Bore Hole /Well Costs?

[Ed Davies]

My brother in law owns/runs a landfill which has a lab to do testing of the water they release. I was hoping to be able to get them to test my rainwater harvesting system but my BiL retires at the end of this year so that's not going to happen. Still, another possible testing organization to consider for anybody who has appropriate contacts.

 

Amusingly, they're testing the output of a large, as in shipping container size, RO filter which they bought second hand from Guinness because the output was too pure for Guinness's beer-making needs.

[Randomiser]

On 01/10/2019 at 08:18, Jeremy Harris said:

10,000 gallons per hour is massive, the most you are allowed to extract without needing an abstraction licence is 20,000 litres per day, so that has around 54 times the maximum abstraction capacity of a private borehole with no licence.  It's also a big borehole, around three times the normal diameter.

 

A normal domestic borehole would be drilled at around 200mm/8" and then be fitted with a 112mm/4" PVC liner, with a slotted section at the base to allow water in.  Our borehole is 53m deep (174 ft), has a standing water level that's about 4.5m below the top, and which dropped to 11m below the top when test pumped at 1,500 litres per hour for 2 days.  We use around 400 litres per day, for just the two of us.  Our borehole cost (after correcting for the cock-ups) around £9,000, including the cost of the pump, filtration, pressure vessels etc.

Really interesting thread I stumbled on here, thanks to all that shared knowledge and experience.

 

You seem a bit of an expert Jeremy I wondered if you had any insight in to what the cost to depth ratio is.  So if a 50m borehole is say roughly £10,000, would a 100m borehole be around £20,000 or would it be a lot more as the cost of going deeper rises significantly?

[Jeremy Harris]

2 hours ago, Randomiser said:

Really interesting thread I stumbled on here, thanks to all that shared knowledge and experience.

 

You seem a bit of an expert Jeremy I wondered if you had any insight in to what the cost to depth ratio is.  So if a 50m borehole is say roughly £10,000, would a 100m borehole be around £20,000 or would it be a lot more as the cost of going deeper rises significantly?

 

 

Sadly any knowledge I've acquired is a consequence of being badly let down!  I knew nothing about boreholes or water treatment until ours turned into a long-running saga, that delayed our build for a long time.  Finding the problems and then fixing things led to me getting advice from a really helpful chap in the USA, somewhere where lots of people have their own borehole supply (more common than municipal supplies in many areas).

 

When it comes to cost, there are big variations from one area to another, and for drilling through different types of ground.  There's a pretty big upfront fixed cost, to mobilise the drill rig, compressor, settling tanks, waste skip, bowser etc to the site and set it up, then there's usually a fixed drilling and lining cost to a minimum depth, plus an additional per metre cost above that.  The per metre cost is based on the time it takes to drill, plus the cost of the casing, and varies a bit with the geology.  Finally there is the cost of test pumping, installing the pump etc, and the required pressure tank, controls, filtering equipment etc.

 

The prices I have are a bit old, as our borehole was drilled in 6 or 7 years ago now, but were initially:

 

We ended up having some problems and so there was a reduction in the price we finally paid because of those.  The above prices, as well as being a bit out of date, related to drilling in our area, through highly compacted gault clay, with the greensand aquifer about 40m down, then a layer of hard Purbeck stone under that.  The drill hit the Purbeck at about 50m down, and nearly stopped dead.  In error they carried on drilling through it, after changing the drill bit, and it was really slow going.  They didn't think they'd hit water, so after half a day when they'd only drilled about 3m or so I called a halt, as we knew from the hydrogeology that there wasn't any water underneath the Purbeck.  As it happens, they had drilled right through the greensand aquifer without noticing, and one of the drillers came back the next day to double check, as he wasn't 100% sure that the hole was dry.  We test pumped it and found that the yield was way more than we needed; we could pump at 1500 litres/hour and the borehole kept up with it, and we only need about 400 litres/day.

 

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, Jeremy Harris said:

we could pump at 1500 litres/hour and the borehole kept up with it, and we only need about 400 litres/day.

Out of interest, do you meter how much water you actually use?

