A desert-living spider sparassid (Cebrennus rechenbergi Jäger, 2014) and several lycosid spiders (Evippomma rechenbergi Bayer, Foelix & Alderweireldt 2017, Allocosa senex (Mello-Leitão, 1945), Geolycosa missouriensis (Banks, 1895)) were studied with respect to their burrow construction. These spiders face the problem of how to transport dry sand and how to achieve a stable vertical tube. Cebrunnus rechenbergi and A. senex have long bristles on their palps and chelicerae which form a carrying basket (psammophore). Small balls of sand grains are formed at the bottom of a tube and carried to the burrow entrance, where they are dispersed. Psammophores are known in desert ants, but this is the first report in desert spiders. Evippomma rechenbergi has no psammophore but carries sand by using a few sticky threads from the spinnerets; it glues the loose sand grains together, grasps the silk/sand bundle and carries it to the outside. Although C. rechenbergi and E. rechenbergi live in the same environment, they employ different methods to carry sand. Geolycosa missouriensis lives in a moister habitat and produces solid sand pellets in which sand grains are caked together (without silk threads); the compact pellets are flung away from the burrow entrance by a rapid extension of the first legs. The spiders stabilize the developing tube inside by repeatedly adding silk rings, while digging down. This wall is very thin, consisting of only a few layers of crisscrossing silk threads. An excavated burrow collapses immediately, indicating that the stability is not due to the silk. Instead, the tight interconnection of neighboring sand grains—as in a vault—yields the necessary solidity to the burrow.