Centurion sits on Malmani dolomite, which is both the best aquifer in Tshwane and the most demanding ground in the metro to drill.
Yields can be excellent where a solution cavity is intersected, and the same street can produce a disappointing hole fifty metres away.
What Is Under Centurion
| Formation | Where it sits | What it means for drilling |
|---|---|---|
| Malmani Subgroup dolomite | The bedrock beneath most of the suburb, part of the Chuniespoort Group | A karst aquifer. Water moves through solution cavities and fracture zones rather than sitting evenly in the rock, so a hole that intersects a cavity can be strong and one a short distance away can be poor. |
| Chert and chert breccia | Bands within the dolomite and residual rubble above it | Extremely hard drilling. The chert-rich formations slow progress and wear bits; the chert-poor ones drill faster. Which you get is not known until the rig is turning. |
| Wad and residual soil | The leached mantle between the soil and dolomite bedrock | Low-density residue of unpredictable thickness. It is what makes dolomitic ground compressible, and it usually has to be cased through before the hole is stable. |
Send your street and what the water is for, and get an itemised quote for Centurion.
Get a Centurion Borehole QuoteWhat That Means for Your Borehole
- Budget for slow metres through chert which is the main reason dolomite quotes carry a wider range than quotes elsewhere.
- Casing through the wad horizon is not optional and its thickness is unknown until drilling starts.
- Loss of circulation is common when a cavity is opened, and the rig has to be equipped for it.
Where We Work Around Centurion
- Centurion CBD and the Hennops River corridor
- Clubview and Lyttelton Manor side
- Doringkloof and Valhalla boundaries
- Zwartkop and Kosmosdal
- Wierdapark and Rooihuiskraal approaches
- Business parks along the N1
- Older established stands through central Centurion
What to Watch For Here
Dolomite stability governs how this work is done. Centurion has recorded more sinkholes than anywhere else in the city, and the recorded causes are overwhelmingly leaking services and poorly managed stormwater rather than the rock itself. That makes the sealing and drainage of the borehole headworks a genuine engineering detail here, not a finishing touch.
Cavities change the programme mid-hole. Losing circulation into a void is a normal event on this ground. It is manageable with the right rig and casing plan, but it is the reason a Centurion quote should be itemised rather than quoted as a single figure.
What the Water Is Used For
- Garden irrigation through the dry Highveld winter
- Standby supply when the municipal mains go down
- Common areas across complexes and estate developments
- Office park and business park landscaping
- Lowering a water bill driven mostly by outdoor use
- Pool top-up, once the water has been tested for it
Wellpoint or Borehole?
Ruled out. A wellpoint needs unconsolidated ground and a shallow water table, and dolomitic terrain offers neither. There is no primary sand aquifer under Pretoria comparable to a coastal sand plain, so a drilled borehole is the only route to groundwater here.
Registration and Abstraction
A completed borehole here should be registered with the City of Tshwane, and the responsibility for that sits with the property owner rather than with the driller. Separately, the National Water Act governs how much you may abstract: reasonable domestic use and small-scale gardening generally fall under Schedule 1, while larger, agricultural or commercial abstraction may require registration or a water use authorisation from the Department of Water and Sanitation. The position on domestic registration was being actively revised during 2026, so confirm your obligations before drilling rather than afterwards.
Because this is dolomitic ground there is a further layer. Development on dolomite land is governed by SANS 1936 and stability information is lodged with the Council for Geoscience, so the metro may require additional approvals before a rig is allowed on site. Establish that early, because it affects the programme rather than just the paperwork.
Related Services
For the drilling process itself, the geology across the wider metro and how a quote is put together, see Borehole Drilling Pretoria.
Borehole Prices in This Area
Drilling is charged per metre, so depth drives the total. The ranges below are framed for local ground conditions and access.
| Item | Indicative range | What moves it locally |
|---|---|---|
| Drilling, per metre | R500 - R1,200 /m | Chert bands drill very slowly. Cavities can also mean redrilling, which is why the range here is wider than elsewhere in the metro. |
| uPVC casing, installed, per metre | R400 - R700 /m | Diameter and class, plus the thickness of the wad horizon, which is not known before drilling starts. |
| Mobilisation and site establishment | R2,500 - R9,000 | Access and site conditions move this; a site visit settles it before quoting. |
| Water survey | R5,000 - R12,000 | Targets structure rather than depth. Worth most where yield is fracture-dependent. |
| Yield testing | R3,500 - R15,000 | Establishes the sustainable rate that pump selection depends on. |
| Pump, supplied and installed | R15,000 - R45,000 | Greater depth means more head, which means a larger pump and heavier cable. |
| Storage and booster | R12,000 - R35,000 | Needed wherever peak demand exceeds the borehole's sustainable rate. |
| Typical complete project | R70,000 - R200,000+ | Everything above, excluding treatment, which depends entirely on the water analysis. |
These are indicative ranges, not a quotation. They are compiled from published South African supplier and contractor pricing to give you a starting point for budgeting. They are not our rate card, and no figure here is a commitment.
Treat them as a broad guide only. Published borehole pricing in South Africa varies enormously - 2026 guides quote per-metre drilling rates for Gauteng ranging from under R300/m to R1,500/m, a spread of more than five to one - because depth, geology, access, specification, distance and fuel costs all move the number. Depth in particular is not known until the hole is finished. Figures generally exclude VAT unless noted, and change over time. Only an itemised written quote against your actual site means anything.
Centurion Borehole FAQs
Is it safe to drill a borehole on dolomite in Centurion?
It is done routinely, but it is not the same job as drilling elsewhere in the city. Development on dolomitic land is governed by SANS 1936 and stability information is lodged with the Council for Geoscience, so the metro may require approvals before a rig comes on site.
The practical risk is not the hole itself so much as what happens around it afterwards. Water concentrating at an unsealed headworks is exactly the mechanism behind most recorded sinkholes here, so the collar detail and surface drainage matter.
Why do Centurion boreholes vary so much in yield?
Because dolomite is a karst aquifer. Water moves through solution cavities and fracture zones rather than being spread through the rock, so intersecting one is the difference between a strong borehole and a weak one.
That is why siting carries more weight here than in most of Pretoria, and why no one can honestly promise a yield figure before the hole is drilled and tested.
Does drilling cost more in Centurion than elsewhere in Pretoria?
Often, yes. Chert bands in the dolomite are among the hardest material drilled in the metro and they slow the rig considerably, and cavities can mean extra casing or in some cases an abandoned hole.
The per-metre rate may look similar to other areas, but the realistic range of total depth and casing is wider, so the spread on a Centurion quote is genuinely larger.
Can I put a wellpoint in instead in Centurion?
No. A wellpoint needs loose sandy material with water within about seven metres of surface, and dolomite with chert rubble above it offers neither.
There is no shallow sand aquifer anywhere under Pretoria comparable to the coastal sand plains where wellpoints are normal, so a drilled borehole is the route.
DRILLING IN CENTURION?
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