The only time you want to feel sand under your feet when you’re in the water is when you’re wading to or from a beautiful beach. And at least then you know why it’s there. Nature.

But what happens when you have sand in your pool? How do you get it out? And how do you stop it from happening again? Don’t worry. There’s no reason to panic.

Finding sand in your pool means one or more parts of your sand filter have broken, and the filter is no longer working properly.

Inside sand filters, there’s a standpipe that runs down the centre of the sand. At the top, the pipe is connected to the multiport valve. At the bottom, it’s connected to laterals. The pipe is made of strong and rigid plastic. It can still crack though, which will mean sand in your pool.

If one or more of the laterals cracks, sand will pass through, and join clean water on its way into your pool.

You may never find out how the crack happened. Maybe the filter moved, which moved the standpipe, and under the weight of the sand, cracked the laterals. Or maybe your filter is old, and the parts simply wore out.

Fixing it is easy. Just follow the same process you use when you change the filter sand – only add one step. Replace the broken pieces inside your filter before you add the new sand.

It’s more common for laterals to crack than the standpipe, but it’s a good idea to keep both parts on hand so you’re ready for this kind of repair if it happens again.