Fixing to ditch my Hayward S244s sand filter, for Pentair 160301

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rick458

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Sep 29, 2015
37
La Porte, Texas
Bought the house late November, and the poolman was keeping the chlorine at 10+ppm.
I am trying to keep Cl2 at 4ppm but the pool is staying dirty, as in the filter plugs before I can finish vacuuming, water gets and stays cloudy (even while vacuuming very slowly).
Then when I backwash the filter, and rinse, it often blows quite a bit of silt back in the pool, and never really clears up.
Running, free cl2 and total around 4, CYA 40 to 80, Ph 7.5 ish, TA 100 to 120.
I work 12 hour days, and it sucks to spend 1 1/2 hours, cleaning at the pool, but not getting it clean.
I did a deep (5 min) backwash last night, hopefully it will be clearing up tonight, or I will order the 420 sq/ft Pentair clean and clear, I know that will work.
 
What test kit are you using?
You need to know the CYA level (40-80 is a HUGE range) in order to know the correct FC level to maintain.
Based on what you posted, I am going to guess it is not one of the Recommended Test Kits.

Is the water green? I am guessing that you have a constant algae bloom which is continually clogging your filter. A new filter will not fix that problem. You likely have a chemistry problem from not maintaining adequate FC in the pool at all times.
 
Using the Leslie rebranded K2006, and test strips, the CYA varies with how much water I am having to flush out.
The highest reading was 80, But I had to backflush enough last week, that it zeroed out, I had to add stabilizer, that brought it back to 40.
I vacuumed Monday, Wednesday, and Friday last week, and I still could not get all the dirt, silt, sand out.
I hit the pool with 2lb of algae killer yesterday, and had bumped the chlorine up to 10 ppm( both bleach and trichlor for added stabilizer).
I suspect the return plumbing has a slight leak at some of the stair bulkhead fittings, as I will see slight silt blow when the pump is shut off but not backwashed (e.g. strainer basket cleaning etc...)
I am thinking the Cartridge filter will trap the dirt, and I can clean the filters, and keep the water exchange much lower, and chemical balance more even.
Hopefully the long backwash last night, will get me to better operation.
I know that the filter should not need backwashing 3 times to vacuum the pool, due to the vacuum running out of vacuum.

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What should be a good chlorine level?
 
I will keep the chlorine level up until Monday, then load up on bleach and slam the pool.
Wife just texted and said sand was blowing into the shallow end, again.
I am dealing with several issues, the liner loosened up all the way around the pool 3 weeks ago (but went back tight thank God)
The filter plugs up fast when vacuuming.
And I have lots of leaves that fall or blow into the pool ( generally empty the leaf canuster 3 or 4 times whem vacuuming.
And I have sand, dirt returning to the pool intermittantly.
Oddly enough I have zero wet spots or soft spots around the pool plumbing, go figure.
I have next week off so I will slam it, but I still think the filter has busted laterals, or I have a bad plumbing leak on the stairs circuit.
 
Are you rinsing for at least 30 seconds after the backwash?

I have the S244T and it works like a champ.

Not sure how different the S vs T model but mine works great.

If junk is coming back you might have broken or cracked laterals.

Probably a deep clean in order as well.

I bet it would work great for you if you checked those items.
 
Rick458,

I would read "The ABC's of Pool Water Chemistry" up in Pool School. It sounds like you do not have a complete understanding of the various parameters we test for and why we test.

If you are interested, we can help but you must start with a valid set of test results. Your CYA cannot have varied like you suggest so we need to get some really accurate results and then we can get started. Without them, we are just stabbing in the dark at your problems.
 

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Test results as of 1830
66f temp
1.5 ppm FC
1.5 ppm CC
7.4 PH
80 ppm CYA

Yesterday I used the Yellow out, and 1 bag of HTH 7 in 1 shock
I also have the Inline Tab chlorinator running full on, and a floater

I just added 4 gallons of the HEB Bleach
Pool still has light green tint

Pump is running 24 hours.
 
Well, you do not have nearly enough chlorine in your pool and far too much CYA.

As you add pucks and that floater, you continue to add CYA to your pool, rendering your chlorine almost useless at your current level. If it was my pool.....

No more Yellow Out

No more HTH 7-1 shock

Shut off the inline chlorinator

Drain about 33% of your pool to get your CYA down to around 50 ppm.

Refill and SLAM the pool.

Stop going to the pool store and buying stuff that is hurting you, not helping you. Switch completely to bleach and understand that those pucks are maybe the biggest part of your problem. We'll all help you with the SLAM if you have the patience to follow the directions exactly and understand it will take some time not just a day or two.

After you reread "The ABC's of Pool Water Chemistry" up in Pool School, here's the link to the SLAM article Pool School - SLAM - Shock Level And Maintain
 
I agree with Dave above. You are stuck in a cycle of removing water and then adding things to your pool that work against each other. To defeat algae you need to keep it simple. Once the algae is defeated you will be amazed at how easy it is to keep the pool a crystal clear blue with almost not chemicals other then chlorine and acid.

Read the ABCs article above. Drain your pool by about a third and replace with clear water. Retest for chlorine and CYA. You want around 50 CYA. Use Pool math to calculate how much chlorine to SLAM. Then follow the SLAM directions.

But these purchases and throw it in is just pouring cash in the pool for no result.
 
I had a similar issue with what looked like sand but seemed to be some sort of mustard algae..I finally gave up and drained and pressure washed my pool and refilled. It had that stuff in the deep end and when I sucked it up in shop vac it looked like sand and felt like sand but when I added water and poured it in the pine straw it vanished. My filter was constantly staying clogged and I couldn't kill it..Wish I had known about this forum before! I did also replaced my single hayward cartridge model with a bigger one with 4 cartridges. I am also surrounded my tree's and we had a rainy year in Atlanta.
 

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