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Canada's Well Water Guide is an independent directory compiled from public provincial and territorial water well registries. It is not a laboratory, not a driller, and not a government service. Registry fields are repeated as recorded. A hardness range is shown only when a published study covers that place and that aquifer. A drilling price is not shown.
Pages are compiled from the public borehole registries published by provincial and territorial ministries:
A municipal page can repeat fields that are actually present in the public registry for that place, such as a recorded completion depth or an aquifer name written on the logs. The directory does not add a national well-count headline, and it does not treat a page count as a count of wells. A hardness range, when the next section has a matching study, is an estimate. A drilling price is not an estimate on this site, because no citable domestic rate was found.
New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut are not published as provincial directories here.
A hardness figure is shown only as a published range for a named place and a named aquifer unit. There is no national lithology table. The old directory typicals (limestone 320, shale 260, till 240, sand and gravel 220, sandstone 140, crystalline 50, unknown 250 mg/L) are not used. Where a study does not cover that place and that unit, the page says so and leaves the number blank.
Label. Regional estimate, not a test of your well. Do not size a softener from it.
Uncertainty. The ranges below are the intervals printed in the cited reports. Several are wide, open at one end, or based on a small set of samples. Health Canada has not set a maximum acceptable concentration for hardness. Supplies above 200 mg/L as CaCO₃ are described as poor but tolerated, and supplies above 500 mg/L as generally unacceptable for domestic use, in the technical document and the summary table. Soft, medium, hard, and very hard are the USGS (2018) bands reprinted by Health Canada (0–60, 61–120, 121–180, and above 180 mg/L as CaCO₃). A band is not a sample, and a wide range can cross more than one band.
| Place and unit | Published value | Shown | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sydney coalfield, Nova Scotia (named centres in Baechler 1986) Upper Morien | 90–220 mg/L as CaCO₃ | Yes, when the page matches | Baechler, F. 1986. Regional water resources, Sydney coalfield, Nova Scotia. Section 5.2.2, eleven well samples: fresh water, hardness 90–220 mg/L. The executive summary uses the same hardness interval for the Upper Morien unit. Shown only when the place is one of the centres named in that study and the aquifer name says Upper Morien. |
| Sydney coalfield, Nova Scotia (named centres in Baechler 1986) Upper Windsor | 73–310 mg/L as CaCO₃ | Yes, when the page matches | Baechler, F. 1986. Regional water resources, Sydney coalfield, Nova Scotia. Section 5.2.4, nineteen analyses: hardness 73–310 mg/L. The same paragraph assigns 77–370 mg/L to total dissolved solids. The executive summary prints 77–370 beside “moderately hard to hard”; this directory uses the sampling paragraph’s hardness interval, not the summary figure. Not used for Lower Windsor, which the report says has no water-quality analyses. |
| Sydney coalfield, Nova Scotia (named centres in Baechler 1986) Outwash sand and gravel | 21–1,700 mg/L as CaCO₃ | Yes, when the page matches | Baechler, F. 1986. Regional water resources, Sydney coalfield, Nova Scotia. Section 5.2.8, eight samples from wells finished in outwash sand and gravel: hardness 21–1,700 mg/L. Shown only for that unit in the named centres. |
| Sydney coalfield, Nova Scotia (named centres in Baechler 1986) Basal till | 64–437 mg/L as CaCO₃ | Yes, when the page matches | Baechler, F. 1986. Regional water resources, Sydney coalfield, Nova Scotia. Section 5.2.7 is based on three samples. The report gives hardness 64–437 mg/L and says the unit is rarely used for supply. The interval is shown with that sample size. It is not a provincial till typical. |
| Southwestern Nova Scotia (Yarmouth and Shelburne counties, and Clare in Digby County) Granite | 3.5–330 mg/L as CaCO₃ | Yes, when the page matches | Porter, R.J. 1982. Regional water resources, southwestern Nova Scotia. Section 4.2.3: hardness ranges from 3.5 to 330 mg/L, mean 36 mg/L. The page shows the range. The study area is Shelburne County, Yarmouth County, and the Municipality of Clare. Other Nova Scotia granite is not given this range. |
| Southwestern Nova Scotia (Yarmouth and Shelburne counties, and Clare in Digby County) Goldenville Formation (greywacke) | 35–875 mg/L as CaCO₃ | Yes, when the page matches | Porter, R.J. 1982. Regional water resources, southwestern Nova Scotia. Section 4.2.2: hardness ranges from 35 to 875 mg/L, mean 84 mg/L. The page shows the range. Section 4.2.4 says too few samples were taken from the Halifax Formation, White Rock Formation, and adjacent volcanics, so those units are not given a range. |
| Birdtail / Assiniboine West watershed (05ME), places named in the provincial groundwater note Odanah shale | 50 to greater than 1,000 mg/L as CaCO₃ | Yes, when the page matches | Manitoba Water Stewardship. Birdtail / Assiniboine West (05ME) groundwater resources. The note says Odanah shale hardness ranges from 50 to greater than 1,000 mg/L as CaCO₃ and averages 400 mg/L. The upper end is open in the source, so it is not closed at 1,000. Shown only for shale on places the note names inside the watershed, not for the rest of Manitoba. |
