TDLR lists a General Pump Installer exam and four pump endorsement exams. The General exam has 60 scored plus five non-scored items in 120 minutes total; each endorsement has 30 scored plus three non-scored items in 60 minutes. All require 70% correct on scored items and are closed book. Apply to TDLR for eligibility before scheduling through PSI, and study the outline for the exams required by your approved application.
Which pump installer exam you need
TDLR lists five pump installer endorsement examinations: Single Phase Pump, Three-Phase Pump, General Pump Installer, Line Shaft Turbine Pump, and Windmills, Hand Pump and Pump Jack. The test you take depends on the license class and the endorsements you select when you apply.
Select the endorsements matching your work on the TDLR application. After eligibility approval, use PSI’s instructions to register for the required examinations. The General exam has a separate broad outline; it is not a licence by itself.
This guide covers the pump installer side of the program. TDLR runs a parallel set of well driller endorsement exams under the same application process, but their content outlines are separate documents.
Sources: Water Well Driller and Pump Installer Licensing Examination (TDLR) — Exam eligibility, requirements and bulletin links; PSI Texas Pump Installer Candidate Bulletin — Examination content outlines and reference lists
Eligibility and application steps
You apply to TDLR first; only after staff verify your eligibility do you get an email from PSI with instructions to register and schedule. Eligibility is valid for one year from approval.
The experience requirement is a minimum of two years under the supervision of a licensed well driller or pump installer, evidenced on the application. You must also document a set number of qualifying installations per endorsement, confirmed by your supervisor on an experience verification form or in a signed letter.
TDLR’s exam page describes when you may register again after an unsuccessful attempt. Keep the one-year eligibility deadline in view when planning any retake.
Eligibility lapses one year after approval, so schedule within that window. If you let it expire, you are back to the application stage rather than the scheduling stage.
- Single Phase Pumps: 15 qualifying installs
- Three-Phase Pumps: 15 qualifying installs
- Turbine Pump: 15 qualifying installs
- Windmill, pump jack, hand pump: 15 qualifying installs
- Master Installer: 60 qualifying installs across all endorsements
Sources: Water Well Driller and Pump Installer Licensing Examination (TDLR) — Exam eligibility, requirements and bulletin links; Apply for a New Water Well Driller and/or Pump Installer License (TDLR) — Experience requirements and qualifying install tables
Exam formats at a glance
The General exam has 60 scored and five non-scored items in 120 minutes total. Each endorsement has 30 scored and three non-scored items in 60 minutes total. These totals include the extra time stated for non-scored items.
Closed book means no reference materials in the testing room, even though the bulletin lists the references the questions were written from. You must know the material well enough to answer without looking anything up.
The bulletin adds one instruction worth internalizing early: unless a question explicitly tells you to consider code exceptions, answer without them. Over-applying exceptions to rules you know from practice is a way to talk yourself out of correct answers.
| Exam | Scored + non-scored items | Total time |
|---|---|---|
| General Pump Installer | 60 + 5 | 120 min |
| Single Phase | 30 + 3 | 60 min |
| Three-Phase | 30 + 3 | 60 min |
| Line-Shaft Turbine | 30 + 3 | 60 min |
| Windmills, Hand Pumps and Pump Jack | 30 + 3 | 60 min |
Sources: PSI Texas Pump Installer Candidate Bulletin — Examination content outlines and reference lists
What the General Pump Installer exam tests
Pump Installation is the largest General exam area at 23 of 60 scored items. Texas Law and Rule follows at 20; safety, water chemistry and hydrology/well hydraulics make up the remaining 17.
Plan coverage across the five areas. Installation and law/rule account for 43 of 60 scored items, but the smaller areas still contribute to the result.
The bulletin's reference list is the closest thing to a syllabus: Aquifers of Texas (TWDB Report 380), the Franklin AIM Manual for submersible motors, Groundwater and Wells (3rd Edition), a set of OSHA standards covering noise, foot protection, lockout/tagout, derricks, slings, work practices, machine guarding, fall protection and wire rope inspection, Texas Occupations Code Chapter 1902, 16 TAC Chapter 76, and the Water Well Handbook. Exams are based on the most recent edition unless the bulletin specifies otherwise.
The bulletin itself, available in English and Spanish from TDLR's exam page, is also where you confirm site locations, administration procedures and current fees before you book.
| Subject area | Items |
|---|---|
| Texas Law and Rule | 20 |
| Pump Installation | 23 |
| Safety | 6 |
| Water Chemistry | 5 |
| Hydrology/Well Hydraulics | 6 |
Sources: PSI Texas Pump Installer Candidate Bulletin — Examination content outlines and reference lists; Water Well Driller and Pump Installer Licensing Examination (TDLR) — Exam eligibility, requirements and bulletin links
What each endorsement exam tests
Each endorsement has 30 scored items plus three non-scored items in a 60-minute sitting. Their content tables concentrate on installation, diagnostics or maintenance, and tools; the windmill/hand-pump/pump-jack table also lists safety separately.
