How deep are wells in Southwest Virginia?
No government source gives a typical well depth for any one county in this part of Southwest Virginia. The one published range comes from a 2001 U.S. Geological Survey study of the Blue Ridge part of the New River basin, where well depths ran about 50 to 400 feet and rarely past 500. A particular well's record, where one exists, sits with the local health department.
A county-by-county depth is not published, and one federal study from 2001 is
The number people ask for on the phone, how deep wells run in Carroll County or in Floyd, is not something a state or federal agency prints. What exists is one dated range from one study area, and its edges matter as much as its numbers.
The study is U.S. Geological Survey Water-Resources Investigations Report 00-4270, by Mark D. Kozar, Charlynn J. Sheets and Curt A. Hughes, published in 2001. It looked at groundwater in the Blue Ridge Physiographic Province portion of the New River basin: a 2,106 square mile area taking in all or parts of seven Virginia counties and three North Carolina counties. The report places the northern part of that area near Floyd. It does not list the Virginia counties by name, so the report itself does not say which of the counties around Hillsville fall inside it.
Well depths in the study area range from about 50 to 400 feet but exceed 500 feet in rare instances.
U.S. Geological Survey, Water-Resources Investigations Report 00-4270 (2001)
The same report notes that several wells in the study were more than 500 feet deep, and one was completed to 700 feet. That is what the report gives: a range, a rare upper tail and one well completed to 700 feet, all from Blue Ridge ground in the New River basin, published in 2001.
For Wythe, Pulaski or Montgomery County there is no depth figure to borrow at all. On ground in those counties, and for any single county anywhere in the footprint, the answer comes from the well records the local health department keeps and from a licensed water well systems provider who drills in that area.
Three well figures that describe something other than how deep the hole goes
Well conversations here pick up numbers from several sources, and three of them get repeated as if they were depths. None of them is.
Depth to water
The USGS study reports a median depth to water below land surface of 34.5 feet in its sampled wells. That is how far down the water stood, not how deep the wells were drilled.Casing minimums
Virginia's private well regulations set minimum casing and grouting depths by well class, with exceptions. Those are construction floors, and the rules behind them are on how private wells are permitted and built in Virginia.Yield
The USGS average of about 1 to 15 gallons per minute in the study area's crystalline rocks, and Carroll County's estimated potential range of 20 to 100, measure flow. What those figures count is set out under well yield.The kind of well matters too: a bored well and a drilled well on neighboring tracts can differ a great deal in depth, and how Virginia tells a drilled well from a bored or dug one, with what the health department says about each, is a definition question with its own page.
Where a well sits on the land changes the odds of finding water, not a published depth
Two wells a short walk apart can finish very differently, and the USGS report explains part of why without handing anyone a depth chart.
In the study area's crystalline rock, a drilled well depends largely on the fractures it crosses, and the USGS report ties landscape position to the odds of crossing them and to yield, with ridges and hilltops the least favorable, a finding set out with the other yield figures in the well yield entry. It does not publish depth by landscape position, so nothing here says a hilltop well will be deeper, only that the ground under it is less likely to give up water easily.
What the rock and soils of this corner of the Blue Ridge mean for building sites and drainfields is covered on Blue Ridge soils and what they mean.
For a buyer weighing a tract with no well yet, the useful takeaway is modest: position on the slope is one reason a neighbor's well is a hint rather than a promise. How deep a new well will need to go is found by drilling it.
The depth of an existing well is a records question for the health department
For a well that already exists, the question is not what wells here usually do. It is what was written down when this one was built.
Under Virginia's private well regulations, within 30 days after a private well is constructed, altered, abandoned or deepened, the owner, the owner's agent or the water well systems provider furnishes a uniform water well completion report to the district or local health department. For a well built under those rules, that report is the first paper to ask the health department for.
Age decides whether that paper exists. The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) says records of private wells were not required before 1990, so an older farmhouse well may have no record at all; how far back the records and the well rules reach is set out in the wells guide linked above.
- In Carroll County the office is the Carroll County Health Department, 605-15 Pine Street, Hillsville.
- In the other counties and the City of Galax, it is the health department for the locality the parcel actually sits in, not the one its mailing address suggests.
- Where no record exists, the question goes to a licensed water well systems provider.
Want the well record on a parcel you are weighing?
Name the road and the county, and Lowell will separate what an existing well's file can show from what only drilling, or a licensed well provider, can tell you about that parcel. No cost, no obligation.
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Questions this raises
Is the depth to water in a well the same as the depth of the well?
No. The 2001 USGS study of the Blue Ridge part of the New River basin reports a median depth to water below land surface of 34.5 feet in its sampled wells, while well depths in the same study area ranged from about 50 to 400 feet, rarely past 500. One figure is where the water stands in the ground; the other is how far the hole was drilled.
Which Virginia counties are inside the USGS New River basin well study?
The report does not name them. USGS Water-Resources Investigations Report 00-4270 describes a 2,106 square mile area of the Blue Ridge Physiographic Province drained by the New River, including all or parts of seven Virginia counties and three North Carolina counties, with its northern portion near Floyd. Any list of counties attached to it comes from somewhere other than the report.
Do hilltop wells have to be drilled deeper than valley wells?
The USGS study does not say so. It found the chance of intercepting water-bearing fractures is greatest in valleys and upland draws and least on ridges and hilltops, and that hilltop wells typically yield less. It speaks to the odds of finding water and to yield, not to a depth for each landscape position.
Where this page's facts come from
Every rule, office and figure above traces to one of these. Rules change; check the office before you act on one.
- Water-Resources Investigations Report 00-4270: Ground-Water Quality and Geohydrology of the Blue Ridge Physiographic Province, New River Basin, Virginia and North Carolina (2001) U.S. Geological Survey
- Private Well Program: drilled and bored wells Virginia Department of Health
- Real Estate Transfer FAQ: private well records before 1990 and VENIS Virginia Department of Health
- 12VAC5-630-310: uniform water well completion report within 30 days Virginia Department of Health
- 12VAC5-630-350: wells before September 1, 1990, and who sets the class of well Virginia Department of Health
- 12VAC5-630-360: classes of private wells Virginia Department of Health
- 2024 Comprehensive Plan: geology, recharge and estimated potential well yield Carroll County, Virginia
- Mount Rogers Health District locations, including the Carroll County Health Department Virginia Department of Health