Sherwood typically sits on Karoo rocks of the Ecca Group: grey shale and siltstone weathered near surface to a sticky clay, with dolerite intruded in places. Toward Westville the Dwyka tillite and Natal Group sandstone are not far off, so the rock under a given stand should be hedged rather than assumed. Water moves mainly through fractures and dolerite contacts.
The suburb is largely established family homes on the ridge, many on sloping stands with retaining walls, carports and mature trees. Plots are smaller than on the upper highway, and neighbours are close. Fitting a rig through a narrow gate or down a steep driveway is often the deciding factor in whether and where a hole can be drilled.
What Is Under Sherwood
| Formation | Where it sits | What it means for drilling |
|---|---|---|
| Ecca Group shale and siltstone | Underlies most of Sherwood and continues toward Bonela and Mayville | Weathers to slippery clay that must be cased. Fresh shale is tight, so yields come from fractures and are usually modest. |
| Dolerite sills and dykes | Intrusions cutting the shale beneath parts of the ridge | Fresh dolerite is very hard, but the fractured, baked contact zones beside it are the best drilling targets. |
| Dwyka tillite and Natal Group sandstone | Nearer the Westville side, where the Karoo sequence gives way | The hole may pass into a different rock type here, which changes drilling speed and the character of the water. |
Share your Sherwood street, a quick note on access and what you want the water for, and we will send a costed quote.
Get a Sherwood Borehole QuoteWhat That Means for Your Borehole
- Survey for dolerite contacts because they are the most reliable water carriers in shale country.
- Test before drinking since shale water can be harder and more mineralised than sandstone water.
- Measure the gate and driveway before booking, as tight access is common on older ridge stands.
Where We Work Around Sherwood
- Sherwood ridge
- Bonela
- Sparks Estate
- Mayville
- Westville border
- Clare Hills side
- Cato Manor edge
What to Watch For Here
Retaining walls and old services crowd small stands. Older Sherwood properties often have terraced gardens held up by walls of unknown depth, plus stormwater pipes, old sewer connections and buried cables. Drilling close to a wall foundation or service line risks damage. We locate what we can with a detector, and ask owners for any building plans before choosing a position.
Hard, mineralised water is possible. Karoo shale water can carry more dissolved salts than water from sandstone areas, with occasionally high conductivity. That may leave scale on kettles, geysers and irrigation heads. A conductivity and hardness test after drilling tells you whether it suits the garden only or can be treated for household use in the home.
What the Water Is Used For
- Watering established gardens on sloping Sherwood stands
- Keeping toilets and laundry running during supply interruptions
- Topping up pools where scale-tolerant equipment is fitted
- Washing cars and paving without drawing on the municipal meter
- Feeding a small tank-and-pump backup for a family home
Wellpoint or Borehole?
Seldom. Sherwood's shale weathers to dense clay, which holds water tightly and gives it up slowly, so a driven point rarely delivers a useful flow. The ridge position also puts the water table below suction lift on most stands. Unless a property sits on sandy alluvium beside a stream, a drilled borehole is the practical choice.
Approval and Abstraction
Sherwood falls under eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality. Municipal requirements differ across KwaZulu-Natal. eThekwini is reported to require a borehole to be registered with the municipality once drilling is complete, and its Water By-law prohibits any connection between a borehole system and the municipal supply unless backflow is prevented. Msunduzi, KwaDukuza and Umdoni set their own requirements, so confirm the current position with the municipality before the rig arrives. Separately, the National Water Act governs how much you may abstract: reasonable domestic use generally falls under Schedule 1, and in 2026 the Department of Water and Sanitation confirmed that households using borehole water for reasonable, non-commercial domestic purposes do not need to register nationally. Commercial, agricultural and larger abstraction may need registration or a water use authorisation, and draft national groundwater regulations published for comment in December 2025 may add obligations once finalised. Rules change, so confirm the current position before drilling.
Related Services
For the drilling process itself, the geology across the wider area and how a quote is put together, see Borehole Drilling Durban.
Nearby Areas
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 - R1,150 /m | Weathered shale drills easily; fresh dolerite is very hard and slow. Whether your hole meets a dolerite sill largely decides the total. |
| uPVC casing, installed, per metre | R400 - R700 /m | Shale weathers to clay that swells and squeezes, so the upper hole is cased through the weathered zone. |
| Mobilisation and site establishment | R2,500 - R9,000 | Small stands, tight access and distance from base move this; a site visit settles it. |
| 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 | R55,000 - R180,000+ | 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 KwaZulu-Natal ranging from about R320/m to R1,500/m, a spread of more than four 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.
Sherwood Borehole FAQs
Will shale water leave scale on my fittings?
It might. Water from Karoo shale often carries more calcium, magnesium and other dissolved salts than water from sandstone, and that can build up as scale in geysers, kettles and sprinkler nozzles. The amount varies from hole to hole, even on the same ridge.
A hardness and conductivity test after drilling settles it. Softening, or simply limiting the water to garden use, are both reasonable options depending on what you want from the borehole.
Can drilling damage my house on clay ground?
Not when sensible distances are kept. Weathered shale forms clay that swells when wet and shrinks when dry, so we keep the hole away from foundations and avoid flooding the area near the house with drilling water.
Casing and grouting the top of the hole also stops runoff from soaking into the surrounding clay after the job is done, and keeps surface water out of the borehole.
How noisy is drilling for the neighbours?
Drilling is loud while the rig and compressor run, typically for most of a working day, and dust or spray can carry on a breezy ridge. On smaller Sherwood stands neighbours are close, so a courtesy note in advance goes a long way.
We work standard daytime hours, keep the rig off shared driveways where possible, and clear spoil and slurry from the yard and the street before leaving the site.
Can I connect the borehole to my existing plumbing?
Not directly to the municipal side. The eThekwini Water By-law prohibits linking a municipal water installation to one carrying water from another source unless backflow is prevented, so the borehole system must be kept separate or protected by an approved backflow measure.
In practice that usually means a dedicated tank and pump feeding specific points, plumbed so the two supplies never mix. Our installers set this up as part of the job.
DRILLING IN SHERWOOD?
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