Did you know that the most important part of a swimming pool care is filtration? For your pool’s water to be reliably clear, clean and healthy, a well-maintained filter is a must. To maintain a sand filter, backwashing every 2-3 weeks is the best way to ensure that your pool filter is free to filter out as much debris as possible.
Here is a simple but in-depth guide to backwashing a filter:
1. Firstly, make sure you have enough water in the pool to carry out a back wash, ¾ way up the skimmer box should be fine
2. Turn the pump off
3. Disconnect suction cleaner from skimmer box including Vacuum plate
4. Empty skimmer basket
Your sand filter will most likely have a multi-port with six different settings (filter, rinse, closed, backwash, recirculate, waste)
5. Make sure all the valves in the backwash discharge lines are open
6. Turn the multi-port handle to ‘backwash position’ and switch on the pump. You will see water flow through the backwash line
7. Continue running this until the water in the sight glass runs clear, (typically, a couple of minutes) then switch the pump off
8. Turn the multi-port handle to ‘rinse position’ and turn the pump on for 30 seconds
9. Turn the pump off
10. Switch the pump back off and move the multi-port back to ‘filter position’
11. Finally, turn the pump back on and water should flow back through the jets. Make sure the backwash line is not leaking when back on filter position
12. Reconnect vac plate and suction cleaner
13. Refill the pool to correct level and then test and rebalance the pool with the appropriate pool chemicals
Now you know how to backwash a filter. If you have any other questions, give our customer service team a call on 1800 625 123 for advice on anything pools!