The endorsement tables do not list separate law, chemistry or hydrology domains. That is a statement about the outline’s headings, not proof that all related concepts are excluded from installation or repair questions.
The line-shaft turbine table calls its nine-item area Maintenance and Repair; the others call theirs Diagnostics and Repair. Use the actual heading and references for your selected exam without inferring additional weighting from the wording.
| Examination | Installation | Diagnostics/Maintenance & Repair | Tools and Equipment | Safety |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single Phase Pump | 15 | 9 | 6 | - |
| Three-Phase Pump | 15 | 9 | 6 | - |
| Line-Shaft Turbine Pump | 15 | 9 | 6 | - |
| Windmills, Hand Pumps, and Pump Jack | 10 | 9 | 8 | 3 |
Sources: PSI Texas Pump Installer Candidate Bulletin — Examination content outlines and reference lists
Studying from the official reference list
Because the exams are closed book but written from a named reference list, your job is to extract the testable facts from those documents in advance, not to bring them along.
A practical order: start with Texas Occupations Code Chapter 1902 and 16 TAC Chapter 76, since law and rule carry 20 General exam items and apply to every endorsement's scope of work. Then work the pump-specific manuals that match your exam, such as the Franklin AIM manual for submersible content or the Goulds and Layne documents for turbine content. Finish with the safety standards, which the General outline tests explicitly.
You do not need to master every page of every reference. The bulletin tells you the editions the questions were based on, which lets you read the right version rather than whatever a search engine surfaces. TDLR also publishes fiscal-year pass/fail statistics for these exams on its exam information page if you want a sense of outcomes.
One honest limit: the retrieved bulletin gives the outline area names and item counts, but not the subtopics within each area. Treat the reference list, not guesswork about subtopics, as your coverage map, and check the current bulletin for any updates.
Sources: PSI Texas Pump Installer Candidate Bulletin — Examination content outlines and reference lists; Water Well Driller and Pump Installer Licensing Examination (TDLR) — Exam eligibility, requirements and bulletin links
A worked hydraulics calculation
As supplementary hydraulics practice, calculate specific capacity: pumping rate divided by drawdown measured at the same time.
USGS supplies the definition used in this original example. It supports the arithmetic below; it does not establish that PSI will ask this particular calculation.
Two limits worth stating plainly. Specific capacity describes the well during that test; by itself it does not prove a sustainable long-term yield, and it does not by itself select a pump. Treat it as one descriptor among several you will connect on the job under supervision.
Practice
During a pump test on a water well, the crew records a steady pumping rate of 30 gallons per minute. At that same point in the test, the water level has drawn down 15 feet below the static level. Calculate the specific capacity of the well, with units, and state one conclusion this number supports and one it does not.
Show answer
Specific capacity = 30 GPM / 15 ft = 2 GPM per foot of drawdown. It supports the statement that, during this test, the well yields 2 gallons per minute for every foot of drawdown. It does not, by itself, establish a sustainable long-term yield or determine a pump selection.
The USGS reference defines specific capacity as the pumping rate at any time during a test divided by the drawdown at that same time. The premises supply both numbers at the same elapsed point: 30 GPM and 15 ft. Dividing gives 2 GPM/ft. A common error is mixing readings from different times, which inflates or deflates the ratio without describing the well; another is treating the ratio as a fixed property that guarantees future output, which the definition does not support.
Sources: USGS Water-Supply Paper 2220, Basic Ground-Water Hydrology — Selected fundamentals: well construction and specific capacity; PSI Texas Pump Installer Candidate Bulletin — Examination content outlines and reference lists
Your next steps
Confirm the exam you need on your application, gather supervisor documentation for your qualifying installs, then study directly from the bulletin's content outlines and reference list.
A workable checklist: submit the TDLR application with the correct endorsements selected; verify your experience forms are complete before mailing; schedule with PSI as soon as your eligibility email arrives, since eligibility expires after one year; and build your study calendar around the outline item counts above, not around instinct.
Everything administrative, from forms to current fees to the candidate bulletin in English or Spanish, lives on TDLR's Water Well Driller and Pump Installer pages. Check those pages rather than secondhand summaries, because program details change.
- Select endorsements on the application; this determines your exam
- Document qualifying installs with the experience verification form or a supervisor letter
- Schedule within one year of the eligibility approval
- Study law and rule first for the General exam; installation content first for endorsements
- Answer questions without code exceptions unless the question directs otherwise
Sources: Water Well Driller and Pump Installer Licensing Examination (TDLR) — Exam eligibility, requirements and bulletin links; Apply for a New Water Well Driller and/or Pump Installer License (TDLR) — Experience requirements and qualifying install tables; PSI Texas Pump Installer Candidate Bulletin — Examination content outlines and reference lists
Sources
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