I am still half minded to get a borehole, though my largest expense is the sewage, and that would be the same as no room to fit a treatment plant.

[Jeremy Harris]

7 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Out of interest, do you meter how much water you actually use?

I am still half minded to get a borehole, though my largest expense is the sewage, and that would be the same as no room to fit a treatment plant.

 

 

Not really, no.  I do keep a very rough tally of how many times a day the pump comes on (just because it is easy to see on the electricity use data) and I know that it pumps around 250 litres every time it comes on (recharging the pressure vessels).  From that I estimated that we use roughly 400 litres per day, more than half of that being showers.

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, Jeremy Harris said:

I do keep a very rough tally of how many times a day the pump comes on (just because it is easy to see on the electricity use data) and I know that it pumps around 250 litres every time it comes on (recharging the pressure vessels).  From that I estimated that we use roughly 400 litres per day, more than half of that being showers.

That's good enough for me.  If I did get a borehole I would be using it for everything except drinking water, with my bathing being the biggest usage.

My water has gone up in price, but my electricity has gone down in price again.

[patp]

As I searched for my old thread I have come across this one. It is very pertinent to a local issue we have. 

 

A borehole was drilled about 15 or so years ago and leaked from day one. At first it was at the rate of a full running tap and it came along our ditch and into our, natural pond. It left our property via our ditch which joins with the roadside ditch and off down the road to the nearest river.

 

The level of flow has gradually increased over the years and is now huge and we have been told by, a visiting Anglian Water chap, that it must be running at 2 litres per second. There is, of course, the obvious worry of flooding in heavy rainfall but also another worry that when we come to sell our cottage it might concern any prospective buyer. Having said that the developers next door, who eventually piped the ditch, did say that they would love to live in a house with running water through the garden.

 

Due to heavy rainfall recently some of the nearby properties had some, unrelated, flooding. Ditches were investigated and they have all discovered that there is a leaking borehole downstream of their ditches. The offending borehole has been made into a water feature right slap bang in the middle of a ditch that helps to  drain their property. The owner has been spoken to on several occasions about all the different problems this borehole is causing but refuses point blank to do anything about it. When the developers approached her to see if they could come to an agreement on capping it. The borehole owner refused to contribute a penny towards the cost s the developer piped the ditch which sent it down to come out in our garden.

 

When the developers were in discussions with the borehole owner they brought the Environment Agency in to investigate but they were, apparently, not interested in getting it sorted. Does anyone know if there is a way to enforce this borehole owner to cap it properly? The local neighbours are also having trouble with toilets not flushing due to the nearby pumping station being overwhelmed when it rains. Whilst it is difficult to say if the water from the borehole is adding to the rainwater or not it is still worrying. We still have a septic tank and so are unaffected. We are planning on connecting to the sewage system but wonder now if we should?

[Declan52]

A couple of bags of bentonite threw down it when they go shopping will do the trick.

[Gus Potter]

15 minutes ago, patp said:

As I searched for my old thread I have come across this one. It is very pertinent to a local issue we have. 

 

A borehole was drilled about 15 or so years ago and leaked from day one. At first it was at the rate of a full running tap and it came along our ditch and into our, natural pond. It left our property via our ditch which joins with the roadside ditch and off down the road to the nearest river.

 

The level of flow has gradually increased over the years and is now huge and we have been told by, a visiting Anglian Water chap, that it must be running at 2 litres per second. There is, of course, the obvious worry of flooding in heavy rainfall but also another worry that when we come to sell our cottage it might concern any prospective buyer. Having said that the developers next door, who eventually piped the ditch, did say that they would love to live in a house with running water through the garden.

 

Due to heavy rainfall recently some of the nearby properties had some, unrelated, flooding. Ditches were investigated and they have all discovered that there is a leaking borehole downstream of their ditches. The offending borehole has been made into a water feature right slap bang in the middle of a ditch that helps to  drain their property. The owner has been spoken to on several occasions about all the different problems this borehole is causing but refuses point blank to do anything about it. When the developers approached her to see if they could come to an agreement on capping it. The borehole owner refused to contribute a penny towards the cost s the developer piped the ditch which sent it down to come out in our garden.