| Birdtail / Assiniboine West watershed (05ME), places named in the provincial groundwater note Sand and gravel | less than 100 to greater than 5,000 mg/L as CaCO₃ | Yes, when the page matches | Manitoba Water Stewardship. Birdtail / Assiniboine West (05ME) groundwater resources. Sand-and-gravel hardness in that watershed is given as less than 100 to greater than 5,000 mg/L as CaCO₃, average about 700 mg/L. Both ends are open in the source. Not applied outside the places the note names. |
| Alberta, domestic wells sampled 2002–2008, all aquifers together Not split by aquifer | Interquartile range 12–288 mg/L as CaCO₃ (not shown on municipal pages) | No | Alberta Health. 2014. Domestic well water quality in Alberta, 2002–2008. Table 4: hardness n≈36,194, mean 178, median 64, minimum below 0.66, maximum 5,778, 10th percentile 6.7, 25th percentile 12, 75th percentile 288, 90th percentile 448 mg/L as CaCO₃. The report does not publish a range by aquifer or lithology. Municipal pages do not use 12–288 as the estimate for a named aquifer. |
| Provincial public and private wells, as reprinted by Health Canada Not split by aquifer | Provincial medians only (not shown) | No | Health Canada. Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality: Operational Parameters. Tables 5 and 6 reprint provincial median hardness values. A median is not a range, and the tables are not split by lithology. They are not turned into a municipal estimate. Health Canada has not set a maximum acceptable concentration for hardness. Bands of 0–60, 61–120, 121–180, and above 180 mg/L as CaCO₃ are the USGS (2018) ranges reprinted in Table 2 of the same document. |
| Southeastern Manitoba sandstone (Winnipeg Formation) Sandstone | Median 141 mg/L as CaCO₃ (not shown) | No | Wang, J., Betcher, R.N., and Phipps, G.C. 2008. Geochemical and isotopic characterization of a regional bedrock/surficial aquifer system, southeastern Manitoba. GeoEdmonton 2008. The paper reports a median hardness of 141 mg/L and says 25 percent of samples are below 100 mg/L. It does not publish a minimum-to-maximum hardness range. A median is not expanded into a range on this site. |
| Ontario Provincial Groundwater Monitoring Network Overburden, bedrock, or interface in the raw well file | No summary range shown | No | Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks. Provincial Groundwater Monitoring Network. PGMN publishes water-chemistry files that include hardness and an aquifer class. This directory does not calculate its own percentiles from that download. No published summary range by lithology is shown for Ontario. |
| Saskatchewan Not matched to a municipality | No estimate shown | No | Water Security Agency. Saskatchewan guide to private well and water management (June 2025), and aquifer reports on wsask.ca. The private-well guide does not publish hardness by aquifer. Aquifer reports reviewed for this page, including the Estevan Valley aquifer report, do not give a hardness range that can be attached to a municipality and a lithology name without stretching the study area. Saskatchewan pages show no hardness estimate. |
| British Columbia Not matched to a municipality | No estimate shown | No | Regional District of Nanaimo. Hardness in groundwater (fact sheet citing B.C. Ministry of Environment Water Quality Check Program, 1977–1993). That fact sheet says water in British Columbia has been found from less than 10 to 180 mg/L and that groundwater can exceed 1,000 mg/L. It is not a range for one aquifer type. Local aquifer surveys were not matched to the municipal pages, so British Columbia pages show no hardness estimate. |
No drilling-cost estimate is shown. The provincial guides below tell an owner to ask for an itemized per-foot or per-metre quote. They do not publish a domestic rate. This directory does not fill that gap with $65 per foot, a $3,500 mobilization allowance, or any other in-house rate.
| Guide | What it publishes | Shown |
|---|---|---|
| Alberta Agriculture and Forestry. 2019. Water wells that last. Alberta | The guide tells owners to compare itemized quotes, including test holes, drilling, casing, liner, and screen per metre or per foot. It does not publish a rate. | No |
| Alberta Environment and Protected Areas. 2023. Working Well, issue 9: drilling a new well. Alberta | The issue tells owners to agree on an itemized estimate before drilling. It does not publish a rate. | No |
| Water Security Agency. 2025. Saskatchewan guide to private well and water management. Saskatchewan | The guide’s checklist asks “What is the cost per foot for the test hole?” and “What is the cost per foot for the well?” It does not answer with a price. | No |
| Province of British Columbia. 2020. Before you drill (non-domestic water supply wells). British Columbia | The brochure covers licensing and technical testing before a non-domestic well is constructed. It is not a domestic drilling price list, and a pumping-test cost is not used here as a drilling rate. | No |
| Lillyman, M. 2025. How much does water well drilling cost in Canada. Green Building Canada. Canada | Published 13 August 2025. National average about $70–$150 per foot. Provincial totals in the same article are not converted into a per-foot rate. Not a quote for one well. | No |
Private well owners are responsible for their own water testing. An accredited laboratory test is the measurement. This directory is not one.