Municipal backup and buffer systems

Buffer tanks between the municipal main and the building have become standard practice for South African homes, estates, and commercial sites managing supply interruptions and pressure instability. The tank solves availability and creates two new problems: stored water degrades, and the booster pump recirculates whatever accumulates in the tank.

Municipal water arrives with a chlorine residual that decays in storage — warm static water in a poly tank loses effective residual within days. After that, biofilm establishes on tank walls and the first symptoms are taste, odour and slime in aerators. The defensible backup train treats water leaving the tank, not entering it: sediment filtration to catch tank debris and main-borne particulates stirred up by outages, then disinfection sized to the booster pump's delivery.

A 20 micron pleated cartridge followed by 5 micron spun polypropylene handles the particulate duty for most installations; step up to Big Blue formats where the booster exceeds 40 L/min to keep pressure drop civil. Where mains turbidity events are frequent — common after outage restoration, when mains scouring sends brown water — a backwashing media filter upstream of the cartridges takes that load off the elements and lengthens their life.

UV disinfection at the tank outlet restores the safety margin the decayed residual no longer provides: 30 mJ/cm² at the pump's peak flow, after 5 micron filtration. For sites with long internal reticulation or secondary storage, low-level chlorine dosing with a metering pump maintains a residual through the building — dosed proportionally from a pulse water meter so the residual tracks consumption.

Housings, cartridges, UV systems, dosing pumps and float and non-return valves for tank installations are all stocked lines with stated lead-time bands, in both branches.