 

When the developers were in discussions with the borehole owner they brought the Environment Agency in to investigate but they were, apparently, not interested in getting it sorted. Does anyone know if there is a way to enforce this borehole owner to cap it properly? The local neighbours are also having trouble with toilets not flushing due to the nearby pumping station being overwhelmed when it rains. Whilst it is difficult to say if the water from the borehole is adding to the rainwater or not it is still worrying. We still have a septic tank and so are unaffected. We are planning on connecting to the sewage system but wonder now if we should?

Hello patp.

 

It's a pity that you had to post about a concern you have. However as you will know it's "grist to the mill" on Build Hub and I think will attract some good responses.

 

What you describe is almost like some exam problem! Sounds like you may have what is called a " confined" or "artesian aquifer" effect where the water is rising out of the ground without any mechanical assistance... like a spring on a hillside..

 

Your post contains a lot of information!

 

If this is the case (Artesian effect) then I would take this a step at a time. It may be that the "offending" bore hole is actually saving the day and mitigating the potential flooding effects that could occur as a result of over development? It's worth considering that a borehole can be quite a small aperture compared with natural fissures in the ground.. maybe the developer is defecting the blame here.

 

The EA are not daft contrary to popular belief. They will be reluctant to get involved at this stage unless there is a risk of contamination of the water courses... and unless flooding has occured then the risk that is percieved has not been realised so it won't flag up too much as they have much more ongoing serious issues to deal with.

 

If you wish can you make two sketches. One would be a plan view.. try and show the ground levels ditches etc, if you can, draw a cross section... here what you need to convey is how your house sits with respect to the orther houses and the "problem" bore hole. If you can bear to, then post your location.. down to the street you live in.. Some posters will have a quick look at the geological maps. Better still if you have any SI information post that.

 

All the best.

 

 

 

[Triassic]

Is this borehole licences?  In dry weather does the flow stop or reverse? 

[SteamyTea]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rylands_v_Fletcher

[patp]

11 hours ago, Declan52 said:

A couple of bags of bentonite threw down it when they go shopping will do the trick.

Our farmer neighbour, an all round good guy, offered to dump a 20 ton load of clay subsoil at our end of the drain pipe. He had had dealings with the owner of the bore hole when trying to rectify the flooding issues for all the other neighbours. The farmer is the local good guy who sorts out all our problems from fallen trees to washed away foot bridges etc. The bore hole owner is the entire opposite. When she bought some land from us to extend her garden she argued over the fencing of it as she did not want to be responsible for either of the fences that formed her boundary! This is just one of the examples of her personality.

 

@Gus Potter it is an artesian well and was drilled at least fifteen years ago. They came and apologised for it leaking and entering our property but we were ambivalent at the time as it was so small an amount. The development has already taken place. The developers tried their hardest to force the owner to cap the well but to no avail. She was not going to pay for it. They decided to pipe the ditch it runs along and turf over it. Now that heavy rainfall has occurred in our area people are sitting up and taking notice of just how much water is entering the the ditch that drains their gardens. 

[patp]

11 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rylands_v_Fletcher

Now that is very interesting! It had occurred to us that it might be the case but we were not sure enough to start a discussion based on that thought. We may well have to engage a solicitor given that the well owner is such a difficult person to deal with. I am sure that somewhere amongst all our household paperwork that we might be insured for such a legal bill??

 

The neighbours affected by the recent flooding are interested in discussing the problem with us as we were in residence when the borehole was drilled. I have to say here that the water from the well runs down a ditch and away from all the properties affected by flooding and so was not directly responsible for their flooding. The water emanating from it, however, does add to the overall amounts in the local area. The ditches become overwhelmed when heavy rain is added to the huge amount of water emanating from it.

 

The farmer neighbour informs us that a contact he has in the well drilling world says it should not cost more than a few thousand pounds to cap the well. The owner has quoted to me that she does not have £30,000 to spend on capping it. I am not sure where she got this figure from. Perhaps the contractors who drilled it were anxious to get away from her and quoted that figure as a reasonable figure to entice them back?! 

