Buying Tips for a Pressure side Pool Cleaner

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Jonathanm
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Joined: Sat 19 Feb, 2011 11:59
My Pool: 100M3 Salt water pool - sand filter
Location: Monaco

Buying Tips for a Pressure side Pool Cleaner

Postby Jonathanm » Sat 19 Feb, 2011 12:21

Hello and good day all,
I have tried to use the search facility on this forum to get informaiton on my questions but I've been having some difficulty to go back and forwards. Anyway....
I have a 100M3, in ground, ceramic tiled, salt water pool and I am located in Southern France. We sometimes get some very fine brown sand (blows from the Sahara). This sand goes straight through the sand filter and ends up back in the pool in a nice little pile somewhere if I don't vacuum it straight to drainage.

Up until now I have always manually vacuumed the pool but it is becoming a bit of a chore and takes quite some time. I have the piping preinstalled for a pressure side system and the filter pump is definately over sized so there is plenty of available pressure.

I really have no idea of an appropriate brand of cleaner. As the pool is salt water all the parts to a cleaning machine need to be 316 stainless or other non corrosive material.

To what degree of microns can pressure cleaners clean the bottom. That is could they pick up the very fine sand as mentioned before?

There seems to be quite some comments about brands to avoid, ie always changing parts etc...

I am open to all available suggestions and I thank you for any advise that you may have.

Jonathan


chem geek
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Location: San Rafael, California

Buying Tips for a Pressure side Pool Cleaner

Postby chem geek » Sat 19 Feb, 2011 12:55

Most standard pool cleaners would not filter finer particles than a sand filter. The exception would be some robotic cleaners that have special fine particulate filters. I think your best bet is to add a filter aid to your sand filter. If you have access to Diatomaceous Earth (DE), then you can follow the instructions in Add DE to a Sand Filter.

If you don't have DE, then you can use a cellulose-based filter aid such as Fiber Clear, but note that in this thread such a product in a DE filter can spell disaster. However, for a sand filter, it should work better since it does not replace the sand but rather acts like adding DE to a sand filter in providing a thin layer of finer filtration media that will mostly get backwashed and re-added. I suggest starting out using half or less of their recommended amount to make sure the pressure rise isn't too great.
Jonathanm
I'm new here
I'm new here
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat 19 Feb, 2011 11:59
My Pool: 100M3 Salt water pool - sand filter
Location: Monaco

Buying Tips for a Pressure side Pool Cleaner

Postby Jonathanm » Sat 19 Feb, 2011 13:03

Thank you very much for your fast reply - I will definately do the "DE" treatment and follow your instructions.

As for just general cleaning of the bottom any recommendations for a pressure side cleaner?

Again many thanks!

Jonathan
chem geek
Pool Industry Leader
Pool Industry Leader
Posts: 2381
Joined: Thu 21 Jun, 2007 21:27
Location: San Rafael, California

Buying Tips for a Pressure side Pool Cleaner

Postby chem geek » Sat 19 Feb, 2011 18:26

Another suggestion is to try using skimmer socks. They work great for pollen, for example.

There are a lot of good pressure-side cleaners, but as I said they wouldn't probably filter out such fine particulate matter. Others may have some suggestions.

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