Hazelwood sits on shale ground in the old eastern belt, between Brooklyn and the rising ground toward Waterkloof.
The stands are large and established, which drives the demand and complicates the access in roughly equal measure.
What Is Under Hazelwood
| Formation | Where it sits | What it means for drilling |
|---|---|---|
| Silverton Formation shale | The broad valley ground between the northern and eastern quartzite ridges | The dominant rock across the central and eastern valleys. Soft going for a rig, but it holds water only where it has been broken up. |
| Diabase dykes and sills | Cutting across the shale throughout the Pretoria valley | Worth locating before drilling. The zone of broken rock at an intrusive contact is reliably the better prospect on this ground. |
| Weathered shale and residual clay | The upper section on most stands | The upper weathered section moves with moisture and will not hold an open hole, so it is cased as a matter of course. |
Send your street and what the water is for, and get an itemised quote for Hazelwood.
Get a Hazelwood Borehole QuoteWhat That Means for Your Borehole
- Siting is about finding structure, not depth because the shale itself carries little water between fractures.
- Dyke contacts are the targets worth locating and they are exactly what a survey is looking for on this ground.
- Yields here are usually modest but workable which is well suited to irrigation with storage rather than to high continuous draw.
Where We Work Around Hazelwood
- Hazelwood and its extensions
- Brooklyn boundary
- Waterkloof approaches
- Menlo Park side
- Nieuw Muckleneuk edge
- Embassy and consular residences
- Larger stands with mature planting
What to Watch For Here
Walled properties restrict the approach route. The high walls and gated entrances typical of this area were not designed with a drilling rig in mind. Gate width and the turning circle inside are the usual limiting factors, and they are worth measuring rather than estimating.
Demand is concentrated in the dry months. Gardens here need most of their water between June and the first summer rains. A system designed around that peak, with storage, works better than one designed around an annual average.
What the Water Is Used For
- Irrigation over the long dry season before the summer rains
- Pool filling where the water quality allows it
- Keeping water on the property through supply outages
- Shared landscaping in sectional-title schemes
- Reducing a municipal water account that has climbed steeply
Wellpoint or Borehole?
No. Wellpoints need loose sand and a water table within roughly seven metres, and neither is present on the valley shale. Groundwater here is reached by drilling.
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.
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 | R450 - R1,000 /m | Softer rock means faster progress, so holes here generally sit at the lower end of the metro-wide range. |
| uPVC casing, installed, per metre | R400 - R700 /m | The weathered clay above the rock is what has to be cased through, so its depth decides the length required. |
| 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.
Hazelwood Borehole FAQs
Will the rig fit through my gate in Hazelwood?
That is the question worth answering before anything else. A truck-mounted rig needs gate width, a turning circle inside and overhead clearance.
It is settled by a site visit, and occasionally the answer changes the position or the equipment used.
What yield should I plan for in Hazelwood?
Moderate is the realistic expectation on shale ground, with better results where a dyke contact is intersected.
The tested sustainable yield is the number to design against, and it is normally lower than the flow seen when the hole was first struck.
Is borehole water suitable for a mature garden?
Usually, but it is worth analysing first. Sodium levels and hardness both affect soil over time, and established plantings are not cheap to replace.
The analysis is inexpensive relative to the garden, and it also tells you whether the water suits other intended uses.
How is the borehole protected from surface contamination?
A properly grouted casing and a sealed headworks are what keep surface water out of the hole, and both should be specified rather than assumed.
Getting the drainage around the collar right matters too, so that stormwater runs away from the borehole rather than toward it.
DRILLING IN HAZELWOOD?
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