Changing Sand in Filter and Random Filter Question

We recently moved into a new house with an above-ground pool that i've been working on for two-weeks now. I started with the pool store, the analyzing, the $$$$, with no luck. Found you guys and a super-patient gentleman from here who has been tutoring me patiently by email all week and I now have a clean, chemically balanced pool! Woohoo!

However, it's staying cloudy and I'm guessing it's the sand. I believe the previous owner put kiddie sand in the filter since there was a bag of it near there and she doesn't have kids. Maybe an extra bag or something. So I'm going to try to change it out tonight. I have a Pentair Tagelus SD-40 19in Sand Dollar sand filter, Hayward pump and 13,000 above-ground pool. Hubby is bringing home a shop-vac from his work. How do we get the water out of it to get to the sand, then I assume we vacuum out the sand and add new sand I'll be purchasing from the pool store (how much?) Then how do we get water back in it and the thing to work?

That leads me to my other question. We've tried to change the broken gauge on it, but each time we have issues getting the pump to hold a prime. We bleed out the air, take out the gauge, screw in the other with teflon tape, switch it to close, run it, turn it to filter, then BLAH. Stops going like it has air. One thing I've noticed when backwashing or doing anything with it is that if the little cage thing in the skimmer that catches junk floats up and you turn the pump on, it loses it's prime. Is that only weird to me? What does pushing it down THEN turning it on have to do with it?

Thanks in advance, I know that's a lot!

Pam

i'll kick in on the sand filter as i just did mine:

-drain the water (should be a water drain..go into a small bucket or hose if you like with a funnel, etc.

-use the wet vac to carefully take out the sand. you can break the pipes that come off the main pipe that you'll see inside if you are too aggressive. i found it most effective to avoid too much glogging of the vac hose to skim it on the sand surface rather than digging as it were..the sand will be wet!

-clean it all out, inspect the pipe in the middle and pipes coming off it for any damage (cracks, etc). if it's all good, rinse the tank of any remaining sand if you like.

when putting sand back in:

-fill the tank 1/3 full of water so it gently settles on those pipes inside and doesn't damage them.

-cover the main pipe so no sand gets into it when you fill. i just used pieces of black electricians tape and removed after i was done.

-put your sand slowly into the filter. your filter guide will tell you for sure and it may be on the pump..but my 21 inch takes 200 lb of sand or 100 lb or zeobrite (half the weight, same volume, better filtration capability as it's finer than silica sand) i would guess a 19 inch filter is 150 lb.

You mention that you "switch it to close" and then "run it"..I may be wrong but you should never run your filter with the multiport vavle in the "closed" position, it basically shuts all of the water flow off to the return(s) and this could be what's blowing your gauges up too. Switch it to anything but "closed" when you start the pump up ie...filter, backwash, waste, rinse.

Running it in the closed position puts a lot of unwanted pressure on your system.

Good Luck

Welcome to the forum!!

Thank you guys for the replies! I will give it a shot tonight.

Pam