How do you get all the sand vacuumed out of a new inground pool! Help we have been vacuum for 3 days!?

Question

We just had a new inground pool installed with a Hayward sand filter and our pool contractor has kinda ditched us and hasn't trained us on pool maintenance, so we are learning on our own. With the dirt work they did and the pool deck poured around our pool we have a tremendous amount of dirt, sand and rocks in our pool. We have been in the pool vacuuming, picking our rocks and just generally scooping out sand by the bucket fulls and we still have dirty pond like water. My chlorine and ph are in the right levels but everytime we vacuum, backwash and rinse it just seems to get us no where! We are at our wits end! Should we just drain the whole thing and start over or is there any good suggestions to get this out? I hate to drain 25,000 gallons of water if there is a way to solve this! HELP!!

Answer 1

The only thing I can think of is flock it. By the way you have worded your question you may not know what that is. Flocking is when mix alum into the water. Your local pool shop should have it and instructions on how to use it. Alum will make all the solid matter sink to the bottom. You will have to vacuum that away to waste,straight out and down the drain. Don't put that through the filter, will stuff the sand.

The next trick is to lower the wand into the pool very slowly as not to disturb the bottom. Sudden movements down there and it just mixes up again and you'll have do it again. If you take it nice and slow you'll end up with a clean pool.

If you have any stones go up the pipe it could damage the pump impeller or get suck in it. If you think your pump isn't working as well as it should then you may have pull it apart and clean the stones out that have got stuck in the impeller.

Answer 2

did you see all that debris in there before you put 25,000 gals of water in there? if your pool vacuum can't pull it out you will either have to drain or go swimming,if you have scuba gear just take a broom and dustpan and pail and take it out 1 bucket at a time,i was going to suggest just leave it there till you drain ,but you said more than sand you said rocks and dirt ,if you can`avoid stirring it up ,you could leave it the dirt will eventually filter out and that just leaves sand and rocks.........tom

Answer 3

Your construction company was supposed to do all that before you paid him.  His job was

not done.  If it were me, I would sue him bigtime.  If you haven't paid him the entire

amount-DON'T.