Dealing with cloudy pool water
When getting the pool ready for summer I noticed that even repeated backwashing wasn't cleaning the water. Time to replace the pool filter sand.
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With the water restrictions limiting the ability to be able to backwash the swimming pool, and the fact that the last time the pool filter sand was changed was about 5 years ago, the cloudy water problem was definitely due to dirty, clogged sand in the filter.
Changing the pool filter sand is a bit of a pain, especially in the back region, but a bag of pool filter sand costs around R90 at your local Builders Warehouse, and you should only need two bags for most pool filters.
In South Africa, pool filters are pretty much all the same - a large tank with water valves that flush pool water through sand to clean it. Sooner or later the sand is filled with so much junk that it stops cleaning and circulates dirty water back into the pool. When this happens, the only solution is to empty out and replace the sand.
To remove the sand from the pool filter, unscrew the lid on the top. What makes this a back-aching project is that you have to continuously bend over and scoop out the dirty sand (and water) to empty the pool filter. The hole at the top of the filter isn't large, so you have to use a smallish container to scoop out the contents.
GOOD TO KNOW: After filling, blow out the screw holes and wipe around the top of the filter before securing the lid back in place. The lid should be tightly closed.
After filling the pool filter with new sand you will need to run on backwash to rinse the sand before switching on to 'filter'. The water should run clean, so make sure you have enough water in the pool to do a backwash.
