How long does borehole drilling take?

On the surface, implementing a water borehole through borehole drilling may seem like an idea that you’re on the fence about…but look a little deeper and you will discover it’s a fantastic decision! Bringing with it a number of benefits for you and your property.

Often in life, we want things quick and easy. This is understandable of course, as instant results are just as important as holding out for long term success. But, what if we were to tell you that drilling a borehole can take next to no time and provide you with results for years to come? Seriously, we’re not kidding.

Borehole drilling is a cost-efficient way of prospering from an extra natural source of water – without worrying about any chemical contamination. But one question that regularly gets asked is, “how long does borehole drilling take?” with people put off by the prospect of lengthy drilling times and drawn out processes. Not so with Teckna Group – let’s take a look in more detail:

A multi-step process

For some borehole companies, the process of borehole drilling may just involve the actual drilling of the hole to extract natural water from the source underground – with no careful consideration made on how deep to drill, and without performing a detailed risk assessment beforehand. This can appear all well and good at the time, as you as the customer will think that you’re receiving a quick service that allows you to continue with operations as soon as possible. But if you query the borehole drilling of the company you trusted, you will quickly find out that they have not spent as much time as they should ensuring that your borehole is of the correct standard and will perform admirably for the long term.

At Teckna Group, we offer much more than this. We guarantee that all of the correct procedures and checks are carried out to make the borehole drilling process one that is as quick and safe as possible – and that your home gains a reliable natural water supply for years to come.

A water borehole prognosis can take up to 10 days but this ensures we can give the project the green light before any of the real digging starts, and determines which piece of borehole drilling equipment is most suitable for the job.

This process is expedited somewhat because we already have all our contacts in place. From labs to send water samples for testing, to groundwater testing experts, we get the ball rolling as quickly as possible to decrease the amount of time from start to finish. 

By taking this extra time to perform a thorough water borehole prognosis we are making the overall process a little longer, but it is something you will definitely thank us for in the long run! It increases the chances that you’re left with a functional, sustainable borehole that won’t dry up any time soon, not something that stops working the second the drills have left the site.

Down to business

Once the water borehole prognosis has been completed, it is then time to get down to the nitty-gritty of things and to start your borehole drilling project.

How long this takes depends on a couple of things. These include how deep the water table is at your borehole location, and the kind of material that needs to be drilled through. 

Rock Type 

Chalk and other soft materials, such as clay, can be relatively quick; harder rocks like granite and quartzite, on the other hand, can end up taking a lot longer to get through. Either way, it shouldn’t take more than one to three days or so, depending on the depth and other factors. The drilling team will be able to provide you with a more accurate estimate of how long the actual drilling will take once you’ve had a survey carried out. 

Access

Another factor that can have an impact on how long the borehole takes to drill is the accessibility of the site. If additional infrastructure needs to be installed to get the drilling rig to the site of the borehole, this could add a little extra time.

Once we have drilled the borehole into the ground we test it for a range of variables to ensure that the water supply is working properly. We then fit a pumping system and pipework to tailor the borehole to your specific requirements.

This will also include a filtration system that’s custom-designed to take any impurities that are present in the groundwater. We will also recommend a testing regime going forward, so that you can ensure that no additional impurities have entered into the system and that the filtration approach remains effective in the long run.

Teckna Group always makes sure that we work in a way that gets a job done as quickly and efficiently as possible whilst making sure it is done to the highest possible standard. With this in mind, the timeframe for water borehole drilling can vary from project to project, depending on how deep and wide the hole is, and the difficulty of the site’s immediate surroundings. As a guide though, we normally hope to provide you with fresh, natural water within just 2-3 days!

Water testing

With water boreholes, the water you get access to at the end isn’t just magically pure and clean. There’s a good chance that it will have been filtered by the rock and sediment that it’s passed through to get to the water table, but you will still need to test it for impurities and pollutants before you use it for most purposes. 

Based on the results of the tests, you may then need to install additional filtration and purification systems. It’s important to continue to regularly test the water source, to make sure that no impurities enter into it undetected. 

Additional infrastructural installation processes

Boreholes are always made as part of a broader project. Whether that’s to install a loop for a ground source heat pump or to get water out of the ground, the actual drilling of the hole is just one, albeit important, part of that broader process. 

Once the borehole has been created, you will need to install pipes, pumps, and a range of other features that allow you to tap into the energy or water supply that you drilled the borehole to access in the first place. 

This can easily take another few days. It’s important to factor in this additional time into the broader project, so that you know what you’re able to time things correctly and not end up disappointed by unexpected ‘delays’. 

Planning complications

In most cases, the planning aspect of having a borehole drilled is relatively straightforward. There are some situations where it can be a little bit more complicated, however. 

If there is a risk that the borehole might interact with the water table more generally, by releasing trapped pollutants, you may need to seek additional permission from the Environment Agency. 

Likewise, if you plan on extracting more than 20,000 litres of water a day, you will need to get a water abstraction license. These factors shouldn’t cause delays, but it is important to work with a team that is familiar with navigating the relevant bureaucratic hurdles. 

Ongoing benefits

While it can seem like a bit of a hassle, even two weeks of overall set-up is nothing in the context of decades of essentially ‘free’ water. By assessing how much you spend on water annually at the moment, you should be able to come up with a relatively accurate ROI to make a more informed financial decision.

Contact us

Interested in appointing a borehole contractor for your land? Or would you like to learn more about our water borehole drilling process? You can get in touch with one of our experts by filling out our online enquiry form or contacting us via telephone on 01257 421 700. You can also email us at enquiries@tecknagroup.co.uk for a quick, informed response from one of our team.