how to hook up vacuum properly

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Sounds like you have air in your hose.

I take one end of my hose and attach it to the vacuum head, I take the other end and put it up to the return to let the return water blow out all the air. Once I see the bubbles under water coming from the vacuum head, I know all of the air has been blown out, then I attach the end of the hose to the skimmer thing.

I hope this helps
 
Put the hose on the vacuum head and put the head in the water(attached to the pole). From here you can put the other end of the pole up to the return to fill it with water or you can push the hose down into the water rapidly to fill it up. Turn your pump of and attach it to the vacuum plate. Put the vacuum plate over the skimmer and turn the pump on.
 
pepsiholic said:
Sounds like you have air in your hose.

I take one end of my hose and attach it to the vacuum head, I take the other end and put it up to the return to let the return water blow out all the air. Once I see the bubbles under water coming from the vacuum head, I know all of the air has been blown out, then I attach the end of the hose to the skimmer thing.

I hope this helps
Click to expand...

Ok, I really like this idea! I'll be doing it this way from now on. :mrgreen: Thanks for the idea.
 
Bama Rambler said:
pepsiholic said:
Sounds like you have air in your hose.

I take one end of my hose and attach it to the vacuum head, I take the other end and put it up to the return to let the return water blow out all the air. Once I see the bubbles under water coming from the vacuum head, I know all of the air has been blown out, then I attach the end of the hose to the skimmer thing.

I hope this helps
Click to expand...

Ok, I really like this idea! I'll be doing it this way from now on. :mrgreen: Thanks for the idea.
Click to expand...

This is what I do. 8)
 
argh....I tried the return jet thing until the bubbles all popped out. Still the pump emptied.

I phoned the pool store where we bought the pool and she told me to take the skimmer basket out and put the hose directly in the skimmer hole.

That improved things but it still gradually and slowly started to create air in the pump....so I just kept taking the hose out and letting it get rid of the bubbles...I had to do that a few times whilst I vacuumed.

Was this bad to let the pump run with some air bubbles at the top?

What am I doing wrong?

thanks in advance.
 
Hmmmmmm, I don't know. It took me a while last year to get the hang of it. Is your water level in the pool high enough? It may be sucking air as your trying to attach it. Keep the piece you are going to attach to the skimmer under water at all times when attaching, if it breaks surface it's going to get air.

Hopefully someone will have a better understanding of what's going on and can help.
 
Have a helper hold the skimmer plate in the down in the skimmer after you purge the air from the hose with pump running. When it air locks, turn off pump and screw off the top of the pump basket to re-prime. Screw it back down and turn pump back on. Works for me !
 

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I hate to ask, but you are turning your pump to the high speed, right?

I do it the same way as posted above - I hook up the hose to the vac head/pole, put that in the pool, flip the pump to high speed, burp the hose by putting it up to a return to force all of the air out of the hose, move the hose over to the skimmer while keeping it under water so no air re-enters the hose, turn the pump off, take the weir out of the skimmer, put the vac plate on, hook up the hose, turn the pump back on high, and away we go. Granted, it's a ballet and I wish sometimes I had an extra set of hands, but once you get used to it, it's not that bad.

If you're putting it directly into the bottom of the skimmer, then you should be able to feed the hose through the mouth of the skimmer and into the hole while under water. I used to do it this way as well. I did have a conical adapter that came with my Aqua Bug cleaner that I'd put on the end of the hose before sticking it in the bottom of the skimmer, but I don't know if that's really necessary or not.

My pump will still suck some air, but it passes most of it to the filter where I bleed it off. The water still churns quite a bit in the pump leaf basket, but I get good flow out of the returns which lets me know the pump's pushing water as it should.

If you do try to remove the pump leaf basket lid to reprime the pump as suggested in an earlier post, be aware that you'll have water gush out when you loosen the lid, so you'll have to be quick about tightening the lid back up. I always ended up soaked and freaked out that I wasn't going to get the lid back on :shock: , so I don't do this anymore.
 
yes i have my pump on high. thanks all. I will try this next time. i am thinking of getting an auto cleaner as it was really hard to vacuum with 54 inch walls. i also fell today on my grocery bags/glass bottle broke and split my palm open....had to get stitches....so i just might have to turn the vacuuming problems over to DH. :-D
 
I always seem to accumilate about a 1/2" of bubbles in the pump basket during my vac'ing. I haven't figured it out in 5-6 years how to cure it. I just getr'done.

When I do mine, I drop the vac and pole into the pool and hang the hose over the side where the pump is. I take the skimmer lid off and then the flapper and turn the pump on. I then take the plate off the vac hose and put it up against the return and fill it with water. Once I do that, I keep the hose under water and put the vac plate back on and slide it through the skimmer and place it snuggly over the basket til it makes a good seal.

Like I said above, towards the end of vac'ing, my pump likes to suck a little air somewhere too. It could be a tiny air leak in my hose for all I know...

Sorry to hear about your fall. Those grocery backs are vicious. My mom once slipped on one and broke her elbow. Hope you feel better soon.
 
I think the problem was with my hose, perhaps a leak somewhere, because we ended up buying an automatic cleaner and it primed just fine.

By the way is it normal for the automatic cleaner (just a cheapie Zodiac Manta suction one) to continously pulsate like it's having a seizure?
 
aqualicious said:
I think the problem was with my hose, perhaps a leak somewhere, because we ended up buying an automatic cleaner and it primed just fine.

By the way is it normal for the automatic cleaner (just a cheapie Zodiac Manta suction one) to continously pulsate like it's having a seizure?
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Does your hose have a rotating cuff on one end? If it does, make sure that and is attatched to the vac. If it's on the skimmer side you will sometimes suck air.

Also, if the cleaner is the type that has a round flat rubber disc thing on the bottom, then yes, it is supposed to pulse, I believe that's how it moves.

HTH,
Adam
 
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