Vacuum to waste or ??

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K

KSamson

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Aug 24, 2013
7
Oklahoma
So it looks like I didn't completely kill off the algae with my last slam, so here we are again.

How do you vacuum to waste when doing a slam? I only have the manual vacuum, it's worked in the past and not something I mind doing. But I loose so much water vacuuming to waste and then it takes about 2 hours for the hose to refill it. Is it ok to let the super chlorinated water sit that long without circulation?

Last time I just brushed until I passed the OCLT and then vacuumed it, took about 6 hours of vacuum, refill, vacuum some more, refill some more to get through that and thinking back, maybe not effective?

FWIW, when I've tried vacuum to filter in the past, it just seems like it blows back in? Maybe my imagination, vacuum pool looks cloudy and the next day it's all back. At least with vacuum to waste I know it's gone.

Latest TF100 test results:
FC 12 (within the last hour)
CC didn't test yet since I just started slamming last night
PH 7.2 (before slam started)
TA 60
CYA 30

I picked up some knee hi's this morning, see if that really does help with the vacuum to filter option. But other than that, any ideas?

Oh, one more thing, last year, new sand filter, new sand, hasn't been cleaned this year so is that playing into why I can't seem to vacuum to filter?

Thanks for any insight you may offer.
 
Welcome to TFP! Good to have you here :)

I suspect the challenge is related to filter size being small for the pump. That said, it does take several days to a week or more to clear out all the dead algae "carcasses". The filter will do a better job as it gets dirty, so allowing it to go a full 25% above clean pressure before backwashing will help.

With that size filter and a 1.5 HP pump, the water is being pushed very hard and fast through the sand which is why more dust just goes right through. If there's a valve after the pump or filter, you could partially close it to slow the water down so the filter can catch more dust, especially right after backwashing. Unfortunately, it's not good to slow the water down by restricting the suction side, which is where most pools have valves. A little bit of throttling on the suction side is OK, but really not very much. You could normally add a bit of DE to the filter to help it clean the water, but I'm thinking it might just get blown right through that size filter as well.

Deep cleaning the filter is probably a good idea, because the harder you push water through the sand, the quicker that channels will form.
Deep Cleaning a Sand Filter

If you have a way of slowing down water out of the waste side, you might be able to get more vacuuming time for the amount of water wasted, for example by looping and partially kinking the waste hose. After vacuuming, keep the water stirred up so the debris can get to the filter.

Good luck with it all.
 
needsajet, thanks for the information.

We're going to try a deep clean on the filter this weekend and see if that helps. I really don't mind vacuuming but hopefully I can figure out how to not make it an all day job. I'm kind of looking at the Pool Blasters and wondering if those would help me out. I need to do some more searching and read some more reviews but maybe they would help out with those spot touch ups??

But again, thanks for the tips.
 
18x33x4 pool. I had to buy a new vacuum head this year and it seems like it sucks the pool dry in record time. I wasn't kidding when I said, vacuum for 20 minutes which gets about 1/3 of it, then wait 2 hours for it to fill back up, and that's with filling the pool to the point to just before it's ready to overflow the skimmer basket. But it seems like if I go faster than that, then it just stirs it up. I can either vacuum all day or vacuum every day, both suck. :)

Good news is... I passed my OCLT test last night so yea for that. We're going to deep clean the sand filter this weekend, maybe that will let me vacuum to filter without just shooting everything back out. Don't know, we'll see. Nothing else, we'll know the sand filter is clean for next year since we've only got a few weeks left for this year.

Challenges and opportunities... Right? ;)

Thanks again for your help.
 
Yeh for sure! That's challenging absolutely. If you can find a way to reduce the flow down to what the filter can handle (gallons per minute), I think you'll have better results, both for vacuuming and filtering.

Something you might find helpful is to leave the vacuum connected, and turn it upside down and leave it in the bottom of the pool. Brush up all the dust so it's in suspension and headed for the filter. Good to hear about the OCLT :)
 
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