Reducing business water costs: What is a borehole?
What is a borehole and how they can help your business reduce water costs?
With both energy and water costs soaring in an uncertain market, businesses are constantly looking for ways to reduce overheads and business costs. Water, sometimes referred to as the forgotten utility, can be one of the areas where your business can make significant savings. Whilst there are ways to become more water efficient across your portfolio overall, we’re exploring the world of boreholes.
What is a borehole and how they can help your business reduce water costs?
What is a borehole?
A water borehole provides you with a private water supply from your land. It has become increasingly popular in recent years, with many more businesses looking into it as a way to reduce water costs and become more sustainable.
It involves drilling a hole into the ground to access the water that lies beneath. Once drilled, the hole is encased with steel and a borehole pumping system is added to collect the natural water and pump it to the surface. The water is then treated on-site to a potable level and utilised throughout the site.
What are the advantages of boreholes?
With 50% of our water coming from underground sources, which generally need less treatment than water from rivers or reservoirs, there are many benefits to having access to your own water supply.
Whilst the initial investment costs may be off putting, it’s good to keep in mind that via a borehole your business can extract up to 20,000 litres of water per day without having a specific licence. All of which would be free and therefore only any mains water used in addition to this would need to be paid for. Boreholes typically cost around £15,000 to install, depending on depth, local geology and site access and have a payback period of around 1 year.
Accessing your own water supply also provides you with greater control over its temperature and quality, as well as ensuring a secure supply all year round. Not only this but water boreholes can help protect your business from threats such as water scarcity. Moreover, as water is not being pumped to your sites from miles away it can massive help to reduce your carbon footprint.
Boreholes are also suitable for a number of applications, including drinking water, food production and washing and irrigation. So, the Return on Investment (ROI) can be quite substantial, all whilst not needing to rely solely on mains water supply.
How boreholes can support your net-zero journey
With the cost of water increasing, accessing your own water supply through a borehole is not only becoming a more attractive opportunity for businesses, but is also an environmentally friendly option. Without the need for a water supply to be filtrated, and sent through the water network, which needs to be maintained by water suppliers, you’re cutting out the middleman and sourcing your water from directly on site.
A borehole allows you to access a sustainable natural water source that requires little energy to become usable. This can help support your ESG and net-zero aims, as well as save on water costs and consumption.
For more information about our water management services or to talk to us about a water borehole project, click here or speak to our water experts on 01772 689250 or email [email protected].
