Article

Plumbing - MFA 'leads' the way!

 Garth Cambray

In ancient times, plumbing fittings were made from lead. In Latin, plumbum is lead. Hence a plumber is somebody who works with lead. Nowadays lead has a well deserved bad reputation and the majority of plumbing work is performed using copper, galvanised iron and plastic pipes. And here is where the story begins.

In poverty stricken countries, people will do almost anything to get some money to survive. This often means stealing a copper pipe or a brass plumbing fitting. South African newspapers are full of stories of schools where pupils are deprived of water because the pipes were stolen, and hospitals where patients cannot bath because of similar problems.

In every bad situation there is an opportunity. Enter MFA global, a small plastic product manufacturing company in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. In 2001, the enterprising owners, Faaik and Nasief Allie invented, patented and manufactured a set of plastic plumbing fittings which replace the conventional brass plumbing fittings.

Plumbing fittings made from plastic by MFA global

To see how these fittings work it is important to take a crash course in basic pipe joining technology as shown in the drawing below.

The typical brass fitting works by causing the ferule to be compressed onto the pipe so that it forms a perfect seal. Brass is able to deform slightly, hence a good bit of tightening causes the ferule to seal nicely against the pipe. Plastic deforms more easily and consequently plumbing tape is not needed for plumbing fittings

Certain plastics exhibit very similar properties to brass, but unlike brass they are resistant to corrosion and scaling (the build up of chemical deposits inside the fitting) By carefully choosing the correct plastics and then designing moulds to mould them into the shapes of various commonly used plastic fittings the Allie brothers were able to remove valuable brass from the plumbing equation and exchange it for far less valuable plastic.

MFA Global manufactures 27 different compression fittings for 15 and 22mm couplings. All fittings are manufactured to comply with rigorous international standards and are SABS approved. Conveniently, a quirk of the fittings is that they do not require plumbing tape - as anybody who has done some home plumbing knows, plumbing tape is more adept at vanishing in a moment of need than a ballpoint pen. Hence removing the plumbing tape from the plumbing equation is about as big an advance as the PDA removing the need for a pen to write down somebody's address.

With every technological change, the transition is not immediate where established trades exist and tradesmen use what they know. In rapidly developing and urbanising countries such as Angola, Tanzania and South Africa however, a whole new generation of plumbers are learning the advantages of using plastic plumbing fittings made by MFA global. Many new schools, houses and shops are all using running water for the first time - channelled through this logical invention from the Eastern Cape of South Africa.

Sadly, the chances are these artisans using this new technology will still be called "plumbers" even though they are also not using lead - "plasticers" somewhow just does not sound right!

More information:

Faaik Allie +27(0)83 440 6857  www.mfamould.co.za

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