Hello I wanted to post this as soon as possible to fix this if it were to get any worse. I have noticed that I'm losing suction to my vacuum when I try to do a vacuum to my pool. The suction at the bottom of the skimmer basket where I usually stick my hose in doesn't have a real strong suction and is kind of weak. I make sure to cover up the other two skimmers' suction holes to make sure all the suction is coming in through one hole.
I had someone helping me vacuum my pool one time and noticed this problem and said you're supposed to backwash and release the pressure of your filter when you don't have too much suction coming through your skimmer as it was. My question is if anyone has heard of this method? My filter is typically clean so I see no need to backwash the filter. My filter pressure stays at a 15 even once I've backwashed. I don't want to over-backwash as I don't know if that will do my filter any harm. The way I have read how to do this is you wait until your filter pressure rises to about 20 or something like that and once that happens that would mean your filter needs a backwash. I have also read that you don't want to be "randomly" backwashing which I care to assume means don't do it without reason or too often.
However the case may be when this guy who was helping me did his thing to backwash and release the pressure of the filter it definitely worked and the suction from the vacuum was definitely a lot stronger. I tried this method today and it didn't work for me I'm wondering he released the pressure WHILE the filter was doing it's backwash? Because the way I did it was set it to backwash for a couple minutes then turn it back to "filter" and once your pump is running on "filter" you release some pressure from your filter. As I understand this weaklevel of suction indicates there is air somewehere in the system. This may be true as when I walked over to my pump room after I had noticed the weak level of suction I had noticed that my pump had no water running through...
So my question basically is how do I get more suction without setting it to a waste vacuum? I don't want to set my vacuum to waste because it would mean all my other chemicals like CYA, Alkinity, Calcium Hardness, etc... will aslo go to waste and I would have to start over in placing the values at their ideal range. I have also tried TURNING OFF the suction to 2/3 skimmers including the main leaving only one skimmer having all the suction, however I had a pool service guy find a bunch of leaves in my return line and say "don't do that again". I'm guessing this route should be fine if the leaves are picked up before vacuuming but it's really difficult to pick up every single leaf with a net, so leaves are bound to get vacuumed.
Again I'm trying to this the right way so anyone of proper knowledge on how to handle this would be a great help. Thank you
I had someone helping me vacuum my pool one time and noticed this problem and said you're supposed to backwash and release the pressure of your filter when you don't have too much suction coming through your skimmer as it was. My question is if anyone has heard of this method? My filter is typically clean so I see no need to backwash the filter. My filter pressure stays at a 15 even once I've backwashed. I don't want to over-backwash as I don't know if that will do my filter any harm. The way I have read how to do this is you wait until your filter pressure rises to about 20 or something like that and once that happens that would mean your filter needs a backwash. I have also read that you don't want to be "randomly" backwashing which I care to assume means don't do it without reason or too often.
However the case may be when this guy who was helping me did his thing to backwash and release the pressure of the filter it definitely worked and the suction from the vacuum was definitely a lot stronger. I tried this method today and it didn't work for me I'm wondering he released the pressure WHILE the filter was doing it's backwash? Because the way I did it was set it to backwash for a couple minutes then turn it back to "filter" and once your pump is running on "filter" you release some pressure from your filter. As I understand this weaklevel of suction indicates there is air somewehere in the system. This may be true as when I walked over to my pump room after I had noticed the weak level of suction I had noticed that my pump had no water running through...
So my question basically is how do I get more suction without setting it to a waste vacuum? I don't want to set my vacuum to waste because it would mean all my other chemicals like CYA, Alkinity, Calcium Hardness, etc... will aslo go to waste and I would have to start over in placing the values at their ideal range. I have also tried TURNING OFF the suction to 2/3 skimmers including the main leaving only one skimmer having all the suction, however I had a pool service guy find a bunch of leaves in my return line and say "don't do that again". I'm guessing this route should be fine if the leaves are picked up before vacuuming but it's really difficult to pick up every single leaf with a net, so leaves are bound to get vacuumed.
Again I'm trying to this the right way so anyone of proper knowledge on how to handle this would be a great help. Thank you
What he said. You'd only gain some suction IF the filter was starting to plug up. That would be the only reason to backwash and since you keep it clean, backwashing shouldn't help.
