Boreholes - anyone know anything about them

[anonymous-user]

I don't have one but have had a few conversations about them. A friend of a friend stores a companies drilling equipment and has had him drill him a bore hole. I understand his went well and the testing came back with a high quality water.
I also use a drilling company with work who also drill bore holes, they didn't want to commit to price as you say and firstly wanted to carry out a survey, I never got back round to this. When pushed on price as I'd asked the aquintance they seemed inclined to agree the 7k figure was in the right area but very dependant on ground conditions/type and depth needed to hit water. As I understand it they are great unless someone else locally has one and saps your supply, there is no ownership rights to the water you tap into. I'm sorry it's not brilliant help but as you'd had no replies thought I'd post.

[C Lee Farquar]

I had one drilled about 4 years ago in North Oxon.

They drilled to about 45 metres, sleaved, put a pump in, concrete ring and manhole cover for about £7k plus VAT.

It's hasn't failed or been any issue since.

[S6PNJ]

C Lee Farquar said:

I had one drilled about 4 years ago in North Oxon.

They drilled to about 45 metres, sleaved, put a pump in, concrete ring and manhole cover for about £7k plus VAT.

It's hasn't failed or been any issue since.

How do you use the water you extract? Potable or just for the garden? If potable, do you have to treat it or anything or does it run straight into your taps etc.

[motco]

I was under the impression from a chap in St Albans that you have to pay the local water company for the privilege of tapping the water table which they abstract water from. It will be interesting to find out if that's the case.

[BugLebowski]

Depends massively on the local geography. I have a nice spring fed well, which is about 3m deep and provides sweet, crystal clear water year round. In other parts you'll be spending mega bucks to get water that will probably still need treated. Try asking around locally to see if anyone else has one installed, should give you a good idea of the costs.

[anonymous-user]

motco said:

I was under the impression from a chap in St Albans that you have to pay the local water company for the privilege of tapping the water table which they abstract water from. It will be interesting to find out if that's the case.

No fee to pay as far as I've spoken to people.

[anonymous-user]

S6PNJ said:

How do you use the water you extract? Potable or just for the garden? If potable, do you have to treat it or anything or does it run straight into your taps etc.

The water needs to be tested but the idea is you use this instead of mains water. There is filter but basically ground to tap is the idea, willing to bet purer than what comes from the utility companies

[Lagom]

I’ve got one, about 80 deep so cost a lot and the water quality is pretty poor with lots of iron, it has a ‘rust’ tint and smells bad. Next door has one about 40m deep and the water is fantastic. Oh hum.

I had to install a whole house water (salt) softener to remove the iron and a separate reverse osmosis filter for drinking water.

[C Lee Farquar]

S6PNJ said:

How do you use the water you extract? Potable or just for the garden? If potable, do you have to treat it or anything or does it run straight into your taps etc.

I don't use it in the house. I had it tested, it has a high iron content. For the little bit we use in the house I thought it was easier to use the mains.

[biggiles]

We have a borehole as we're too far from a mains water connection. They pay back very fast if you have livestock e.g. cattle. For typical domestic use, mains water is a lot less faff and is good value. Ours is very reliable, but you need to have various filters, and be familiar with the piping.

Ground conditions make a huge difference- a deep lined hole in tricky moving ground would easily be over 10k I would think.

It's not quite free to run: for some simple numbers to start off with, our 3ph pump is 3kw and can do 2-3000 litres per hour.

The farming forums have some good info, and also the US forums where they call them wells. Google "well pumps" over there.

[Lotobear]

I've just looked into this for a client and a good starting point is:

https://www.bgs.ac.uk/data/boreholescans/home.html

[Munter]

sfella said:

The water needs to be tested but the idea is you use this instead of mains water. There is filter but basically ground to tap is the idea, willing to bet purer than what comes from the utility companies

It's only as "pure" as the ground it's drawing the water from. A company I used to work for has sold a lot of nitrate removal plants to water companies recently. See, farming has put a lot of nitrates into the soil. This is now filtering down far enough to turn up in the water coming from bore holes. If you drink it, the nitrates block your blood cells from absorbing oxygen. This is considered bad. Particularly if you are a baby, where you turn a bit blue and possibly die.

Then there is Cryptosporidium which is more likely in private water supplies than public ones. Then the list go's on. They are not spending all that money treating water pulled out of the ground for shi*s and giggles. They would very much like to keep that as profit for the shareholders.

So the OP definitely needs to have tests done on the water quality. And not just once, but on a regular basis in case things change over time. Then setup whatever treatment is appropriate.

[HRH2009]

biggiles said:

We have a borehole as we're too far from a mains water connection. They pay back very fast if you have livestock e.g. cattle. For typical domestic use, mains water is a lot less faff and is good value. Ours is very reliable, but you need to have various filters, and be familiar with the piping.

Ground conditions make a huge difference- a deep lined hole in tricky moving ground would easily be over 10k I would think.

It's not quite free to run: for some simple numbers to start off with, our 3ph pump is 3kw and can do 2-3000 litres per hour.

The farming forums have some good info, and also the US forums where they call them wells. Google "well pumps" over there.

My brother had one bored on his farm in North West Herefordshire, paid £3K, This was down to about 100 feet it included the liner.

The thing was drilled and lined out in a bit over a morning! Obviously there would be pipework, pump and electricals to add to this figure,

[wolfracesonic]

What diameter of hole have you had drilled, 4’’ sewer pipe or something you could climb down???