Borehole, tank, bottled or generator: what each one really costs
Published 24 August 2026 · 7 min read
Four ways to stop depending entirely on the municipal line, compared on what they cost and — more importantly — on what they actually do when the supply stops.
The distinction that decides everything: a tank stores water, a borehole extracts water, and an atmospheric water generator creates water. When the municipal supply fails, a full tank buys you days. A borehole keeps going if you have power. A generator keeps going regardless. Which one is right depends entirely on what you are actually worried about.
The four options at a glance
| Option | Upfront | Ongoing | Works when the line is dry |
|---|---|---|---|
| Borehole | R30,000 – R120,000+ | Pump electricity, servicing, water testing | Only with backup power |
| Storage tank (JoJo type) | Tank plus plumbing | Refilled from the municipal line | No — it empties and stays empty |
| Bottled water delivery | None | Per-bottle cost plus ongoing logistics | Only while stock lasts |
| Atmospheric water generator | From R19,950 | Electricity, plus filters on a cycle | Yes — it generates its own |
Borehole
The most capable option, and the most committing. You are drilling into rock with no guarantee of what you find, which is the part people underestimate.
What you are signing up for
- Drilling is priced per metre, and depth is not known before you start. A dry hole still costs money.
- Permits and registration. Groundwater use is regulated under the National Water Act and municipalities increasingly require registration.
- Pump, tank and plumbing on top of the hole itself.
- Water quality is whatever the ground gives you — often hard, sometimes contaminated, frequently needing its own treatment before it is drinkable. Testing is not optional.
- It needs power. During load shedding, a borehole without a backup supply is a hole in the ground.
Worth it when: you have a large property, real volume needs — irrigation, livestock, a pool — and the ground under you is known to be good. For drinking water alone it is a great deal of capital for a problem a much smaller machine solves.
Storage tank
The cheapest insurance available, and the most misunderstood. A tank does not make water. It holds water you already received from the municipality.
That makes it excellent for short interruptions — a burst main, a day of maintenance, a pump failure at the reservoir. It does nothing at all for a sustained outage, a drought restriction, or a supply that has become unreliable in general. When the line stops, your tank drains at exactly your normal usage rate and then you are where you would have been anyway, just later.
Worth it when: your supply is basically fine but goes down occasionally. Pair it with anything else on this list and it is genuinely useful.
Bottled water delivery
Zero upfront, and it feels cheap right up until you total a year of it.
The real cost is rarely the water. It is the standing order you forget to place, the delivery that arrives when nobody is home, the empties stacking up in the office kitchen, and the fact that the one week everyone in the city needs bottled water is the week your supplier cannot deliver. You are outsourcing your water security to somebody else's logistics chain.
Worth it when: your consumption is genuinely low, or as a stopgap. For an office getting through several bottles a week, the arithmetic turns against it quickly.
Atmospheric water generator
The only option on this list that produces new water on site without a supply line or a hole in the ground. Plugs into a normal socket, no plumbing, and it comes with you if you move.
The honest limits, stated plainly: output depends on humidity and temperature, so you get less on dry winter days than the rated figure suggests. And these machines produce drinking quantities — 20 to 80 litres a day — not irrigation volumes. Nobody should be filling a pool with one.
What makes them practical in South Africa specifically is the second mode: when the air is dry, the same machine purifies tap, borehole or stored water through its own filtration and UV system. So it is useful every day regardless of the weather — which is exactly the property a tank does not have.
Worth it when: you want drinking water that does not depend on the municipal line, you cannot or would rather not drill, you rent, or you are currently paying for bottled delivery.
How to actually choose
| If your real problem is… | The honest answer is |
|---|---|
| The water goes off for a day now and then | A storage tank. Cheapest fix for the actual problem. |
| I need volume — irrigation, pool, livestock | A borehole, if the geology and permits allow it. |
| The tap water is safe but tastes bad | A purifier — or an AWG, which is also a purifier. |
| I want drinking water that never depends on the line | An atmospheric water generator. |
| I am tired of managing bottled water deliveries | An atmospheric water generator. |
| I rent and cannot install anything | An atmospheric water generator — nothing is fixed to the property. |
These are not mutually exclusive. A tank for outages plus a generator for drinking water covers far more ground than either alone, and still costs a fraction of a borehole.
Want the numbers for your situation?
Tell us your household or office size and where you are, and we will work through whether a generator is actually the right call for you.
A note on the figures. Borehole cost ranges are typical South African market ranges and vary widely with depth, geology and location — always get a site-specific quote. SkyTap pricing shown is our single-unit starting reference; multi-unit pricing differs. We sell atmospheric water generators, so treat this as an informed comparison rather than a neutral one, and check the numbers against your own quotes.