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How To Hook Up Pool Vacuum

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The swimming pool vacuum is one of the most important parts of the swimming pool filter system. Vacuuming your swimming pool is something that should be done on a weekly basis. Sometimes your swimming pool may not look dirty but there is actually lots of bacteria that you can not see growing on the walls and the floor of the swimming pool.How To Hook Up Pool Vacuum

The most important thing you have to remember when vacuuming any swimming pool is that have a good prime is the key to have great suction. Often many pool owners do not spend enough time properly priming the vacuum hose only to experience hours and hours of problems because they just can not get the debris off of the pool floor. This happens because the swimming pool vacuum has a bad prime. There are a few things that you will need in order to vacuum your pool the correct way. You will need a vacuum hose that will reach all the way from one end of your pool to the other. You will also need a telescoping vacuum pole, vacuum head and a skimmer vacuum disk. Once you have the items that we listed you will be ready to vacuum your swimming pool manually.

The first thing you will want to do before you start vacuuming your pool is to determine if you are going to need a regular vacuum or a swimming pool power vacuum. The way you can determine this is to gauge how much debris you have in your swimming pool. If your pool is dirty with the normal everyday debris like leaves, some sand and sticks then you probably can get away with just doing a normal vacuum. If you however have lots of heavy dirt, sand or algae you will want to power vacuum your swimming pool.
HYDROTools Weighted Vacuum Head
You will have to also close or plug the skimmer that you are not vacuuming with. You can do this by removing the skimmer basket and inserting a #10 black rubber plug into the suction fitting. Some swimming pools will have “vacuum port” flaps that you can just slide over to block the suction intake of the skimmer. Another thing you will also want to do is to set your suction valve on the front of your pump to “skimmers” only. This would only be the case if you had a main drain in your swimming pool. If you do not have a main drain you do not have to worry about that valve setting. If you do have a three way valve in from of your swimming pool pump then chances are you do have a main drain or there was one on your pool at some point.

Now that you have determined that you need a regular vacuum you will want to gather all the items will mentioned earlier and take then over to the closet pool skimmer. You will always want to vacuum the pool from the closet skimmer to the swimming pool filter system. The reason you want to use the closet skimmer is because the father the pool vacuum head is from the pump the less suction you will have, so if you use the closet skimmer you will have more suction then if you were to use the skimmer that was further away. Take your vacuum head and connect it to the end of the telescoping pool vacuum pole. Once you have connect the vacuum head to the pol you will now want to find the “swivel” end of the vacuum hose. One end of the vacuum hose cuff will spin, this is called the swivel end of the vacuum hose. This end of the vacuum hose will hook on to the top of the vacuum head.

Once the swivel end of the vacuum hose is connected to the vacuum head at the end of the vacuum pole you can now stick the pool vacuum head on the bottom of the pool floor. Make sure to look where the other end of the vacuum hose is so you don’t drop that end into the pool. You will be using that end of the vacuum hose end to prime the pool hose. At this point you should have the pool hose hooked to the vacuum head and the vacuum head should be sitting on the bottom of the swimming pool. If this is the case you are now ready to prime your vacuum hose.

To prime your swimming pool vacuum hose you will want to push the pool hose straight down into the water 6″ inches at a time until you reach the end. You will want to start with the hose that is closet to the vacuum head. Once you push the hose 6″ inches at a time down into the water and reach the end you will see that the pool hose will be completely full of water. This means that your pool vacuum hose has a 100% air free prime. Some pool owners like to stick the end of the swimming pool vacuum hose in from of the pool returns thinking that the pool water pressure will fill the vacuum hose faster. The real truth is that this will cause more problems for you in the long run, as more air will get into the vacuum hose this way. It is always better to prime your swimming pool vacuum hose using the method we described above.

By now you should have a swimming pool hose fully primed and attached to the telescoping pole and the vacuum head. The next thing you will want to grab now is the vacuum skimmer disk. The vacuum skimmer disk just pushes on to the end of the vacuum hose that you just saw the water come out from, as the other end of the hose should be hooked up to the vacuum head. Take your skimmer disk and attach it to the end of the vacuum hose. If your swimming pool filter system is running you can also take the disk and place it inside of the skimmer and you will see that how the pool water is being sucked from the bottom of the vacuum head. Yes, Now your swimming pool vacuum is working.

