Oh, what wonderful fun! Go fetch – Splash – And again! 

But dog hair in pool floating on top of the water – few people are not disgusted. Even those loving their dogs to bits have a hard time with this one.

Does dog hair ruin pool filter ?

YES, it does.

It’s not just an unpleasant sight. It easily and quickly clogs pool filters.

You probably didn’t know another side-effect. All dogs naturally produce oil in their glands. They instinctively disperse the oil all over their fur.

Once in the pool, a portion of the dog’s skin oil dissolves and enters the pool’s filter. There it forms a waterproof layer.

 

How to keep dog hair out of pool filter

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The pool filter will drastically lose its functionality. Even worse, it will collect particles that would otherwise harmlessly float more rapidly.

Rinsing dog hair out of a cartridge filter takes a long time. More care and maintenance is required and, seeing that you are reading this you probably wonder whether there are any solutions.

Are you searching for something that is easy to implement and not expensive?

 

Understanding the dog hair in pool problem

By the way, have you ever imagined (maybe secretly wished for?) having not just one but five Golden Retrievers?

Watch the video below to get an idea of what that would mean for your pool.

“The outlet grid gets covered in dog hair. It needs to be cleared every 6 to 8 hours for a couple of days after you let the dogs swim in the pool.”

The video shows how fluff drifts to the drain where it can be plucked off.

However, not all of the stuff moves straight to the outlet or gathers in the skimmer basket. A large amount will sink to the bottom of the pool after your Golden Retriever or Labrador was in the water.

It will also be blown in from the deck and surroundings of the swimming pool.

The short story is, eventually, the dog hair will find its way to the pool filter.

Not good.

If you leave everything as is you will either need to spray the cartridge filter or backwash the sand filter more often.

But, if you are like me, you would rather reduce the number of times they have to clean the pool filter NOT do more of it.

Here are a few steps to cut down the number of times you have to clean those.

 

 

How to get dog hair out of pool

 

1. Use a de-shedding tool like the Furminator

 

Tackle the problem right where it originates. If you haven’t used a

 

before you’ll be amazed how much you will brush out.

Every single hair you catch there could otherwise end up in your pool filter (or in the house, on carpets, furniture or the car for that matter). Don’t be surprised if your dog looks like she has been on a diet :).

You could reduce the amount of hair the dog loses randomly everywhere including in the pool by up to 90%!

And spending enjoyable time together.

 

 

2. Keep the dog out of the pool!

 

Obvious, yet highly controversial, I know. Ask your friends and you probably find just as many in favor as against a pooch in the pool. If you are still making up your mind you might want to go and read more about it here.

For now, in the interest of a clean pool and no dog hair in pool – this is the best solution.

But if that decision has already been made let’s look at options to save your pool filter.

 

 

3. Check the skimmer and pump basket more frequently.

 

However, this is only a first-aid type of measure.  Most skimmers and pump baskets are not fine enough to retain all dog hair. Which means you need to take…

 

 

4. Extra measures to stop dog hair from reaching the pool filter

 

As we said before, the best way to save your pool pump from clogging up and yourself from overly frequent maintenance work (backwashing) is to prevent dog hair from making it into the pool filter in the first place.

How?

 

 

1. Skimmer socks

 

 

Place a finer mesh over the skimmer basket. Skimmer socks are available commercially and do a very good job of keeping debris out of the pump filter. However, such a sock costs at least $1 and most socks deteriorate and tear easily in chlorinated water.  

It might be a good solution, though, if you don’t own dogs and only have the occasional visitor with a dog.

 

Beware that this only works as long as the pump is switched on. As soon as the pressure is off clumps of hair will float back out and sink to the bottom and be sucked into the filter that way.

So you need to scoop everything out before switching off the pump – or have a pool cleaner working independently on the bottom of your pool.

 

 

2. Hairnet, knee-high stocking or pantyhose

 

Yep, that’s right. One of the best, cheap and cheerful solutions to the dog hair problem is a hairnet or similar nylon mesh over the main drains and the skimmer basket. In principle the same as a skimmer sock – only much, much cheaper. 

You can get hairnets in for a low price and pantyhose doesn’t need to cost an arm and a leg either.

 

“Just roll up the knee-high, stretch it over the mouth of the skimmer basket…Place it back into the return – easy peasy!”

 

 

3. Use a pool cleaner or pool robot

 

Use an automatic pool cleaner to vacuum the pool for you, picking up every bit of debris including dog hair and saving your main pool filter.

The Aquabot Turbo T-Jet even filters particles as small as 2 microns.

That’s even better than a DE filter!

You’ll be amazed at the water quality and could have a sparkling clean swimming pool regardless of what your dog or plants and trees throw at it. 

 

Dogs and Swimming Pools …Read more Here