New high tech trucks ready to drive sewer blockage clearing services in Cape Town

Jan 13, 2024

The City’s Water and Sanitation Directorate welcomes over 23 highly specialised trucks to its fleet to better aid water and sanitation service delivery in communities across Cape Town.

In the 2022/2023 financial year, the City of Cape Town’s Water and Sanitation Directorate spent just over R53 million in procuring jet machine trucks, vacuum tanker trucks and jet vacuum combination trucks.

‘These new additions to the fleet will contribute significantly in ensuring the City’s commitment to providing speedy and efficient service in addressing service requests such as sewer blockages, overflows and spills.

‘Besides using these trucks for normal daily operations, these trucks also play an important role in proactive measures such as jetting sewer pipes to remove the build-up of sand and waste items, such as litter, material, rubble, wet wipes, fats and oils, that do not belong in the sewer network, to help reduce overflows.

‘While the City is investing in water and sanitation infrastructure, including its fleet, to ensure that blockages can be cleared, we also remind residents they can also help us reduce sewer overflows. This can be done by not using toilets, kitchen sinks and sewer drains like dirt bins. Let’s be mindful of what we are flushing down our toilets, pouring down our sinks and entering into sewer drains. Visit the City’s website for tips on how residents can help keep our sewers clear: www.capetown.gov.za/blocked-sewers,‘ said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Water and Sanitation, Councillor Zahid Badroodien.

The three types of trucks were built specifically to meet the directorate’s needs using the latest internationally available technology:

1) Jet Machine Trucks: Each truck has a 5 000 litre water tank capacity and can release water at a very high pressure of 240 to 245 litres per minute. These trucks are mainly used to clear blocked sewer pipes.

2) Vacuum Tanker Trucks: They can draw 10 000 litres of raw sewage at a time and are used for emptying septic tanks.

3) Jet Vacuum Combination Trucks: This is essentially a combination of the jet machine and the vacuum tanker truck.

These new concept trucks have one tank compared to previous trucks of its kind that had two tanks. They have a dual capability and can unblock sewer drains and suction raw sewage.

The front part of the tank is for clean water to unblock sewer drains and has a capacity of 5 000 litres and it can release water at a high pressure.

The rear section of the tank is for raw sewage and has a tank capacity of 4 000 liters and it can suction to – 60 bars which make this a very versatile operations vehicle.

To match its innovation and versatile capability, these trucks are also strikingly branded with catchy phrases to showcase the services of the directorate.

Please report water and sanitation-related service requests, such as a sewer overflow, to one of the following channels: