Mgr. Hedvika Hartmanová responds to numerous enquiries from our readers regarding the construction of their own water source.
The last few warm summers have been marked by extreme drought and water shortages. The outlook for the coming years does not appear particularly optimistic, so many of you, dear readers, have surely given some thought recently to having your own water source, which could serve various purposes, be it for irrigation, as a source of drinking water, or for flushing or filling a swimming pool. The most common and simplest way to secure your own water source for a detached house is to build a well.
A well offers many advantages. As a first step in building a well, we recommend that you contact a specialist hydrogeological firm or a qualified professional specialising in geological work within the field of hydrogeology, who can best advise you on where – and indeed whether – a well should be built on your property, and which type is most suitable for your purposes. Generally speaking, this could be a drilled well, a dug well or simply a spring capture.
A well is a structure
If you do decide to construct a well on your property, please note that this constitutes a structure – a hydraulic structure – the use of which is not only subject to approval by the building authority. Before work begins on the well, it is necessary to obtain a site permit for the structure from the relevant building authority. On the basis of this permit, a planning application may be submitted; the application must include project documentation for the well, drawn up by a qualified engineer specialising in hydraulic engineering and landscape engineering, as well as other supporting documents as required by building regulations. As the construction of the structure – the well – is subject to the building regulations, the well must be duly inspected and approved by the building authority upon completion.
Before you start extracting water
Before you start extracting water, you are obliged to apply to the water authority for a permit to extract groundwater. Once you have received this permit, you may extract water without restriction, provided the well has been duly inspected and approved. The duties of the water authority are generally carried out by the relevant office of the district authority and its environmental department. It should be noted that if a shaft well is deeper than 3 metres or a drilled well is deeper than 30 metres, this must be reported to the relevant mining authority. The duties of the mining authorities are carried out by the local mining office of the district authority. Otherwise, you could commit an administrative offence, which is punishable by a penalty.
For older wells that can be proven to have been constructed before 1 January 1955, the aforementioned official approvals are not required, as the law recognises a presumption of approval and acceptance in such cases. However, the situation is different for owners of wells constructed on the basis of a building permit issued before 1 January 2002. These building permits expired with the entry into force of the amendment to the Building Act in 2008. The owners of the wells in question must therefore apply for a new building permit and subsequently go through the entire well-construction process described above once again.
It is not worth taking a risk
So, to summarise: the construction of a well is subject to approval by both the building authority and the water authority. Against this background, it is currently not legally possible to construct a well yourself, and we do not recommend this under any circumstances. Should you nevertheless opt for this option, your newly constructed well would be considered an “unauthorised construction”, and the relevant building authority would initiate proceedings to remove the unauthorised structure. In exceptional cases, the building authority might grant retrospective approval for an unauthorised structure, but only if the well owner can demonstrate that it does not conflict with the objectives of the local development plan, is not situated on land prohibited by law, and does not contravene either general building regulations or the public interest protected by law. As already mentioned, however, this option poses a disproportionate risk that is not worth taking.