Rangeball, thanks for quoting me and letting more people know of the method :-D It started, for me, as a way for folks with Hayward cart or EC filters to reduce the need for cleaning the filters when they open the pool to a 'swamp' (The EC filters - bump style DE filters- cannot have the fingers removed, but this method does reduce the amt of 'crud' that will collect on the 'fingers', thereby reducing the need to break them down and manually clean them). There are other techs out there that recommend the same thing (there was a post last year from someone questioning the method, others posted that they thought it unworkable too but I supported it as being viable)
Crocket, I have 0 experience with the pump/ filter all-in-one units, so can't say if you could just remove the filtering unit and vac to waste that way
Brian, I assume that the pic was taken before the system was fired up -- if it hasn't been done, remove the tape from the band on your filter (that little white tag says the same thing
) and get the cardboard box off the heater before you operate it! As for the spigots on the effluent piping from the pumps, I'd imagine that the reduction from 2" to 3/4" would hinder your efforts to vac to waste via that - however, another 3- way valve installed just after the water temp sensor would allow you to shut off all water to the filter and send it out the other port (properly adapted to take a hose) to wherever you want to 'waste' the water.
Again, thanks RB for 'fluffing' this info - I'll keep my eye on this and try to answer any questions that come up
