TL;DR
A well screen is the slotted or wire-wrapped intake section at the bottom of a well casing string that lets groundwater enter while holding back the sand and gravel of the aquifer formation. Slot sizes are chosen from sieve analysis of the formation, often with a graded gravel pack placed around the screen to filter finer material, and stainless steel and PVC dominate residential work.
What it means
A well screen is the slotted or wire-wrapped intake section at the bottom of a well casing string that lets groundwater enter while holding back the sand and gravel of the aquifer formation. Slot sizes are chosen from sieve analysis of the formation, often with a graded gravel pack placed around the screen to filter finer material, and stainless steel and PVC dominate residential work. It is standard in sand-and-gravel wells but absent in many drilled rock wells, where the open borehole serves instead; sand arriving in faucet aerators and torn-up pump impellers are the signatures of a screen failing or sized wrong.
Where it sits in the glossary
Well screen is part of the Trade jargon group inside the ProFix Directory glossary. Browse every term in this category from the glossary index.
Why Ohio homeowners should know it
This is a term Ohio homeowners encounter when reading contractor quotes, hiring paperwork, or inspection reports. Understanding it well enough to ask one good follow-up question is usually all the protection a homeowner needs.
ProFix Directory keeps definitions short on the index page and saves the longer context — Ohio-specific rules, where the term comes from, and which ProFix tools touch it — for these per-term pages so the term is easy to cite and easy to share.
ProFix tools that touch this term
See also
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