Instructions for Making Your Own Hand Held Swimming Pool Vacuum!
I found that it was difficult to keep up with my kids bringing in sand into our above ground pool. The siphon-suction vacuum provided with the pool worked, but not all that good. And with a month of kids, sand really started to build up, especially under the flaps at the seams - sound familiar? I called pool supply stores, but all they could offer me was another siphon vacuum similar to what I had. Then I remember that when taking down the pool last fall, I found that I could use the discharge hose to vacuum up sand off the bottom and near the seams - and it worked really well! So after a heavy rain filled up our pool and I was going to drain some water off I thought why not try to use a discharge hose as a vacuum. It worked incredibly well! Here is all you have to do:
- Find an old 25' garden hose that you can use for this purpose. It can even be cut off on one end, but it should not leak.
- Tape an old vacuum cleaner upholstery attachment to one end of the hose. (See below)
- Attach the hose to a long pole. I attached mine to the skimmer pole, but any pole will do. Make sure there are no sharp points on the pole, hose, or vacuum attachment that could damage the pool floor.
- Immerse the entire hose and pole in the pool. Then take the discharge end out and start the water flowing. (The alternative method is to suck on the end of the hose to get the water flowing, but you can get a mouthful of pool water!) Once the water starts, the siphon effect will keep it flowing unless you lift the vacuum end out of the water. So keep the vacuum end immersed at least part way. The suction effect will vacuum up sand and it will be discharged out the end of your hose onto your lawn or wherever your hose discharges.
See photos below and notes:
Vacuum attachment taped onto hose and hose attached to pole. |
Use like an ordinary vacuum cleaner! It picks up the sand great! |
The water draining out the hose provides a lot of suction! |
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