Henderson County Well Permits, Fees, and North Carolina Well Rules

In Henderson County you need a permit from Environmental Health before a private drinking water well is drilled, repaired, or permanently abandoned, and you do not need one for pump, tank, or switch work. The county’s published fee schedule, effective September 1, 2023, lists a $350 well permit plus a $130 new-well water analysis, $480 together, with a permit revision at $150 and sample fees of $50 for bacteria or nitrate and $100 each for the inorganic, petroleum, and pesticide panels. Everything else on this page explains where those lines come from and what the state requires of the work itself.

Who does what

Henderson County Environmental Health, 1200 Spartanburg Highway, Suite 100, Hendersonville, issues the permits and inspects the work. Applications go through the county’s online public portal. The county’s stated purpose is to make sure wells are properly located, constructed, and repaired so that water quality and public health are protected, and it also maintains searchable septic and well permit records, which is where a homeowner can often find the depth and construction of an existing well.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality writes the construction standards, in Title 15A, Subchapter 02C of the administrative code. Section .0100 covers construction; Section .0300 covers permitting and inspection of private drinking water wells by local health departments under G.S. 87-97.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services runs well contractor certification through the Well Contractors Certification Commission and publishes the list of certified contractors by county.

When a repair needs a permit, and when it does not

This is the question that comes up on almost every service call, and the rule is unusually clear. 15A NCAC 02C .0304(a) states that no person shall construct a private drinking water well without first obtaining a well construction permit from the local health department, and no person shall repair one without a well repair permit, except that a well repair permit is not required for maintenance or pump repair or replacement. The same paragraph adds that disinfection under 15A NCAC 02C .0111 is a maintenance activity that does not require a repair permit. Permanent abandonment does require a permit.

What counts as a “repair” in the permitting sense is set by state law, G.S. 87-85: work involved in deepening, reaming, sealing, installing or changing casing depths, perforating, screening, or cleaning a well, or similar activities that break or open the well seal. So:

That is why a pump replacement or a tank and switch job is scheduled and done, while drilling starts with paperwork.

What a new well permit involves

The application under 15A NCAC 02C .0303 goes to the county for the parcel where the well will be, and it carries the owner’s details, the property address and parcel identification number, a plat or site plan, the intended use of the property, and anything else the county needs to judge the site: existing systems, easements, wells and springs, surface water, storage tanks, landfills, and known contamination on the property or next door.

Before issuing the permit, the county conducts a field investigation of topography, landscape position, available space, and potential contamination sources, and searches the state’s published inventories for known releases of contamination within 1,000 feet of the proposed site. The permit comes with a site plan showing where the well may go. A well permit is valid for five years, and a change of ownership does not void it as long as the well can still be built in the permitted area.

Then the well gets built to standard, and two inspections matter. The contractor must contact the county to schedule a grout inspection before grouting, and after construction the county inspects and issues a Certificate of Completion with an as-built drawing. No private drinking water well may be placed into service without that certificate. The contractor also files a Well Construction Record, form GW-1, with the local health department and the Division of Water Resources within 30 days.

The setbacks that decide where a well can go

From 15A NCAC 02C .0107(a)(2), horizontal separation for a water supply well:

On a small lot where fixed conditions make those distances impossible, the rule requires the maximum possible separation with a hard floor, and the well’s water source must then come from more than 43 feet below land surface. On the steep, narrow lots common in Laurel Park and above Zirconia, fitting a well between a house, a drainfield, a stream, and the property line is genuinely the hard part of the job.

The construction rules also require the casing to be grouted and the well head to stand at least 12 inches above land surface, and 15A NCAC 02C .0112(f) says no well may be repaired or altered such that the head ends up lower than that. Any grout removed during a repair has to be replaced.

Disinfection, records, and the plate on your casing

15A NCAC 02C .0111 requires anyone constructing, repairing, testing, maintaining, or installing a pump in a water supply well to disinfect it: hypochlorite to a chlorine residual of at least 100 parts per million, verified with test strips or another quantitative method, circulated and left to stand 24 hours or more, then pumped until no chlorine residual remains before the well goes back in use. That is why a proper pump job ends with a chlorination and a flush, and why a crew that skips it is cutting a corner the state does not allow.

Records follow the same logic. Completion and abandonment records go to the Division on forms GW-1 and GW-30 within 30 days, with a copy of the water supply well record to the county health department, and the record carries the diameter, depth, and yield of the well. If you do not know your depth, that record is where to look.

Abandonment: the old well nobody thinks about

15A NCAC 02C .0113 sets out how a well is permanently abandoned, and it is more than filling a hole. The well is sounded for obstructions, disinfected, and then grouted from the bottom up, with specific rules for wells cased through rock and different procedures for bored and hand-dug wells, including removing the top three feet of casing and setting a six-inch concrete plug. The owner is responsible for abandonment, except that the well contractor carries it when a well was improperly located, constructed, repaired, or completed, and the pump installer carries it when improper pump work caused it.

Two practical consequences. First, if there is an improperly abandoned well on the property, a new construction permit can be conditioned on dealing with it. Second, an old open well on a family parcel is a direct channel into the aquifer everyone on that road drinks from, and it is exactly the route that produces muddy water after a storm.

North Carolina well contractor certification levels

State law is blunt: no person shall perform, manage, or supervise any well contractor activity without being certified. NC DHHS publishes four levels:

• Level D. Breaking the well seal to do things like pump repair, well chlorination, and running a down-hole camera, plus pump installation. Six months of experience.
• Level C. Grouting, well abandonment, rehabilitating a well for biofouling, well development, packer and liner installation, plus everything at D. Six months.
• Level B. Most well contractor activities, including cable tool rigs, hollow stem auger, direct push, hydrofracturing, and jetting in a well, plus C and D. Twelve months.
• Level A. All well contractor activities, including air and mud rotary drilling, sonic drilling, well rock coring, and geothermal loop installation. Eighteen months.

So the pump work most homeowners need sits at Level D and above, and hydrofracturing a low-yield well sits at Level B and above. The state’s advice is worth repeating: ask to see the wallet card, which carries a photo and the dates the certification is valid. The statute also gives licensed plumbers a limited exemption for certain work. That card check applies to us as well; ask before anyone opens your well.

Transylvania and Polk counties

The state rules are identical across the line. The local fees and forms are not.

Transylvania County Environmental Health, 106 E. Morgan Street, Suite 105, Brevard, requires a permit before a private drinking water well is installed, repaired, replaced, abandoned, or destroyed, and requires a certified well contractor to do the drilling. Its published fees are $500 for a new well permit including the water sampling after completion, $250 for a permit revision due to site planning changes, and $50 for a site visit when the property is not ready. Sampling is $50 for bacteria and $200 for the full panel, with pesticide, herbicide, petroleum, and volatile organic kits at $100 each on top of the panel. That is the office for wells around Brevard.

Polk County Environmental Health, 35 Walker Street, Columbus, handles septic and well permits for Polk, which is where most of Saluda and all of Columbus sit. Confirm the current permit and sampling fees with that office directly, since they are set on the county’s own schedule.

For a well in Saluda, check which county the parcel is in before you apply: the city straddles the Polk and Henderson line.

How this shows up on your quote

County and state fees are set by the county and the state, and any quote that includes them should itemize them. For a new well that means the permit plus the required analysis; for a repair to the well itself, the repair permit; for an abandonment, the abandonment permit. Pump, tank, and switch jobs carry no permit line at all, because none is required. Everything else on your quote comes off the pricing page, and the FAQ answers the process questions this page does not.