer than most and we prioritise genuine emergencies: a burst pipe, a geyser that has let go into a ceiling, or sewage backing up into a house. If water is running right now, phone rather than fill in a form, and shut the main stopcock while you wait. That one action does more to limit the damage than anything else you can do. Our emergency plumber page has the rest.
Yes, and in Franschhoek a camera earns its keep faster than almost anywhere. The older properties in the village are drained in short lengths of clay pipe with a joint every metre or so, and the streets are lined with mature oaks. Roots find those joints. Rodding cuts the root mat back but leaves the tree and the joint exactly as they were, which is why the same drain blocks again on the same schedule. The camera shows you the actual joint, and we mark it above ground. See CCTV camera inspections.
For booked work we schedule Franschhoek jobs in blocks so you are not paying for the drive, and we will give you a window rather than a vague morning. For emergencies we come as fast as the road allows, which in high season and over a long weekend is the honest limiting factor rather than our availability. We will tell you on the phone roughly how long we will be instead of saying we are on our way and leaving you watching the door.
Regularly, and it is genuinely different work. Thick old walls, lime plaster, buried supply and waste lines that have not been touched in decades, and often galvanised pipe that has rusted narrow from the inside. On a building like that the priority is to open as little as possible, so we trace leaks acoustically and with thermal imaging and break out one marked point rather than chasing a pipe along a wall. See leak detection.
Yes, and we understand that for a guesthouse or a restaurant the real cost of a plumbing problem is the closed door, not the invoice. We work around service times and check-ins where we possibly can, and we would far rather do scheduled maintenance on a grease trap or a drain line in a quiet week than clear it under pressure on a Friday night in season. Our commercial plumbing page covers how we work with hospitality.
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