Clogged return line

Jun 11, 2017
5
NY/NY
After many many hours of troubleshooting our pump/filter we had a company come out to help us figure out the problem. We have high filter pressure and very little return into the pool. The filter/ pump check out as functioning correctly. The diagnosis is that we have a clog in the return line.

Is it possible to unclog this without having to break up the concrete and looking underground ?

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer!
 
How did they determine that?

What kind of filter do you have?

I am guessing you have an in ground pool but correct me if I am wrong.

What have you tried so far?

Sorry for more questions but I want to make sure we really know what you are dealing with.

Kim:kim:
 
I'm curious what kind of filter you have. If it's a cartridge, did they run it with the cart removed? If it's sand or DE, did they try running on recirculate?

All the winterizing plus were removed, yes?

Depending on your setup, it might be possible to run a plumber's snake down through a valve or something into the pipe.
 
Well-some exciting news. We attached our shopvac to the return line by the filter. As a last ditch effort we thought maybe we could get out whatever might be stuck. After a few tries we found tons of acorns in the shopvac water from the pool! We kept using the vac until no more acorns came out. We hooked up the filter and it was totally normal!!! More acorns were blown out of the jets on the spa steps . We are shocked that this worked!!! Can't believe it was packed full of acorns !!!
 
Well-some exciting news. We attached our shopvac to the return line by the filter. As a last ditch effort we thought maybe we could get out whatever might be stuck. After a few tries we found tons of acorns in the shopvac water from the pool! We kept using the vac until no more acorns came out. We hooked up the filter and it was totally normal!!! More acorns were blown out of the jets on the spa steps . We are shocked that this worked!!! Can't believe it was packed full of acorns !!!
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I hate to admit that we forgot to cover the pipe after we disconnected the equipment for the winter. This is something we will never forget to do again. I think what happened was that a chipmunk stored the acorns in the pipe and when we started up the filter the water forced the acorns to clog up at the jets in the pool.
Really unbelievable that we almost planned to dig up lines to find the blog!!
 

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