Opening question

[elainerader]

I have never shut my pol down over the winter, although its too cold to swim, we rarely freeze and find it far harder to re open, than to maintain all winter....SOOOOOOOO this winter we had several very cold and very long cold snaps. Someone....won't mention names did not clear the skimmers of leaves when we had to run our pump 24/7 to keep the pipes from freezing. Soooooooo the pump burned out. from the time this happened to the time we finally got the pump fixed and received the new manifold (which we found out was badly damaged) the pool has turned into a frog filled swamp.

Soooooo, my question is this: should we drain as much out of the pool as possible and refill before slamming or can a swamp be cleared up by slamming and running it through our now new a pristine system? I hate to run all that horrible algae through new sand!

Thanks for any advice you can throw my way!

 

[duraleigh]

Whichever path you choose, you will have to SLAM.

That said, if water is cheap enough, you could consider draining and refilling. I personally would clean out every spec of visible debris that I could and then SLAM.....leaving the water in there.

You will use more chlorine but not so much that it would cost more than the water refill.

 

[elainerader]

OK, thanks good point about the water cost, I was really more concerned about gunking up the filter with the debris I cannot see, you can't see the bottom of the pool at this point. I will do my best to remove what I can.

Another question: considering I will NOT be draining and replacing the water, how often should I backwash during the SLAM?

Thanks again!

 

[Texas Splash]

how often should I backwash during the SLAM?

Generally we watch the filter pressure gauge. When you see it has increased by 20-25% from the clean (starting) pressure, it's time to backwash.

 

[elainerader]

Thanks!!