What is the site?
Commercial Boreholes South Africa are a water supply project rather than a hole in the ground: a licence, a tested yield, treatment to a standard, redundancy and a monitoring regime. Say what the business needs in cubic metres a day and compare contractors who have done it before.
- Know what a commercial supply should cost, so you never pay too much.
- Say what the site needs in cubic metres a day, and quotes come back fast.
- From LEADERR APPROVED providers, vetted and backed by many verified 5-star reviews. Peace of mind from contractors who have taken a site through licensing before.
Say what the site needs in cubic metres a day and get commercial quotes.
Get the Best QuoteCommercial Boreholes Prices
Ballpark figures so you can check a quotation.
| Item | Ballpark price |
|---|---|
| Hydrocensus and desk study | R15,000 - R65,000 |
| Geophysical survey, commercial site | R12,000 - R45,000 |
| Drilling, per metre, large diameter | R750 - R1,800 |
| Steel casing and screen, per metre | R650 - R1,500 |
| Constant discharge test, 72 hours, with report | R18,000 - R45,000 |
| Water use licence application support | R45,000 - R250,000 |
| Commercial pump and equipping | R65,000 - R450,000 |
| Treatment plant, sized to the use | R85,000 - R1,200,000 |
| Annual monitoring and maintenance contract | R25,000 - R180,000 |
Prices JUST UPDATED. Ballpark figures, rounded, excluding VAT. They reflect typical South African borehole drilling, pump and water treatment rates. They are not our prices or quotations, and no provider is bound by them. Drilling is quoted PER METRE and the depth is not known until the hole is down, so confirm what each quotation includes, such as mobilisation, casing, development and what you pay if no water is found.
What a Commercial Project Involves
- A hydrocensus and desk study. What is already abstracted nearby, and what the catchment will support.
- Siting. A geophysical survey, and often more than one target for redundancy.
- Licensing. A water use authorisation, with the application built on the test data.
- Drilling and construction. Larger diameter, properly cased and screened, with a gravel pack where needed.
- Extended test pumping. Seventy two hours or more, with a geohydrological assessment.
- Treatment and monitoring. Treatment to the standard the use requires, and metered abstraction records.
Where Boreholes Make Commercial Sense
- Estates and complexes. Irrigation of common areas, which is usually the biggest single use.
- Guesthouses and lodges. Where a water interruption closes the business.
- Factories and processing. Process water, cooling and washdown, at volumes that make the saving real.
- Schools and hospitals. Continuity of supply, which is the point rather than the tariff.
- Nurseries and farms. High continuous demand, which is what pays back the capital.
- Car washes and laundries. High volume, low quality requirement, so treatment is modest.
Designing for Continuity
- More than one hole. Redundancy, so a pump failure is not a shutdown.
- Real storage. Reservoirs sized in hours of demand, not in litres.
- Municipal as the backup. Or the other way round, with the correct backflow prevention either way.
- Standby power. A generator or solar, so load shedding does not stop the water.
- Metering and records. Required by most authorisations, and the basis of any renewal.
- A maintenance contract. Scheduled servicing with a response time, rather than a callout when it stops.
Get a price for your own site rather than a range.
Get the Best QuoteWhat Affects the Price
- The volume needed. Cubic metres a day drives the hole, the pump, the treatment and the licence.
- The licensing route. A general authorisation and a full water use licence are very different undertakings.
- The water quality required. Process and potable supply need treatment that washdown water does not.
- How many holes. Redundancy costs more upfront and less when something fails.
- Depth and diameter. Commercial holes are larger and deeper, and both are per metre.
- Storage and reticulation. Reservoirs, pump stations and pipework across a site.
- Monitoring obligations. Metering, water level records and reporting, as the authorisation requires.
What to Include in Your Request
- What the business is. And what the water is used for.
- Volume needed. Cubic metres a day, and the peak hour if you know it.
- The water quality required. Potable, process, irrigation or washdown.
- The site. Address, size, and where drilling is possible.
- Existing supply. Municipal connection, any existing holes, current consumption.
- Any authorisation already held. Registration, general authorisation or a licence.
- Continuity requirement. How long the business can be without water.
Before You Appoint a Contractor
- Ask for comparable projects. Commercial supply is a different discipline to domestic drilling.
- Get the licensing scoped first. Before drilling. An unlicensed abstraction is a business risk, not a technical one.
- Insist on a geohydrologist. Signing the yield assessment, not a driller's estimate.
- Design redundancy in. Two holes and real storage, if an interruption costs you trading.
- Price the whole life. Capital, energy, treatment consumables and the monitoring contract.
- Confirm the monitoring obligations. And who does the reporting, before the licence is granted.
Commercial Boreholes FAQs
Can a business supply itself from a borehole?
Yes, and many South African estates, lodges, factories and schools do. Beyond reasonable domestic use it needs a water use authorisation from the Department of Water and Sanitation, built on a proper pump test and a geohydrological assessment, and it comes with metering and reporting obligations. The engineering is the straightforward part.
What does a commercial borehole cost?
The hole itself is roughly R750 to R1,800 a metre at commercial diameters plus casing and screen, so a deep large diameter hole runs well into six figures. Licensing support is typically R45,000 to R250,000, extended testing R18,000 to R45,000, and the pump, storage and treatment depend entirely on the volume and the quality required.
How long does a commercial borehole project take?
The drilling is weeks; the licensing is months. A water use licence application with the supporting hydrogeological work commonly takes six months to well over a year depending on the catchment and the volume. Plan the programme around the authorisation rather than around the rig.
Will it save money against municipal water?
Often, at volume, because the marginal cost is electricity and maintenance rather than a tariff. But the capital, the treatment consumables and the monitoring are real, and the honest business case is usually built on continuity of supply as much as on the saving. Price the whole life rather than the drilling.
Do we need treatment for process water?
It depends on the process and on what the analysis shows. Hardness, iron and chloride matter a great deal to boilers, cooling and anything with a nozzle, and they matter not at all to a washdown hose. A full analysis against the requirements of the actual use is the first spend, not the last.
How many boreholes should a business drill?
More than one, wherever an interruption costs trading. A single hole with a single pump is a single point of failure for the whole site. Two holes and storage sized in hours of demand is the normal arrangement, and it is far cheaper to drill the second on the same mobilisation than to need it later.
Commercial supply is the largest kind of project quoted through Borehole Drillers South Africa and the one where the licensing matters most.
Related Services
Get the Best Quote, Fast
Client Reviews
Powered by leaderr
