Hi. I have an 18 ft round AG pool with a 19 inch waterways sand filter and a Hayward pump.
When I started working on the pool this spring, I noticed the TON of sand that had accumulated in it. Since I have little guys, I assumed that it came from the unfortunately nearby sandbox, so I went about removing it. I was wrong, of course. Two of the laterals on my filter had come unscrewed somehow so the more I tried to get the sand out, the more got pumped into the pool. And at some point, this blew out my original pump. While I was waiting for the replacement pump to arrive, I replaced the sand in the filter, checked the laterals for damage, cleared all the offending sand out of the places in the filter where it didn't belong and (now that I understand my errors and oversights) I reassembled the filter far more carefully than I had assembled it in the first place. The pump arrived and I figured that once I had the chemistry back under control, we were in the clear. Well, today I was vacuuming the pool and I could *hear* sand re-entering the pool through the return valve. I'm trying to figure out why this is happening because I really gave all the filter parts a thorough inspection and there were no cracks or holes in the laterals, all of them were properly tightened, etc. Is it possible that this sand (filter sand) is excess from the sand filter? I put in about 120 lbs of filter sand when I took out the old sand and replaced it. I've seen recommendations for both 100 lbs and 150 lbs for a 19 inch sand filter, so I was thought I was being as safe as I could about it.
The sand discharges most heavily in the "rinse" phase of the backwash process, but it shows in the sight glass throughout the backwashing process. I'm slamming the pool now, so I'm backwashing a lot. Is backwashing going to take care of the excess sand over the course of the treatment? My kids will be out of school really soon and I don't have an opportunity to take the filter apart and put it back together again without lots and lots of "help." Any ideas? Thanks so much! --Leslie
When I started working on the pool this spring, I noticed the TON of sand that had accumulated in it. Since I have little guys, I assumed that it came from the unfortunately nearby sandbox, so I went about removing it. I was wrong, of course. Two of the laterals on my filter had come unscrewed somehow so the more I tried to get the sand out, the more got pumped into the pool. And at some point, this blew out my original pump. While I was waiting for the replacement pump to arrive, I replaced the sand in the filter, checked the laterals for damage, cleared all the offending sand out of the places in the filter where it didn't belong and (now that I understand my errors and oversights) I reassembled the filter far more carefully than I had assembled it in the first place. The pump arrived and I figured that once I had the chemistry back under control, we were in the clear. Well, today I was vacuuming the pool and I could *hear* sand re-entering the pool through the return valve. I'm trying to figure out why this is happening because I really gave all the filter parts a thorough inspection and there were no cracks or holes in the laterals, all of them were properly tightened, etc. Is it possible that this sand (filter sand) is excess from the sand filter? I put in about 120 lbs of filter sand when I took out the old sand and replaced it. I've seen recommendations for both 100 lbs and 150 lbs for a 19 inch sand filter, so I was thought I was being as safe as I could about it.
The sand discharges most heavily in the "rinse" phase of the backwash process, but it shows in the sight glass throughout the backwashing process. I'm slamming the pool now, so I'm backwashing a lot. Is backwashing going to take care of the excess sand over the course of the treatment? My kids will be out of school really soon and I don't have an opportunity to take the filter apart and put it back together again without lots and lots of "help." Any ideas? Thanks so much! --Leslie