Q: I was hoping that I could ask a question, I have a 40 by 20 feet in ground pool – roughly 35’000 gallons. We recently replaced our old sand filter with a new Sta-Rite 145362 Cristal-Flo II. Since doing so our pump does not seem to be producing as strong suction as it used to – I have checked and there are no air leaks. The pump that we currently have is an old 1 HP pump – is the old pump too weak to work with the new sand filter – do we need say a new 1.5HP pump?
A: Did you use regular sand or a different sand filter media? And you used pool sand from a pool supplier? The filter has a 70gpm flow rate and a 1hp pump should be plenty to work with that. I’d check to see if anything is blocking either the skimmer or main drain (ie close one and leave the other open) to see if you have any change that you notice. You can also put the multiport valve on recirculate which eliminates it going through the filter – if the suction increases significantly it may indicate a blockage of some type in the filter, or too much sand etc. – Try both of these ideas and let us know what you find?
Response: Thanks – we used regular filter sand – I found that it was a pressure issue and that vacuuming is now more pressure sensitive than it previously was – so I now backwash before vacuuming or attaching my kreepy krawler suction side cleaner and i am not seeing any issues.