 

One thing that trouble me is would it affect the value of our property when we come to sell? Is it a desirable asset i.e. a tumbling stream running into a natural pond or a source of concern to prospective buyers?

[SteamyTea]

@patp

Get everyone involved, including the borehole owner, to check their insurance policies.  That may be a lower cost option than unilaterally starting a claim.  Civil law is expensive for all concerned, so even the insurance people may prefer that option.

 

[Declan52]

You pump bentonite powder and cement mix into the hole and that buys you enough time to create a cap from concrete. A steel plate might be needed if there is a lot of  pressure.

We hit an artesian well in an underground car park in Belfast and it flooded the bottom floor. Lucky enough No cars where parked there. Took a lot of bentonite powder and cement to reduce the flow enough to get it capped. But this borehole was approx 6m below ground level so there was a lot of pressure to hold back.

[patp]

On 27/12/2020 at 07:12, Triassic said:

Is this borehole licences?  In dry weather does the flow stop or reverse? 

I imagine it is licenced as they had it dug by proper contractors. As for drying up it is gushing at a rate of knots that causes people to stop and point at it as it exits our property. It never slows down let alone dry up.

[PeterW]

That is probably in the realms of statutory nuisance and your local council may be able to put pressure on. I would start with the insurance company first. 

[Ferdinand]

34 minutes ago, patp said:

I imagine it is licenced as they had it dug by proper contractors. As for drying up it is gushing at a rate of knots that causes people to stop and point at it as it exits our property. It never slows down let alone dry up.

 

Somewhere there is a national map of all the boreholes. Is this it?

 

https://www.bgs.ac.uk/information-hub/borehole-records/

 

F

[Onoff]

3 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

 

Somewhere there is a national map of all the boreholes. Is this it?

 

https://www.bgs.ac.uk/information-hub/borehole-records/

 

F

 

Same site I think as this link @Jeremy HarrisHarris put up:

 

http://mapapps.bgs.ac.uk/geologyofbritain/home.html

[Gone West]

36 minutes ago, Onoff said:

 

Same site I think as this link @Jeremy HarrisHarris put up:

 

http://mapapps.bgs.ac.uk/geologyofbritain/home.html

Yes that's the site where I entered the data for our borehole.

[Onoff]

17 minutes ago, PeterStarck said:

Yes that's the site where I entered the data for our borehole.

 

I found two historic bore holes 100m or so either side of my house. Bodes well if was ever to want one I guess as both those and I are all on the same line at the bottom of the valley. 

[Gone West]

52 minutes ago, Onoff said:

 

I found two historic bore holes 100m or so either side of my house. Bodes well if was ever to want one I guess as both those and I are all on the same line at the bottom of the valley. 

I should think so. Although ours was an accident, it has proved to be useful for watering the garden in the summers. We have two wells just up and down the lane from us but they are only 2m to 3m deep but ours is 47m deep.

[patp]

I have looked on the bore hole map and, while our borehole is on it, the problem bore hole is not on it. I presume that this is because it was drilled just to water the garden and it was thought that the amount abstracted did not warrant it being registered. Since then, of course, the amount it produces has gone up a huge amount. This begs the question of should it be registered? If so, how does one go about reporting an unregistered borehole?

 

I know, for a fact, that the EA came and looked at the water emanating from it when the developers were trying to get the owner to deal with the problem. We were told that EA did not want to do anything and so the developers made the decision to pipe the ditch along which the water from the bore hole pours. Their pipe ends up in our garden where it enters our ditch and flows through the pond and out into the roadside ditch where it attracts quite a lot of attention from passers by. If EA were not interested then, will they be interested now?

[joe90]

Do I need a licence or permission? Not usually. Anyone is allowed to extract up to 20,000 litres per day without a licence or a charge. If you do want to extract more than this, you will have to get an abstraction licence from the Environment Agency.

[Triassic]

From the description of the flow rate, the plume being something people stop and look at, suggests it is discharging way in excess of 20m3. Maybe if all else fails a bit of local publicity would work, a piece in the local paper, radio,  village/town Facebook page!?