South Carolina Well Data field records · 2026 survey

South Carolina Well Data · Well logs

South Carolina well logs

Every time a well is drilled in South Carolina, the driller files a completion report — the well log — with the USGS National Water Information System groundwater site inventory. We hold 18,415 of them and rebuild this index weekly, so you can find one by address instead of by record number.

✓ Verified against USGS NWIS · 2026-08-28

18,415well logs indexed
46counties covered
1860–2015oldest to newest log on file
18,415link to the original filed log

Heads up: we re-read USGS NWIS weekly and hold every record it publishes, but the newest filed log in the source itself is from 2015. A well drilled since then very likely has no log here yet — that's the state's publishing cadence, not a gap in our copy. Everything below describes the 18,415 records that do exist.

Find the well logs near an address

Well logs are filed by location, not by house number. Enter any South Carolina address and we'll pull the recorded wells around it — These are the wells the U.S. Geological Survey has inventoried in South Carolina — a large sample of the state's wells, not every well drilled — so results show the wells around a location rather than a single wellhead.

Free address lookup Full property report — $29

What's in a South Carolina well log

Not every filed report carries every field — older logs are thinner, and what the state captured changed over the decades. This is the actual coverage across all 18,415 records, so you know what to expect before you look anything up.

FieldWhat it tells youRecords with itCoverage
Total depth How deep the hole was drilled, in feet. 18,415 (100%)
Mapped location Coordinates, so the log can be found by address instead of by record number. 18,415 (100%)
Original log document A direct link to the USGS NWIS copy of the filed log itself. 18,415 (100%)
Date completed When the well was finished and the log filed. 9,325 (51%)

When South Carolina's wells were drilled

Dated logs by decade of completion (9,325 of 18,415 records carry a usable completion date). The shape of this chart is mostly the history of the filing requirement, not of drilling — thin early decades mean the logs weren't kept, not that nobody drilled.

DecadeLogs filed
1860s 1
1870s 1
1880s 1
1890s 4
1900s 1,984
1910s 18
1920s 23
1930s 75
1940s 239
1950s 725
1960s 573
1970s 809
1980s 2,369
1990s 764
2000s 1,653
2010s 86

Three ways to find a well log here

  1. By address — the free lookup maps an address to the wells recorded around it. This is what most people want: "how deep is the well on the place I'm buying."
  2. By county — each county page carries the median depth, water level and yield computed from every log filed there, plus the drillers working it.

Well logs by county

Aiken County 2,429 logs · median 109 ft Beaufort County 1,732 logs · median 98 ft Lexington County 1,534 logs · median 159 ft Greenville County 1,493 logs · median 118 ft Barnwell County 913 logs · median 130 ft Horry County 836 logs · median 280 ft Colleton County 729 logs · median 460 ft Charleston County 699 logs · median 303 ft Richland County 649 logs · median 150 ft Berkeley County 578 logs · median 200 ft Orangeburg County 548 logs · median 202 ft Florence County 423 logs · median 228 ft

See all 42 South Carolina counties →

Where these records come from

All of it is public record from the groundwater wells the U.S. Geological Survey has inventoried in South Carolina (waterdata.usgs.gov/sc/nwis/gw). We don't hold anything the state doesn't publish. More on that database and what a filed record carries: USGS NWIS well records. What we add is that the records are indexed by location, the statistics are computed the same way in every county, and the whole thing is refreshed weekly. Our filters and the exact computation are on the methodology page (statistics use USGS NWIS groundwater inventory, water-supply wells only (monitoring wells, test holes and injection wells excluded), and only wells carrying a measured depth).

Common questions

Are South Carolina well logs public records?

Yes. South Carolina drillers are required to file a completion report for each well, and those reports are kept by the USGS National Water Information System groundwater site inventory. Anyone can look them up. This site is an independent index of that public record — we re-read the source and recompute every page weekly.

How do I find the well log for my property?

Well logs are filed by location, not by street address, so you search the map rather than a house number. Enter the address on our free lookup and you'll see the recorded wells around that spot — These are the wells the U.S. Geological Survey has inventoried in South Carolina — a large sample of the state's wells, not every well drilled — so results show the wells around a location rather than a single wellhead. Each one shows its depth, static water level, tested yield, and a link to the original filed log.

How far back do the records go?

The oldest dated log in our copy was completed in 1860; the newest is from 2015. Coverage thins out the further back you go — older wells were often never filed, and filing requirements tightened over time.

Why can't I find a log for my well?

Most likely it was never filed. Wells drilled before the state's reporting requirement — and hand-dug or unpermitted wells — have no log at all. It also happens that a log exists but its recorded location is off, in which case it will show up under a neighboring property. Neither is something we can fix from the source data, and we'd rather say so than invent a record.

What does a well log actually tell you?

The useful parts for a buyer or a homeowner: how deep the well is, how high the water stands in it, how many gallons per minute it produced when tested, what the driller hit on the way down, and who drilled it. Together those say whether the well is likely to keep producing and what a replacement would cost.

Need every log near one property, in one document?

The property report pulls every recorded well near an address — depths, water levels, yields, drillers , and links to each original filed log — as one printable summary for due diligence.

Property report — $29

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