We have had our pool for about 5 years. It is a gunite IG 28,000 gallon with a Hayward S200 high rate sand filter. Bought from previous owners. We have done little to nothing except add chlorine till the water looked okay. We had the local pool company open and close it every year for us. Last year we were having a lot of trouble with the water being dirty never getting clean even when chemical levels were in good range. I am wondering if we need to do some sort of upkeep on the filter. Do you need to add sand? Change a filter? We do backwash it regularly but it is not really helping long term. Ideas??? Thanks~
Hayward S200 need sand or filter?? Upkeep question
- Thread starter alyssatuininga
- Start date
Its probably time to change the sand inside the filter. Who knows if the previous home owners ever did it. I personally recommend every 3-5 years depending on how long the filter runs each day.
Take the filter top off and use a shopvac to suck all of the sand out. Inspect the pipe and "little fingers" you see once all the sand is out. Make sure they arent cracked at all. Fill with new sand, put filter back together, run filter on backwash to get all the dust out of filter, and your done. I believe you will need 200lbs of pool filter sand.
Take the filter top off and use a shopvac to suck all of the sand out. Inspect the pipe and "little fingers" you see once all the sand is out. Make sure they arent cracked at all. Fill with new sand, put filter back together, run filter on backwash to get all the dust out of filter, and your done. I believe you will need 200lbs of pool filter sand.
personally...I would get a much larger filter...the new sand may work, but with that filter you are getting maybe one turnover every 10-12 hours at best
Performance Data
Turnover (In Gallons)
Model Number Design Flow Rate Effective Filtration Area 8 Hours 10 Hours
S200 44 GPM 2.20 ft.2 21,120gals 26,400gals
Performance Data
Turnover (In Gallons)
Model Number Design Flow Rate Effective Filtration Area 8 Hours 10 Hours
S200 44 GPM 2.20 ft.2 21,120gals 26,400gals
I would open up the filter and take a look at the sand, see how it feels, and resettle the sand bed. If everything seems fine then you need to look elsewhere for a problem. If the sand is clumped up and the clumps don't break apart easily then it is time to replace the sand.
I'm not too worried about the filter being small, especially if you have a relatively small pump. A small filter needs to be backwashed more often, but it can still work just fine. However, a large pump could cause problems and create channeling. The procedure I linked to above to resettle the sand bed will take care of any channeling for the moment, but a large pump will just cause it to channel again.
I'm not too worried about the filter being small, especially if you have a relatively small pump. A small filter needs to be backwashed more often, but it can still work just fine. However, a large pump could cause problems and create channeling. The procedure I linked to above to resettle the sand bed will take care of any channeling for the moment, but a large pump will just cause it to channel again.
- Feb 26, 2008
- 151
i think i would head down to the local pool store and get zeosand and use that rather than sand it will filter the pool much better (just as well as an earth filter i hear)
all your parts said:
Ive used it on my own pool and it works good, but i dont think the water looked any better then when i had brown sand.