Vacumed with rinse instead of waste.

[Illinois Pool Owner]

I Flaucked my pool, when I vacumed I thought I had the valve in waste mode, but instead I had it on rinse the whole time.
Question is, can I just backwash & rinse, or should I chemically clean my filter now. I put new sand in at opening this April.

[Walter]

What I know about it is this, you backwash the pool it messed the sand up from the opposite direction to get all the debris out. Then you rinse to put it all back down into the bottom, so in rinse I don't think you hurt it, I would backwash real good then rinse again and you should be good.

[Backglass]

I Flaucked my pool, when I vacumed I thought I had the valve in waste mode, but instead I had it on rinse the whole time.
Question is, can I just backwash & rinse, or should I chemically clean my filter now. I put new sand in at opening this April.

Rinse is the same as Filter, except instead of returning the water to the pool it went out the waste port. You didn't hurt anything.

Just backwash, rinse & swim!

This is what all the settings do:

• "Backwash" - is how you clean your filter. It runs the water backwards through the sand and sends all the trapped junk out the waste port. You should NOT be vacuuming while your system is set to backwash as you will be putting dirt through your filter backwards, potentially clogging things up.
• "Filter" is for normal operation, including vacuuming as the water is returned to the pool (clean).
• "Recirculate" just bypasses the filter altogether. It would be as if you had no filter at all as the water is sent from the in port directly to the out port. It is rarely used.
• "Rinse" should be used for a few minutes after backwashing as it settles the sand and minimizes the amount of sand in the pool. It is the same as Filter except it send the water to the waste port instead of back to the pool.
• "Waste" just takes whatever is coming from the pump and dumps it out the waste port, bypassing the filter. This is good for spring cleanup when you are sucking up a LOT of crap from the bottom of the pool and don't want to needlessly backwash. It's also the way to lower the level of your pool after a big rain or for other maintenence purposes as there is no need to filter water thats going down the drain anyway.

[stellamae]

I read the post about not vacuuming while in backwash mode, we have done that numerous times-obviously not knowing better, is it possible we have clogged our filter as now we have no suction at all when we try to vacuum? Would certainly appreciate any help you can offer!

[DoreenM]

I have a 5 year old pool with a sand filter system. I have never had a problem with the system. This season we hired a new ppool company. My system has needed salt for the last 2 weeks. Yesterday they came and put in 100 ibs of salt and cleaned the pool. (I am not sure if this has anything to do with the problem) When we got home yesterday there was sand over the bottom of the pool and it was very cloudy. Can you let me know what they pool company could of done to cause this? Is it something they can fix or do I need a new filter system? Thanks.

[Me...]

"Possible Clog" may have plugged up the laterals from the inside. When in rinse or filter mode it may have cleared them out, but maybe not. So yes, that could be your problem and you would need to dismantle the filter and clean them out.

As for the sand in the pool issue, if they cleaned the pool they probably backwashed the filter. This is the time when the laterals will usually crack or break, which will allow sand back into the pool. So while the laterals may have broken while they were backwashing, it should not have been them that did it. Possibly you have an undersized filter in which case its just a countdown and crapshoot as to when they will actually break. Since beackwashing was probably the final act before running to the van and leaving, they might not have seen the sand starting to return to the pool.