Clogged pipe?

Hi all,
Here's my problem: For the first time, I decided to clean my pool cartridges myself this season, because it costs $50 for the pool guy to do it, so I decided to do it myself and save a few bucks. It's a standard Hayward filter, with four cartridges. I took thev lid off, took the bracket off, took the filters out, cleaned them, put them back in, put the bracket back on, and tightened the bracket up good and snug. When I went to turn the pool pump on, I got no to minimal suction. Naturally, I thought I'd done something wrong, so took the filter lid off again, put it back on, etc. No change. Still no suction to clean the pool at the skimmer. Called the pool guy. Told him this story. He said he thought there was a clog somewhere. He used his c02 to blow it out at the intermediate filter leaf catcher. Nothing. Then used his co2 to blow it out at the skimmer. Still nothing. I kept asking him why this has happened simply because I cleaned the cartridges. He didn't know, he kept saying somehow or other, something must have been washed into a pipe or gotten clogged. He never took the filter lid off to check the filters or check to make sure there wasn't anything wrong inside the canister, because he said in his opinion, it wasn't a filter problem, it was a clog problem. He gave up. He didn't charge me anything. All he could do was give me the name of a contractor who could come out and maybe unclog it with his equipment and if not, might have to dig up the concrete pad or go underneath the soil to hunt for this clog or whatever. This he told me would or could be very expensive. All of this happened because I cleaned my own filter cartridges? Sheesh. Prior to cleaning, the pool was running fine, I had a bit of diminished suction at the skimmer for vacuuming, but that was to be expected because the filters were super clogged. I have a huge pine tree over my pool that dumps a mega ton of debris into it, and thus the filters are always badly clogged. They hadn't been cleaned since he did it last year. My whole goal in doing it myself was to be able to do it more often, keep things running a bit more smoothly, and save myself money in cartridge cleaning. And now this. Any suggestions? He said the only other thing I could do to test the system was remove the filters, put the lid on, and see if I still had the same problem as a test theory to see if the filter cartridges themselves were bad, but he said he seriously didn't think it had anything to do with the filter at all......even though that's the only thing about this scenario that is different, that this year I did the filters myself. And now a big clog? He said it could be a rock or could be anything in the line, but he didn't know how or why whatever I did could have created the clog. Before calling the contractor who charges $75 just to come out and look, any suggestions? Thanks!

FIRST - did you close any valves when you cleaned the filter? If you did, double check to make sure you opened them back up. I'm not familiar with that filter, but I'd try opening the air bleed, then turn the pump on and see if your pump will prime. Another thing you can try is opening the strainer basket at the filter, then run a garden hose as far back toward the skimmer as you can. While you hold the hose in place, have some one turn it on and SLOWLY increase to full blast. If there's a clog and they turn it on all at once, you might get wet. You can also try putting the hose in the return so it feeds back to the filter.

This is an update to the above thread. For anyone answering, please re-read my initial post (about me changing the filters, etc.). A couple of days after the pool guy was out and unable to unclog the blockage, I somehow managed to do it myself by sort of switching the valves for the spa and pool back and forth and somewhere in there it unblocked and I had once again had full flow through the system and full (powerful) suction at the skimmer so that I was able to vacuum the pool. So far, so good. Or so I thought. I kept having to add water to the pool, although the temps out here were still fairly cool. I didn't think much about it actually. Then the very warm weather hit in this area of the country and I thought it was just evaporation. I began to notice that when I turned the pump off, the spa water dropped. I fiddled with the valves again, thinking maybe I still didn't have the flow set right between the spa and pool. Nothing seemed to help. I then turned the pump off to watch and see what happened for a day or two. The level in the spa really started to drop and it became obvious I was losing water. It seemed to be the spa water going down and not the pool, so at this point, I'm somewhat presuming I'm losing spa water into the pool. I did some research and various sites say it is a "check valve" problem. I have no idea what a check valve is. I don't even think I have one. I have a Jandy "never lube" valve for the switching between pool and spa and an Ortega valve to regulate the flow into the spa. Could one of these valves be causing the problem? The biggest mystery is why all this happened simply because I cleaned the cartridge filters. It was precisely at that point that all the trouble started with the "clog" and so forth. Is there still potentially a partial clog somewhere that's causing the water to lower in the spa? I would find it hard to believe that I have a more serious "leak" in a pipe under the ground, because I never had a leak before simply changing and cleaning the filters. It seems too much of a coincidence that the problems started at that point. So, I feel there's still some connection between these two events.

At this point, I'm leaving the pump off for a couple of days to see how low the spa water goes down, or if it levels out and stops. But clearly, the spa water is going somewhere, most likely into the pool although it's hard to tell. I haven't done a specific level test of the pool to see if it also is losing water, although visually it doesn't look to be. I would hate to be conned into being told I had a major leak somewhere in the system when it's just a valve. The only other thing I was told was the the manifold in my filter had a slight crack in it from the weight of the filters when they get so clogged with pine needles which fall by the bushels into my pool. However, even at the time I was told this, my pool guy said it wasn't a huge deal and he said it could wait to be fixed (this was way last year). So, I don't know of this manifold crack is playing any role in water loss. If anyone has further ideas. please share! This has me at my wits end! All I did was clean my filters and put them back in and it set off this array of problems! Thanks for your help!