Hey All,
There's been a well in my yard for years (around 28 in. I think) and I always had the idea to use it for irrigation ever since our town started charging for water.
So, last year I scored a cheese-ball pump off eBay, made a stand for it, threw a 3/4" copper pipe with a foot valve on it down the well, primed it, flipped the switch and the thing started pumping like crazy. It was pretty funny.
The only problem is, I only get about 15-20 mins (at about 6 gals a min) until the well runs dry and it takes about 12 hours to recover. That's fine for our small garden, but now I want to do the lawn too.
My neighbor said I should get a wellpoint and drive it down into the water table.

So here are my questions;

How can I tell how far to drive the wellpoint down?

There is already a pipe in the well that exits thru the wall about 6-8 ft down. Should I try to dig down and hook into the existing pipe, or forget about it since it's so old and I don't know anything about it.

Should/can I keep using copper pipe or switch to plastic, black, or galvi?

Should I drive the new pipe/point down right next to the old pipe or move it to the other side of the well for some reason?

Should I spend the money for a nice wellpoint or will the PVC ones do just as well?

What about dredging or pumping some silt out to get it to recover quicker?

Now, just so you know, I'm pretty cheap and kinda lazy... so any "just do it this way" answer will be fine.

Thanks!

lat-
M