Soot!

[Powegian]

Hi,
Our house survived the San Diego wildfires thanks to the Herculean efforts of our Firefighters. They did an amazing job saving our neighborhood. I am now faced with an incredible amount of soot on the top, sides and bottom of my pool. I have not run my pump yet out of fear of destroying the filter. Does someone know how I should start this massive cleanup? Thanks in advance.
Warren

[Poconos]

Hi Warren,
Congrats on surviving that disaster. Guess it isn't over yet. What type of filter? I'm making educated comments as I have no specific knowledge. If it's sand there should be no problem. My guess is that the soot is not oily so anything that gets trapped in the filter should wash out on backwash. I'm also assuming you don't want to vacuum to waste as that wastes a lot of water. The soot particles may be too fine to be trapped in the sand so you may try the DE trick of adding a little DE powder to improve the trapping of smaller particles. Again, depends on the type of filter. Maybe someone else has some ideas.
Al

[Powegian]

Thanks for replying, Al. I have a DE filter, sorry I'm still a little dazed.
Warren

[JJParrish]

Congratulations on surviving the fire. You may get more help from TroubleFreePool.com because the board is more active and has a lot of CA folks in it, too. Good luck.

[Powegian]

Thanks, JJ
Found exactly what I needed on the GardenWeb.