I did what owners manual said not to, did I hurt anything?

[lovemypool]

I'm a total newbie but trying to learn (moved into house w/pool last August). We have a Jandy Ray Vac cleaner, and tonight I decided to look it up. Pool is 12 years old; not sure how old the Ray Vac is. Tonight, I read the owners manual and found out several things that it says not to that I have done. The one thing I'm most concerned about is that today I backwashed the pool's sand filter and then drained more water to waste (we've gotten about 3 inches of rain since opening the pool this week) since the water level was high. In the Ray Vac manual it says "before cleaning main filter, be sure to turn the Jandy 3-port valve so the line to the Ray-Vac is closed." Oops. Didn't do that. The Jandy valve was open the whole time I was backwashing and draining. Could I have damaged anything on the Ray Vac or the main filter?

Also, just in general, should I take the Ray Vac to a pool shop to have it looked at to see if any parts need replacing? It's doing its job just fine.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[JasonLion]

Re: I did what owners manual said not to, did I hurt anythin

I think it will be just fine. Of course, I'm not completely sure why they would say that, so I might be missing something. Still, way too many people would make that mistake if it was actually a problem.

 

[JamesW]

Re: I did what owners manual said not to, did I hurt anythin

The reason is to minimize dirt getting into the Ray Vac. There is an in-line screen that should catch any debris. Check the in-line screen and clean it as necessary. There should also be a filter on the Jandy line to help catch debris. That filter should also be cleaned.

http://www.jandy-downloads.com/pdfs/H05551A.pdf

http://www.jandy-downloads.com/pdfs/H05550A.pdf

 

[JasonLion]

Re: I did what owners manual said not to, did I hurt anythin

Yea, but it doesn't make any difference if the filter is in normal mode or backwash mode, the water flow to the Ray-Vac is exactly the same either way. I suppose it might be to give the filter all of the flow while it is backwashing in case the pump isn't big enough with some of the flow diverted, but that seems quite unlikely.

 

[lovemypool]

Re: I did what owners manual said not to, did I hurt anythin

Thank you both for such quick responses, I feel much better! I had actually disconnected and taken the Ray Vac out of the pool before backwashing, so the dirt would have just sprayed back into the pool. But, cleaning the in-line "finger screen" is something else I didn't know about before reading the manual so I will make that part of my regular routine now and hopefully keep this guy running for many seasons to come.

I did know about the filter on the Jandy line but until I read the Jandy manual didn't realize that filter was part of the whole Ray Vac set-up (thought it was part of our regular filter, haha!) I think my next task needs to be to diagram all of our equipment and make sure I understand it (we relied on the pool guys when we moved into the house at the end of last season and hired the opening too so equipment knowledge has been on a need-to-know basis, I only learned how to backwash, lower the water level, and turn the Ray Vac on and off).