Expert: Lynn bellay Date: 7/2/2008 Subject: Sand filter doesn't seem to work very well...
Question For this entire pool season so far, our pool is staying somewhat cloudy and murky. We take a water sample to our local pool shop on a fairly regular basis (at least once a week) and make the corrections that they asked for. Usually, these corrections help for a couple days, but seemingly overnight our pool becomes cloudy again.
We floc the pool overnight, which causes the particles to rest on the bottom for vacuuming in the morning. At this point, the pool looks crystal clear (except for the stuff on the bottom), but right as we start to vacuum, it stirs everything up again. The filter doesn't seem to be able to help filter out these particles, as the pressure never seems to climb more than one or two pounds.
We usually do vacuum on waste, but we try to do so as quickly as possible as it drains a few inches of water in a matter of minutes. We didn't have any troubles at all last season. We changed the sand in the filter completely last year (before the swimming season) and changed some of the sand this year, but this change didn't seem to help.
Do you think there could be a problem with the filter? Are we not staying on top of balancing the water enough? Does the weather have anything to do with it?
Answer I'm not sure why you would change half the sand???You should not have to adjust water weekly once you get it adjusted.Possibly a lot of rain or adding water.Here are my thoughts.Possibly your filter could have damaged laterals/vertical piping or spider gasket is bad.When you vac move the vac head SLOWLY NOT TO AGITATE PARTICLES.Are you sure your vac head is sucking good[while in the water lift it up just under the water and hold your hand at the hole it should want to suck your fingers in.Years back I had a similar problem with a cotton algae.This is what I did.Double shock the pool at sundown,put all pool equipment in shallow end,run filter for 3 hours,turn off filter,vac in the morning.Backwash filter,add coagulant and algaecide.If the vacuuming your doing are just light particles your pressure will only go up a few pounds.If your filter seems OK try the later first.Let me know I'm interested.
