Jets return dirty water when I vaccum

Hi all,

I have a Hayward cartridge filter on my 20k inground pool. The pump and filter seem to be working well for the most part, and we have good pressure coming out of the return jets. The lid on the filter has a pressure gauge, but it has not worked since we bought the house five years ago. The filter and pump are roughly 15-17 years old, based on the information we got from the previous owner.

I noticed this last year, and it has continued this year, but whenever I vaccum the pool, I get dirty water coming out of the return jets. This only happens when I am vaccuming. It seems as if the filter isn't even picking up what I am vaccuming. It's frustrating, because it just seems to make the pool a cloudy mess. On top of that we have been dealing with a bit of algae, so that just complicates the matter.

When we got a new vinyl liner two years ago, the installer said that our pump and filter were really meant to be used on a spa. I wasn't sure if he was just saying that to sell us something else, but it does look pretty small compared to other filtration systems I have seen.

I haven't seen anything on the filter that would indicate I am just bypassing the filter and vaccuming right back into the pool, but I will check that again. The only significant thing I see is a small drain at the bottom of the housing, to let out the excess water and the end of the season. I am wondering if it might be best to bite the bullet and look into a new filter system? I just want to be able to vaccum and not recirculate dirty water!