Hey everyone. Hoping someone with similar experience can chime in. I have a 12x24 above ground pool with intex salt water chlorinator and sand filter, rated at 2100gph total/1600gph actual.
tl;dr - When I put in an intex vacuum, it will run for a few minutes then stop. The output flow is very low at this point and sometimes the low flow alarm will even go off. I found that the micro screen filter on the output is getting clogged with what appears to be sand particles. Rinsing/backwashing will get me a few more minutes of runtime but the problem comes back in a few minutes.
Some history - I had to try 3 different sands to find one that doesn't spit sand into the pool even though all were rated #20. After backwashing I let the filter run for 30m or so to ensure any lose sand doesn't spit out into the micro filter after backwashing/rinsing, but it still happens. I checked the latterals, not cracked. I contacted Intex last season about this and they sent a new 6 way valve which seemed to operate better but this issue still exists. Here's the really odd part, if I put the filter in recirculate mode to bypass the sand, the issue still occurs. The 3rd sand I bought seemed to stop the phenomenon of sand being spit into the pool but it seems like a small amount is still finding it's way through. So I'm at a bit of a loss as to where the particles are coming from.
I considered switchinig to "filter balls" or even glass silica media as I heard this increases flow and decreases chance of media spitting out into the pool. However, after reading on these forums it sounds like thats not a great idea, epecially considering my pool chemical levels are perfect and seem to maintain properly throughout the season. I had the original intex vacuum but this week got their new model which can climb up the walls, thinking the old one may just be wearing out, but the new one does the same exact thing.
At this point, I am going out to grab some HTH sand today, dump my current sand, clean out the filter, replace, backwash, rinse, say a prayer and hope it works. I'm also going to replace the outlet hoses (they are showing sings of wear/sun damage) and rinse out the inlet hose to ensure no sand is trapped in those. But I'm curious if anyone else has run into this issue? In reading reviews of the vacuums, it seems many people have these same models with the same size filter setup and they work without issue. So I don't think it's a matter of the pump being on the low side of the vacuum rating, and even if that were the case I'd imagine the higher output flow rate in recirculate mode would compensate enough to make it work. Plus the fact that it does seem to run properly for a few minutes before the microscreen gets clogged seems like it should work under normal pressure. I'm hoping this is just a case of poor quality sand, but if these last steps don't fix it I'm out of ideas on how to resolve this.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
-Ed
tl;dr - When I put in an intex vacuum, it will run for a few minutes then stop. The output flow is very low at this point and sometimes the low flow alarm will even go off. I found that the micro screen filter on the output is getting clogged with what appears to be sand particles. Rinsing/backwashing will get me a few more minutes of runtime but the problem comes back in a few minutes.
Some history - I had to try 3 different sands to find one that doesn't spit sand into the pool even though all were rated #20. After backwashing I let the filter run for 30m or so to ensure any lose sand doesn't spit out into the micro filter after backwashing/rinsing, but it still happens. I checked the latterals, not cracked. I contacted Intex last season about this and they sent a new 6 way valve which seemed to operate better but this issue still exists. Here's the really odd part, if I put the filter in recirculate mode to bypass the sand, the issue still occurs. The 3rd sand I bought seemed to stop the phenomenon of sand being spit into the pool but it seems like a small amount is still finding it's way through. So I'm at a bit of a loss as to where the particles are coming from.
I considered switchinig to "filter balls" or even glass silica media as I heard this increases flow and decreases chance of media spitting out into the pool. However, after reading on these forums it sounds like thats not a great idea, epecially considering my pool chemical levels are perfect and seem to maintain properly throughout the season. I had the original intex vacuum but this week got their new model which can climb up the walls, thinking the old one may just be wearing out, but the new one does the same exact thing.
At this point, I am going out to grab some HTH sand today, dump my current sand, clean out the filter, replace, backwash, rinse, say a prayer and hope it works. I'm also going to replace the outlet hoses (they are showing sings of wear/sun damage) and rinse out the inlet hose to ensure no sand is trapped in those. But I'm curious if anyone else has run into this issue? In reading reviews of the vacuums, it seems many people have these same models with the same size filter setup and they work without issue. So I don't think it's a matter of the pump being on the low side of the vacuum rating, and even if that were the case I'd imagine the higher output flow rate in recirculate mode would compensate enough to make it work. Plus the fact that it does seem to run properly for a few minutes before the microscreen gets clogged seems like it should work under normal pressure. I'm hoping this is just a case of poor quality sand, but if these last steps don't fix it I'm out of ideas on how to resolve this.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
-Ed
