Borehole Installers Qonce (King William's Town)

Qonce sits on the Buffalo River in Beaufort Group country, with dolerite intrusions and river alluvium along the valley floor.

Two quite different options on one property, depending on whether you are on the valley or above it.

What Is Under Qonce

The formations below are what a rig actually meets on a Qonce property, and between them they govern the depth, the casing requirement and what the hole will realistically give you.

Formation	Where it sits	What it means for drilling
Balfour Formation arenaceous mudstone	Most of the Border region, from East London inland	The dominant rock. Intergranular flow in the sandier beds, but modest on its own.
Middleton Formation shaly sandstone	Exposed in the lower Buffalo River section	Similar to the Balfour, with fracture flow where structure is present.
Jurassic dolerite dykes and sills	Covering roughly a quarter of the surface geology across the district	The productive unit, and unusually extensive here. The baked contact zone beside an intrusion is where the good yields are.

Send your street and what the water is for, and get an itemised quote for Qonce.

Get a Qonce Borehole Quote

What That Means for Your Borehole

Measured yields across this district vary by a factor of twenty, from about 0.4 litres per second in the poorest zones to around 9 litres per second averaged across the best. Which of those you get is a siting outcome, not luck.
The better ground is inland, not at the coast. Groundwater potential across the Buffalo catchment is highest in the north west toward Stutterheim and lowest in the south and south east, which is the East London coastal side.
Lineament density peaks around dolerite margins, with a dominant west-north-west trend across the region. That is what a survey maps before drilling.

Where We Work Around Qonce

King William's Town central and Breidbach
Schornville and Ginsberg
Zwelitsha and Dimbaza approaches
The Buffalo River valley and alluvial flats
Bhisho boundary and the government precinct
Smallholdings and stock farms around the town

What to Watch For Here

Valley-floor properties can draw from the river alluvium, which is shallow, cheap and quick, and closely connected to whatever is happening in the river.

Above the valley the dolerite rule applies, and siting becomes the main determinant of whether the hole produces at all.

What the Water Is Used For

Household supply where the analysis allows it
Garden, vegetable patch and fruit trees
Standby supply through municipal interruptions
Stock and poultry watering on larger plots
Reducing a monthly municipal water account

Wellpoint or Borehole?

Only on the coastal strip and on the Nahoon and Buffalo river alluvium. Inland of the dune cordon it is not an option: Quaternary sediment accounts for about a third of one per cent of the Buffalo catchment's surface geology, so there is simply nothing to drive a point into.

Water Quality in Qonce

Expect the regional Karoo pattern: variable salinity, routine hardness, and a fluoride risk where dolerite is close. Coastal sites face saline intrusion and are vulnerable to surface pollution because sand recharge is rapid. A full analysis is the sensible baseline rather than an assumption drawn from a neighbour's result.

A water analysis is what turns that from a general expectation into a number for your specific hole, and treatment should be specified against the result rather than against the area's reputation.

Registration and Abstraction

Buffalo City is the water services authority here, and as such it can require approval before a property draws on an alternative supply. We could not find a published borehole clause in a Buffalo City by-law, so rather than assert a requirement that may not exist, we check the current position with the metro before drilling. Separately, the National Water Act governs how much you may abstract. Reasonable domestic use and small-scale garden watering generally fall under Schedule 1 and need no licence or registration, but taking more than 10 cubic metres a day from groundwater on a property must be registered, and irrigation or commercial volumes usually require registration or a water use authorisation from the Department of Water and Sanitation.

Related Services

Borehole Water Survey South AfricaDeciding where to drill Borehole Testing South AfricaWhat the borehole sustainably yields Borehole Pumps Installation South AfricaPumps sized to tested yield Borehole Tank Installation South AfricaStorage for irrigation peaks Borehole Water Testing South AfricaQuality and salinity analysis Borehole Drilling Prices South AfricaHow a quote is structured

For the drilling process itself, the geology across the rest of the country and how a quote is put together, see Borehole Installers South Africa.

Borehole Prices in Qonce (King William's Town)

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 - R1,150 /m	Mudstone drills reasonably, dolerite slowly. Depth to the target contact drives the total more than the rate does.
uPVC casing, installed, per metre	R400 - R750 /m	Through the weathered mudstone, and through dune sand and aeolianite on coastal sites.
Mobilisation and site establishment	R2,500 - R12,000	Access, distance 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	R75,000 - 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 - different 2026 guides quote per-metre drilling rates for the same province that differ by a factor of three - 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.

Qonce (King William's Town) Borehole FAQs

Should I drill into the Buffalo River alluvium?

If your property sits on it, it is usually the cheaper and quicker option, and yields can be decent for domestic and garden use.

The catch is quality. Shallow alluvial water next to a river through a built-up catchment needs bacteriological and nitrate testing before anyone drinks it.

Is Qonce the same place as King William's Town?

Yes. Qonce is the current official name; King William's Town is the former one and still widely used locally.

Both names are in everyday use, which is why this page carries them together.

What yield can I expect around Qonce?

It ranges widely. Measured across this district, the best zones average around 9 litres per second and the poorest around 0.4, with most holes somewhere between.

The range is a siting outcome. Groundwater potential is highest inland toward the north west of the catchment and lowest on the coastal side.

Is Qonce borehole water suitable for drinking?

It needs testing rather than assuming. The regional pattern is variable salinity, hardness, and fluoride where dolerite is nearby.

On a coastal site, add saline intrusion and surface-derived contamination to the list, because sandy ground recharges quickly and carries whatever is at surface with it.