22 Comments

  1. Execllent,,,easily the simplest explaination of how to vaccum your pool that I have come across…..thanks.

    • Agreed! Great straightforward explanation– amazing how poor- even misleading- some of the others on the web can be!

  2. Hi Joe,

    I am so very new to doing all this pool maintenance. I am still confused as to what to do with the other end of the vacuum hose. Please note that i only have an old hose that i need to find attachments to that you have mentioned. Do i connect that other end into the skimmer? I do not have a main drain and one skimmer. Thanks

    • Hi Kathy,

      An over powered pump ( too big ) with a combination of bad or weak brushes on the vacuum head will cause this,

      Shut down the pump and then you will be able to move the vacuum, check your brushes on the bottom of the vacuum head.

      Please let me know if you need any more questions or need additional help.

      Joseph

  3. vacum head is new-pool not too dirty-minor algea. Suction is so high that vacum hose is kinking as well. I’m really puzzled. Can you help?

  4. Joseph,

    I just recently bought a house with an inground pool. I of course, did not get any training on how to maintain the pool. Some things I have figured out and your directions are very clear. I just have one question, I have a Hayward SP714 sand filter, what setting do I have the filter on when I am vacumming the pool?

  5. I HAVE THREE VALVES GOING INTO PUMP AND I AM ASSUMING ONE IS FOR SKIMMER AND OTHER
    TWO ARE FOR MAIN DRAINS. IF I CONNECT VACUUM INTO SKIMMER SHOULD ANY OF THE VALVES
    BE CLOSED TO ALLOW FOR SUCTION FROM SKIMMER? ALSO, HOW DO I KNOW WHICH VALVE TURNS
    OFF DRAIN SUCTION AND WHICH TURNS OFF SKIMMER SUCTION.

    • Hi,

      Yes, that is correct.

      What I would do, is close two of the valves and then leave just one open and walk to each skimmer and see which one shut off, if they are both working then that valve is the main drain, Then I would mark that valve and then repeat the process to identify the remaining valves.

      Let me know if you need more help or have any other questions,

      Joseph

  6. Hi

    I have vacuuming problems.

    I have just installed a 1.1kw pool pump so therefore I know it is not the pump. After i have backwashed the filter and start vacumming the kreepy krawly works for about ten minutes and stops due to the pressure from the outflow pipe that seems to drop as well.( Hope you undersatnd what i’m trying to say)BUT when I change the filter to “BYPASS” the kreeply works very well, but obviously the dirt is going staight back into the pool. Do I have to change the sand in the filter and why does the pressure slow down when the kreeply is been used.? Please help as Im so tired of backwashing the pool to gbet the pressure back up in order for my kreepy tp work.
    Thanks

    Peter

  7. I have an easy set Intek above ground pool and I bought a vacuum and I am unsure how to use it. I do have a pump that pumps 2000 gph from my pool through a filter and back into the pool. Am I supposed to hook my vacuum hose up to this pump?

  8. I have watched YouTube videos and read how to’s from numerous websites and I must agree these are the best instructions I have come across. Thank you and God bless!

  9. Joseph,
    I have an issue. We just bought the house and it is a pretty big pool. I have a spa connected with a rock structure with 3 waterfalls and a spillover on the spa. I see a pool return line, spa return line, I have 2 skimmer lines, a cleanout line, and a line to make the water come out of the waterfall. My problem is that I cant get any decent suction out of my skimmer. I get some out of the closest one to the pool, but NONE out of the far east side of the pool. I have a seperate vacuum line between the 2 skimmer ports in the wall (with a flap) that has ZERO suction. sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. I have the pool return closed, the spa return to full open position, both skimmers closed or so I believe, and the cleanout line closed. Now I have opened the skimmers and still am getting what I described above. I have made sure the vacuum line is primed, all skimmers are cleaned out, and I’m frustrated. I just want the vacuum and skimmers to work. I have an mx800 vacuum head. Can you help me??? Thank you so much for your time….

  10. I bought a house with an above ground pool. My last pool only had 1 tube out of the bottom of the skimmer. This one has that plus a cutoff valve to the side with a rear hose and one below. Not sure how to hook this up.

  11. I have just bought a hose and vacuum head and cannot get any suction. The hose does not have a swivel on either end, both ends are the same, could this be the problem? If so, do you know if I can buy a swivel end attachment? This is all new to me.

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