BASIC WELL DRILLING STEPS

The first step is to drill the bore hole.   Do this by running water down a 2 inch piece of PVC as you slowly rotate the PVC back and forth.  The 2 inch PVC is the drill pipe.  It has teeth cut into the bottom end of it.  The bottom end is your drill bit.  Teeth cut into the end of the PVC will dig away at the dirt or clay or sand and then the water will carry the cuttings to the top.  Make sure you understand the drawing below before you go any futher. 

After you have drilled the hole you need to put the well screen in.  You can't just pull the drill pipe out and then insert the well screen pipe because most of the time sand will collapse in the bottom of the hole.  Unless you are extremely fast, you won't be able to get the whole length of well screen pipe in.  By using a larger drill pipe than your well screen pipe you can put the well screen pipe in before you take the drill pipe out.  So, the next step is to set the well screen... 

 

 

BEFORE WE GO FURTHER YOU MUST UNDERSTAND WHAT A WELL SCREEN IS:  A well screen is a piece of pipe with a bunch of slits in it sized so water can enter and sand can not.  The slits are skinnier than a piece of sand.  By a bunch of slits, I mean hundreds.  In this instance we will be using a well screen made from PVC.  Most are three or four feet long.  You simply glue them to a length of PVC and put the slotted end at the bottom.  Say your hole is 29 feet deep and your well screen is 1.25 inches in diameter and 4 feet long.  Your well screen pipe would consist of four feet of the slotted pipe at the bottom attached to 25 feet of 1.25 inch diameter PVC pipe.

 

Keep the water running while you:  Make up your well screen pipe by gluing a 1.25 inch well screen to a 1.25 inch PVC pipe.  The total length should equal the depth of your hole.

 

Turn off the water and disconnect the water supply from the top of the drillpipe.

 

Put the 1.25 inch well screen pipe into the 2.00 inch drill pipe and insert it all the way to the bottom of the hole.

 

Pull the 2.00 inch drill pipe up and out of the ground, taking care not to pull the 1.25 inch well screen pipe up with it.