Hi. I am looking after a pool, which this website has helped with tremendously, but I'm occasionally experiencing an issue that I'd like to solve. I've noticed that sometimes, when switching on the pump in the morning, plumes of dusty water enter the pool from the filter's two water outlets. The colour is light milky brown. After a few seconds the water pumping in turns clear. This would typically happen when I switch it on after I'd cleaned out and replaced the weir baskets; however this sometimes happens even when the pump components have not been disturbed, say after being switched off for the night. The dirty water is not enough to make the entire pool murky but it does feel like it's just putting dust back into the pool that must then be re-filtered.
I live in South Africa where we've had a hot, dry spring so far, so I've been trying to backwash sparingly to save water. Normally I'd try to backwash for two minutes and then rinse for 1 minute every week or so. The dusty water sometimes happens even with a good backwash schedule. I believe the sand in the filter is pretty old but I'm not sure if this would have an effect, or whether to tell if it needs replacing. Chemical balances in the pool are all within acceptable limits, as far as I can tell.
I'd appreciate any insight into why this happens, whether it should/should not happen, and how to mitigate it. Thanks!
I live in South Africa where we've had a hot, dry spring so far, so I've been trying to backwash sparingly to save water. Normally I'd try to backwash for two minutes and then rinse for 1 minute every week or so. The dusty water sometimes happens even with a good backwash schedule. I believe the sand in the filter is pretty old but I'm not sure if this would have an effect, or whether to tell if it needs replacing. Chemical balances in the pool are all within acceptable limits, as far as I can tell.
I'd appreciate any insight into why this happens, whether it should/should not happen, and how to mitigate it. Thanks!