How to vacuum an above-ground, built-in and in-ground pool

Today we are going to put our hands in the water and we’re going to learn together, step by step how to vacuum the pool. Whether it's regular maintenance or a big spring cleaning. The important thing is to keep your pool very clean without debris, without waste in the bottom of the water. It will help you have much healthier and much safer water for swimming. 

So to start, you have to understand the principle of the vacuum cleaner. We need a couple of basic items: the telescopic pole, the vacuum cleaner head, a hose to connect everything and a vacuum plate which will be installed in the skimmer. 

The vacuum plugs onto the skimmer. That’s where all the succion comes from, so it’s important to ensure that our filtration system operates solely from the skimmer. That's why you need to close the bottom drain. 

Every time we manipulate our three-way valve, we'll turn off the engine. 

So we start by turning off the engine and putting the drain in the closed position. 

If you have an above-ground pool, the 3-way valve is located at the skimmer outlet. 

The most imposing arrow, where it is written "close", is directed towards the bottom drain. 

If you have a semi-inground or inground pool, this valve is located at the inlet of the pump, so again we will close our bottom drain to make sure our skimmer does all the work with the vacuum. 

So — we open our engine in order to put everything back in fonction because we'll need our water return for the connection. 

I'll clarify this for you 

To connect the hose, you must first locate the tip that rotates on itself. That's the one we're going to put on the vacuum cleaner head. It gives us more flexibility for movement inside the pool. We take the pipe and slip it gently into the water. 

When it is completely submerged in water, take the fixed end piece on the other side of the pipe and glue it to the water return. The water that enters the hose with pressure will push the remaining air in the hose and force it out through the vacuum head. It is important that there is no air left at all inside the hose in order to allow better suction. You may notice that the hose is completely full of water when there are no more air bubbles coming out of the vacuum head. It's time to plug it into the vacuum plate. Obviously we try to keep the pipe submerged in water as much as possible when performing this maneuver to prevent air from entering the pipe again. 

The vacuum plate is then placed in the skimmer. It is very important that the skimmer basket is always in the skimmer when you go vacuuming because it will pick up large pieces to avoid clogging your filter. 

If you do regular maintenance, you are now ready to vacuum. Take your time… on the other hand, if you're doing a big spring cleaning and the pool is very dirty, for example when you first open your pool in the summer, then it's time to vacuum in waste mode. We are therefore going to thwart the filtration system a little to avoid clogging it. We're going to send the dirty water directly to the street, so that means we're going to lose a lot of water in a short time. When vacuuming, make sure the level of the pool is very high. You can leave the garden hose in pools too and never let the water level drop below the skimmer. So if you need to clean for several minutes you may have to stop your work, raise the water level and start again. As we send water to the street, we will need a backwash pipe. 

If you have a cartridge filter, you will connect your backwash hose to the outlet of the pump so you have on one side the piping that brings the water to the filtration system and on the other side you can connect your hose of backwash and roll it out to the street. 

If you have a sand filter, the connection is made directly to the filter head. Turn off the pump motor and place the filter handle in the drain position. 

If you have a cartridge filter, on the 3-way valve at the outlet of the pump, in the same place where you installed your backwash hose, point with the large arrow to the filtration system. As the large arrow indicates the side of the valve that will be closed, the water is prevented from passing through the filtration system and is sent directly to the street. 

When you open the motor of the pump, the water will start to flow quite quickly to the street so don't waste time on cleaning - get this done as best and quickly as possible. Remember - it’s important to avoid letting the water go lower than the skimmer! 
If you don't have time to finish, stop what you are doing, let the water go back up in the pool and start again. 

And that’s it for your big spring cleaning! 

Once everything is finished, whether it's regular maintenance or major cleaning in waste mode, well, we turn it all off, we can unplug it and don't forget to put the handle back in filtration mode. If you weren't in waste mode when you vacuumed, it's already in filtration mode, so it's time to dive in and enjoy your pool!