Replacing the sand in my pool (AZ Haboob killed it)

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M

Matrix311

0
Mar 30, 2011
117
Tempe/AZ
So not sure if this was on the news in your area or not but lastnight we had a giant Haboob come through Arizona and it pretty much killed my sand filter. If your not sure of what a Haboob is watch this time laps video http://www.weather.com/outlook/videos/t ... 7888487149 so just imagine what your pool would look like after that. Here is what my pool looked like, you can see the trail from the pool vac, all the dark stuff is dirt/dust.
i-CFbQDCQ-XL.jpg


Anyways my pool vac will barely move now and I also have a poolskim as you can see in the upper right corner bend there and the poolskim no longer has enough power to suck anything down. I have a sand filter and I ran the backwash about 15 minutes this morning hoping that would fix the problem and it did not. There is still no power for the vac or the poolskim. Even the water coming out of the sand filter through the backwash hose was very weak compared to how it normally is. Should I backwash for even longer? I'm new to owning a sand filter and we have been living in this house for just about 2 months now. The house is old and the pool is old as well. I dont know when or if the sand has ever been changed out of this filter so i'm guessing it's probably about that time.

By the way I have a Pentair TA-60 or TA-60/600 I can't quite read it.

Here are my questions:
Where are their instructions to replace the sand?
Where do I buy the replacement sand?
Instead of replacing the sand should I just backwash longer and see if that fixes the problem?

Any advice is appreciated.

Eric
 
It didn't kill the filter.

The 1st few inches of sand, I'll believe.

Vacuum to waste. A pool sweep helps keep a clean pool clean. Yours is not a clean pool anymore. Manually vacuuming is the fasted, effective way. Alas, it will cost some in chems but thats a lot less than the cost of the filter.

Scott
 
Your filter should be fine after some maintenance. You probably need to remove some sand/dirt from the filter manually. Vacuum to waste for now and add water to the pool as needed. Balance the pool after all the dirt is gone. Google Pentair T60 owner's manual for more info on your filter.
 
>> By the way I have a Pentair TA-60 or TA-60/600 I can't quite read it.
>> here is still no power for the vac or the poolskim.

in addition to the replies you've already received, just a note that down here in hurricane land, we routinely prepare to run systems on backup power and personally I use Honda Inverters which generate pure sinewave 60 hz/123 volts on both legs, max capacity is around 7000 watts so I can easily run entire house as the Pentair IntelliFlow starts up at below 450 watts (prime) and runs 25 GPM (enough to run Poolvergnuegen) at close to 200 watts.

Pentair sand filters are here
 
Matrix311 said:
When you guys say vacuum to waste what exactly do you mean by that? Sorry for not knowing all the lingo. I downloaded the manual and i'm reading through it now. Thanks for the heads up.
Click to expand...

Do you have a cartridge filter or sand filter? If sand you multiport will have a "waste" option similar to backwash, filter, rinse etc.

If to have a cartridge filter. Close the return valve, If you have a drain valve open it. If not remove drain plug. Thread in a 1.5" PVC male adapter and hose adapter and some backwash hose and then start to vacuum.
 
AquaDoctorLLC said:
Matrix311 said:
When you guys say vacuum to waste what exactly do you mean by that? Sorry for not knowing all the lingo. I downloaded the manual and i'm reading through it now. Thanks for the heads up.
Click to expand...

Do you have a cartridge filter or sand filter? If sand you multiport will have a "waste" option similar to backwash, filter, rinse etc.

If to have a cartridge filter. Close the return valve, If you have a drain valve open it. If not remove drain plug. Thread in a 1.5" PVC male adapter and hose adapter and some backwash hose and then start to vacuum.
Click to expand...

I have a Pentair TA-60 Sand Filter. Also how do I tell which one is which? There are no markings on the multiport because it's ancient and old. Would the waste option be less flowing them the backwash option? There are 2 ways the water leaves the sand filter and exits out the backwash line, option 1 the water comes out slow and option 2 it comes out fast.
 
Wow, that much sand I would worry about it building up somewhere in the piping and restricting flow. But I imagine that if the water is flowing fast enough it wont. Definitely vac to waste on that.

Man if I saw that rolling into the city I would think it was Armageddon.
 
The valve on top of the filter has several settings, some, I am sure you already figured out. There is a Waste setting that sends anything the pump sends to the filter's waste port (i.e. backwash line). Waste is one position clockwise from Filter.

Scott
 

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PoolGuyNJ said:
The valve on top of the filter has several settings, some, I am sure you already figured out. There is a Waste setting that sends anything the pump sends to the filter's waste port (i.e. backwash line). Waste is one position clockwise from Filter.

Scott
Click to expand...

Actually I haven't figured it out. There are no markings as to which direction does what. I've taken a photo and maybe you or someone can assist. Right now it's currently on FILTER mode.

There are several positions, which position is what? We will call filter position 1 and each slot to the right (clockwise) is 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.
Filter - Current handle position #1
Backwash -
Rinse -
Waste -
Closed -
Recirculate -

Thanks for the help!
i-rWc82kX-X3.jpg

i-BBH64JJ-X3.jpg
 
[attachment=0:1ngjaftn]Sand Dollar Multiport Positions.jpg[/attachment:1ngjaftn]

Here one for a Sand Dollar. The positions should be the same.
 

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Ah darn, well you were just a tad slow. I ran to one of my local pool stores and they had a top piece as well which i snapped a picture of. Thanks for posting this and yes it's exactly the same as mine. Here is the picture I just snapped.
i-bSHgGZw-X3.jpg


Here I thought I was properly backwashing it for the past 2 months, unfortunately not. I've been rinsing it everytime. So for the past 10 minutes I've been backwashing and the water was nasty dirty and now it's finally flowing clean water out of the backwash line. After I backwashed I rinsed and then flipped it back over to filter. Now my pool vac is hauling Rear again and the poolskim has enough power to suck a tree into it. Thanks for all your help everyone! Case closed.
 
We got smashed up by the same storm in the west valley. I havent seen a storm like that one in a looong time. My pump starts from 7 pm and runs till about 2am. So it was running during the storm. Once things calmed down a little bit I went out and checked on every thing. My skimmer basket was completely full of debris and the pump basket had lots of stuff in it to. I had to empty them both 2 times throughout the night. My pool vac sucked up section of newspaper bringing it to a full stop. I increased my pump run time by 8 hours last night to try and help keep up with the madness.
Your vac may have some debris in it as well.

EDIT: glad you go it all sorted out.
 
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