After you have allowed water to soften the ground at the site you have selected, there are a few additional things you should do to the equipment to also help ease the project along. Rubbing a bar of soap over the screen will help to reduce friction and also keep out some of the dirt on the way down. Also, you will want to make sure the drive point is perpendicular to the ground by checking it with a level. A slanted well will waste pipe and be difficult to pump.

Next, use a heavy wooden mallet to drive the capped galvanized pipe into the ground. Try to hit the capped pipe evenly in the center of the cap in order to avoid swaying from side-to-side of the pipe. When the cap becomes dented or cracked, discard it and replace it with another. When the cap is even with the bottom of the pit you dug, remove it and put on a new coupling and length of pipe. Use the Teflon tape on the pipe threads and be certain that all connections are tightened with the pipe wrench.

If the drive point hits a large rock, you must pull the point out and start again in a new location. Two hydraulic automobile jacks on either side of the pipe can be used to pull out the drive point.

When you think that you have reached water, use the weight tied to a string and lower it into the pipe. If the string comes out wet, repeat this test multiple times over the next two days. If the string continues to come up wet, then you have found water. Continue to drive the pipe down some more to make sure you have compensated for droughts and fluctuations.

The last thing is to add a sanitary seal to prevent surface runoff from contaminating the water. You will also want to lengthen the pipe to a height about 3 feet or so above the surface of the ground and refill the pit you dug with soil. In order to protect your water supply and anchor your well, you should pour concrete centered around the pipe at the surface. Installing insulation around the pipes will also protect your well from temperatures below freezing.

Pitcher pumps are ideal for shallow wells but at any depth greater than 25 feet, they stop working because of limited atmospheric pressure. Inertia pumps are the simplest pumps because they contain only one moving part and they are also the least expensive manual deep well pumps. If you have indoor plumbing or sprinklers, you will need a powered pump.