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How to Effectively Vacuum Your Pool
Any pool owner will know that to keep it in good condition, a regular cleaning routine is required. Often, keeping to the habit of checking water quality and pumps daily is enough to keep your pool clean and healthy throughout heavy use. However, if a deeper clean is required, then you may choose to vacuum your pool.
In this blog, we look at when vacuuming might be the best decision for your swimming pool, what you need and how to do it effectively.
As mentioned above, if you keep to a regular cleaning and maintaining routine, your pool may not require vacuuming. However, if debris frequently collects on the floor of your swimming pool, or algae has developed due to lack of water maintenance, then vacuuming can be a good choice.
Unlike other pool maintenance tasks, such as chemicals and pump backwashing, there is no set amount of time you need between each pool vacuum. This cleaning task is simply something that can be done if you feel that your pool needs a deeper clean.
Of course, if you want to clean your swimming pool, you can’t just use any old vacuum! Swimming pool vacuums work without any mains power, instead relying on the water flow created by the swimming pool pump.
To put it simply, swimming pool vacuums create suction by attaching to the pump’s filtration system, sucking debris through and into the filters. How exactly this happens will become clear as we take you through the process below.
To vacuum your pool, there are a few specific pieces of kit you’ll need:
If you own a swimming pool net, the chances are that you already have a telescopic pole. The vacuum hose is slightly different than, say, the one used for backwashing, as it’s designed for movement across the pool and attaching to specific locations.
The vacuum cleaner head is the section that will do the cleaning on the floor of your pool. The vacuum plate, also known as a skim vac, is a disc that connects to the skimmer baskets in your pump system and is optional but beneficial – this will be explained later.
As with many pool maintenance tasks, once you get used to it, vacuuming is an easy, albeit slightly time-consuming process. Unlike other pool tasks, however, there are different ways to go about it depending on what equipment or pool you have and how much you need to clean.
The first question you need to ask is whether your pool needs a deep clean, or if you’re just tidying it up.
The instructions below relate to general light cleaning of debris that might be building on the floor of the pool. If your water is particularly dirty or there is a large amount of debris or algae, then you will want to set your filter to waste, which will protect the system from excess dirt while vacuuming.
Wasting the water will result in a reduction in the water level. Therefore, it’s advised that you overfill your pool beforehand. You will also need to replenish and re-balance the water afterwards.
For the vacuuming process, you do not need to turn your pool’s pump off. In fact, your pump will be important.
First of all, assemble your pool hoover or vacuum. Pool vacuum heads come with two holes, one for the hose and another for the telescopic pole. The vast majority of parts are designed to work universally, so no matter where you’ve bought your products, they should all attach.
In the same way you sometimes need to prime your pool pump, you also need to prime the vacuum hose to ensure it can create a forceful flow to attract debris. Thankfully, this is straightforward.
Place the vacuum into the pool, holding onto the open end of the hose. Once the vacuum is in place, put the open end alongside one of the active outward pumps in your swimming pool. Placing the end here will force water through the hose and push air out – you should see air bubbles escaping from the vacuum head. Once all the bubbles are gone, the vacuum has been primed.
This part is where the vacuum plate comes into play. Ideally, this should attach over a skimmer basket on your pool’s filter system. If so, attach the now-primed end of your vacuum to the attached vac plate.
Be careful to avoid air getting into the vacuum hose, as this can cause a loss of suction. If you need to remove the end of the hose from the pool to attach it to your vac plate, then the best way is to cover the exposed end with your hand.
If you don’t have a vac plate, then it is often possible to attach the vacuum hose into the suction hole that sits underneath the skimmer. For maximum suction, you should look to switch off all other suction valves for your pool, isolating the one being used for vacuuming.
Once the vacuum hose has been attached, you should start to notice some suction. Now, your vacuum is ready to clean!
Unfortunately, vacuuming itself is a slow process. You mustn’t rush the vacuum, as this can cause sitting debris to rise and eliminate the point of vacuuming in the first place. Take your time, ideally starting from the shallow end and working your way down.
Once the vacuuming is completed, your filter will be filled with debris, which is why every clean should end with a filter backwash. You can read our guide to backwashing your pool filters for more information.
Once the backwash is complete, your pool should be clean and ready for action!
As with many pool maintenance tasks, while straightforward after multiple times, you may encounter difficulties on the first few attempts. Here are some common mishaps and their solutions.
Arguably the most common issue experienced when vacuuming a swimming pool is the loss of suction during the clean. There are many reasons why this could happen, including leaks in exposed parts of the vacuum hose. However, the most common cause of this is simply build up in the filter system.
If there’s quite a lot of debris on your pool floor, then your filter system might become overwhelmed during the cleaning process. Again, it’s essential to consider if you would be better off setting the filter to waste in this scenario. However, if it happens to you part-way through the clean, then you need to perform a backwash. Backwashing the filter will remove the built-up dirt inside and restore suction to your vacuum when you’re able to restart.
We hope that this guide will help you to master the art of keeping your pool sparkling clean. Remember that swimming pool safety covers are particularly useful for keeping unwanted debris out of the pool when it’s not in use.
Browse our range of swimming pool maintenance products today or get in contact with our team for expert advice on how to care for your home pool.
