Cruwman Drilling (December 22, 2009)
Water, Water Everywhere!
A recent change in the law now makes it easier to have your own private water supply from a borehole or well.
Most people are aware of the fact that the earth beneath our feet contains water and that at a certain depth below ground you will reach a saturated layer known as the water table. What is less widely known is that the water beneath your property is yours for free, if you are willing to invest a little in getting at it.
As a result of The Water Act 2003 anyone is now entitled to abstract up to 20,000 litres (20 tons!) of water per day without the need for a license. A common misconception is that you will somehow be charged for this water. This is wrong. Once you have invested in drilling a borehole or well, the water is free. There will be some expenditure in operating and maintaining a pump, however, in comparison to the value of the water you use, this is likely to be negligible (20,000 litres per day is worth over £9,000 per year at current Anglian Water prices!). The initial investment to drill a borehole and install a pump can be as little as £3,500 where the aquifer and the groundwater table are close to the surface.
The financial benefits of having a borehole will depend on the amount of water you use and, of course, the investment needed to abstract it. For an average household, paying around £300 per year for their water, the economics of having a borehole could be reasonably attractive but the geological conditions would have to be right to be able to justify it on purely financial grounds. Many people, however, opt to have a private water supply for other reasons, for instance, to insulate themselves from future water price rises, to avoid hose pipe bans or to live in a more sustainable way.
For anyone with a larger than average water requirement, however, the financial benefits can be very clear. Anyone with horses or other livestock, a swimming pool or a large garden to irrigate, for instance, could benefit substantially from having their own borehole. Likewise, many businesses use large quantities of water and an investment that will pay for itself in 2 years or less has to be an attractive proposition to any business.
Drilling a borehole is a surprisingly straightforward exercise using relatively simple and lightweight equipment. The drilling rig shown in the photograph uses a traditional technique (some say the Chinese were using a similar method to drill boreholes 3,000 years ago!) called ‘cable percussion drilling’ which uses a heavy weight to cut a core of sediment or to crush hard rock using a variety of different drill bits. There is very little mess or disruption to landscaping associated with this type of drilling and the rig can be transported through a standard door opening if necessary.
For those of us who are not expert geologists, or indeed water diviners, help is at hand from The British Geological Survey who offer a service to householders and businesses who are interested in using the ground water beneath their property. For a given location or address, they will provide a report on the geology, the anticipated depth to water level and the quantity and quality of water to be expected. This is called a Water Borehole Prognosis and can be purchased on-line at http://shop.bgs.ac.uk/Georeports/
CRUWMAN Drilling is a family owned and run business located on the border of Essex and Suffolk providing borehole drilling services throughout the country. We provide a complete service from arranging the initial survey to drilling and completion of the borehole and installation of pumping and filtration systems. A pumping system can be installed that provides constant pressure similar to, and in most cases better than, mains water pressure.
Drilling a 60 meter borehole into the chalk aquifer through 40 metres of overlying clays, sands and gravels.
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