Side suction filter bag?

[Poolnerdgrandma]

We have never used our side suction vacuum. We bought a robot and never looked back. BUT we get sand and dirt accumulating in corners of the sunshelf and spa. I bought a handheld battery operated stick vac, which works ok, except the "bag" is tiny, and it requires 4 D cell batteries, which are dead.
We have the side suction connection and hose. Between our screen enclosure, pool robot, and hairnets on the skimmer, our filter cartridge doesn't have to be dealt with too often.
I hate to vacuum all the sand straight to the filter. We do have a "backwash" valve that is attached to a hose that we use for draining the pool as needed.
Should I connect the vacuum and turn on the "backwash" to get after the spa and sunshelf, or is there something I can connect inline on the hose to catch the crud?

 

[Katodude]

You can put a leaf canister in your vacuum hose. Then put a hair net in the leaf catcher basket the same way you do with your skimmers.

Do a search for leaf canister on Amazon. You will get a lot of choices.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Please show us the hoses you have to connect between your wall port and the suction cleaner. The we can advice on an inline leaf trap as there are different models.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

FWIW ... don't ditch your suction cleaner ... considering the short lifespan of modern robots (3-5 seasons at best) and the fact that they all cost over $1000 these days, you might not like buying a new robot when it dies ...

Also, every pool owner should have a suction hose and a manual vacuum head for doing spot cleaning like you describe. It's as essential as having a leaf net and a wall brush. Someday your robot will die and it will do so at the most inconvenient time. Having a backup method for vacuuming a pool is essential so that a dead robot doesn't impact pool cleanliness ... {my Native American name is "he who speaks from experience"}

 

[Katodude]

{my Native American name is "he who speaks from experience"}

Really, I would have thought. “Angry man who hates robots”

 

[jark87]

Not sure how this thread bubbled up, but I’m interested in using a suction side vacuum with some kind of debris bag. I hate vacuuming to the filter and didn’t know I had a choice. My vacuum is simple - one end of the hose connects in the skimmer and the other end attaches to a flat vacuum head that has rollers on it. The hose itself just has 2 ends, similar to a central vacuum for a house.

Edit - just looked at some of the options on Amazon. Looks like I just need the canister and a short hose. Learn something new on this site all the time!

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Hayward leaf canisters work great. I use the smaller version with the hard plastic strainer in it but I also have used the larger one with the mesh bag. Both work well. Stay away from the Pentair flip top one, it’s garbage.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Hayward leaf canisters work great. I use the smaller version with the hard plastic strainer in it but I also have used the larger one with the mesh bag. Both work well. Stay away from the Pentair flip top one, it’s garbage.

Just to add a note to this - if you get the smaller Hayward in-line leaf trap with the hard plastic strainer, you insert a hair net around the inside of the strainer and the leaf trap will trap more than leaves. I do that with mine and all sorts of hair, sand, grit and dust gets caught up in the hair net. It's just like adding hair nets to the skimmer - you keep all of the large and small stuff out of the filter. Works great.