How the water bore drilling process works, step by step

1. Free site assessment

We come to the property, walk the site with you and work out what you actually need. That means understanding the intended use, whether it is stock and domestic, irrigation, or commercial supply, and how much water that use realistically demands. We look at the local geology, known aquifer depths in your area, existing bores nearby and their recorded yields, access for the rig, and where the water needs to end up. The assessment costs nothing and there is no obligation attached to it.

2. Licensing and approvals

Almost every bore in NSW needs some form of approval before a rig can turn a single metre. We organise it. We hold a long standing working relationship with Water NSW and the department, which means we know what they want to see, how they want it presented, and how to avoid the resubmissions that add weeks to an application.

Depending on what the bore is for, that will be a basic landholder right for stock and domestic use, a test bore licence, or a water access licence for irrigation and commercial extraction. Full detail on getting a bore water licence in NSW is here.

3. Siting the bore

Where the bore goes matters more than almost anything else about it. We site it on the geology first, using aquifer mapping, water table depth and the records from surrounding bores, then balance that against practical constraints: rig access, distance to the tanks or the irrigation head, setbacks from septic systems and boundaries, and the run of the power supply to the pump.

A bore drilled fifty metres from the right spot can cost you half the yield and years of pumping cost. This is the stage where experience pays for itself.

4. Drilling, by mud rotary or air

We use both methods and select between them based on what is under your property, not on what happens to be on the truck.

• Mud rotary suits soft and unconsolidated ground: sand, clay, gravel and weathered material. The drilling fluid holds the hole open as we go and carries the cuttings out, which keeps the bore stable in formations that would otherwise collapse.
• Air drilling suits hard rock: sandstone, shale, basalt and granite. It is faster through competent rock and it shows us water as soon as we intersect it, which gives a clear read on where the productive zones sit.

Depth is rarely the constraint. Our rigs drill to 2,000 metres and we carry tooling for holes up to 1,200 millimetres in diameter, which is far beyond anything a domestic or stock bore will ever need. What that capability actually buys you is options: a hard formation that would turn a smaller rig around does not turn us around, and a high yield irrigation or commercial bore can be built at the diameter the job needs rather than the diameter the rig can manage.

Through the drilling we log the strata as we pass through it. That log is what tells us where to set the screen, and it becomes part of your bore record.

5. Construction to AS 2016/3189

Every bore we build is constructed to Australian Standard AS 2016/3189, the minimum construction requirements for water bores in Australia. In practice that means casing selected for the ground and the water chemistry, screens positioned against the productive zones identified in the drill log, a properly graded gravel pack around the screen, and a cement or bentonite seal in the annulus to stop surface water and shallow contamination tracking down into the aquifer.

That last part is the one nobody sees and the one that matters most. A bore without a proper annular seal can pump contaminated water for years before anyone works out why, and it puts the aquifer everyone else draws on at risk too.

6. Development and test pumping

A freshly drilled bore is not a finished bore. Development clears the drilling residue out of the formation, settles the gravel pack and opens up the aquifer around the screen. Skip it and you get a bore that pumps sand, chews through pump impellers and delivers a fraction of the yield it should.

Once developed we test pump the bore to establish what it will actually give you: sustainable yield in litres per second, standing water level, drawdown under load and recovery rate. Those numbers are what the pump gets sized against, and they are what you need if you ever apply to increase your allocation.

7. Pump, headworks and handover

We size and install the pump against the test pumping figures rather than against a guess, fit the headworks, connect to your tanks or irrigation, and install metering where the licence requires it. You get the completed bore record, the Form A documentation, and a bore that has been proven under load before we leave the site.

Where the water needs conditioning before use, we handle that too. See bore water filtration and treatment. For pump specification, irrigation design and ongoing servicing, see pumps and irrigation.

Where we drill

We drill across New South Wales and the ACT, for stock and domestic bores on rural blocks, irrigation bores on farms and vineyards, and production bores on commercial and industrial sites.

Access is rarely the obstacle people expect. Alongside the standard fleet we run tight access rigs built for constrained sites, which means narrow side access, established gardens, sloping blocks and small commercial yards are all workable, not just open paddocks. If another driller has already told you your site cannot be reached, it is worth a second opinion.

Not sure whether your property is within range? Call 0408 915 449 and ask. We would rather tell you honestly on the phone than leave you waiting on a quote that never comes.

Book your free site assessment. We will walk your property, tell you what is realistically under it, and quote in writing. Call 0408 915 449 or send an enquiry.